Ortho­doxy

1 Ortho­dox Christianity

1.1 What Does “Ortho­dox” Mean?

The word Ortho­dox is derived from two Greek words: orthos, mean­ing “right, cor­rect or true” and doxa, mean­ing “glory, hon­or, praise, wor­ship”. It is gen­er­ally used in the sense of “right wor­ship”, but also means the “right teach­ing or doc­trine”. That is because both these things are very closely con­nec­ted. The term “ortho­dox” was used to show the dif­fer­ence between the right teach­ing of the early Chris­ti­an Church insti­tuted by the Apostles of Jesus Christ, and the heretic­al, or het­ero­dox, new teach­ings intro­duced in later centuries.

Today, an aston­ish­ing num­ber of reli­gious groups, organ­iz­a­tions and churches claim to be the suc­cessors of the early Church. But which church is the true suc­cessor? To answer this ques­tion, we need to com­pare what the Church ori­gin­ally believed and prac­tised with what these groups and organ­iz­a­tions proclaim.

Accord­ing to Symeon the New Theo­lo­gian (949‑1022), the ortho­dox per­son “is not the one who intro­duces new dog­mas into the Church of God, but the one who pos­sesses a life in accord­ance with the true faith”.

There is a liv­ing con­nec­tion between the true faith and the right way of life. As Met­ro­pol­it­an Phil­aret of Moscow said,

The Creed does not belong to you unless you have lived it.

Oth­ers agree:

For per­fec­tion of life the imit­a­tion of Christ is neces­sary. (Basil the Great +379, On the Spir­it, Chapter XV)

Theo­logy without action (prax­is) is the theo­logy of demons. (Max­imus the Con­fess­or, +662)

1.2 What Does “Chris­ti­an” Mean?

The word Chris­ti­an comes from the Greek chris­ti­anos. This is what the dis­ciples were called in the begin­ning (Acts 11:26), because they were the fol­low­ers of Christ and they lived accord­ing to his commandments.

If you keep my com­mand­ments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father­’s com­mand­ments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my com­mand­ment, that you love one anoth­er as I have loved you. Great­er love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I com­mand you. (John 15:10–14)

Nowadays it is gen­er­ally accep­ted in the so-called “Ortho­dox coun­tries” that almost every­one con­siders him­self to be a Chris­ti­an; only very few reject this title. For instance, in Rus­sia the major­ity of people are mem­bers of the “Ortho­dox Church”. In Bul­garia and Romania most of the inhab­it­ants con­sider them­selves to be Ortho­dox and only a few declare them­selves offi­cially to be non-Christians. Are all of them really Chris­ti­ans? How would they have been regarded by the apostles, who always emphas­ized that if some­body claimed to be a fol­low­er of Christ he had to live accord­ing to His example?

If we say we have fel­low­ship with him while we walk in dark­ness, we lie and do not prac­tise the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fel­low­ship with one anoth­er, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:6–7)

Who­ever says “I know him” but does not keep his com­mand­ments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but who­ever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is per­fec­ted. By this we may know that we are in him: who­ever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:4–6)

Con­trary to Jesus’ teach­ing, the insti­tu­tion­al­ized “Ortho­dox Church” accepts as its mem­bers people of whom they know very well that they very sel­dom attend the liturgy, who lead a worldly life and do not deal with spir­itu­al things. Its offi­cial teach­ing is that Christ lives in these people because they have been bap­tized. But Jesus said:

And who­ever does not take his cross and fol­low me is not worthy of me. Who­ever finds his life will lose it, and who­ever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Mat­thew 10:38–39)

Jesus answered him, “If any­one loves me, he will keep my word, and my Fath­er will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)

Justin Mar­tyr wrote:

Those who are found not liv­ing as he taught should know that they are not really Chris­ti­ans, even if his teach­ings are on their lips, for he said that not those who merely pro­fess but those who also do the works will be saved (cf. Mat­thew 13:42, 43; 7:15,16,19). (The First Apo­logy of Justin, ch. 16)

1.3 How Does Someone Become a Christian?

1.3.1 Are You a Chris­ti­an Because You Have Been Baptized?

Let us read how Basil the Great under­stood baptism:

Bap­tism sym­bol­ic­ally sig­ni­fies the put­ting off of the works of the flesh; as the apostle says, you were cir­cum­cised with the cir­cum­cision made without hands, in put­ting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the cir­cum­cision of Christ; bur­ied with him in bap­tism. Bap­tism is not the put­ting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good con­science towards God. So in train­ing us for the life that fol­lows on the resur­rec­tion the Lord sets out all the man­ner of life required by the Gos­pel, lay­ing down for us the law of gen­tle­ness, of endur­ance of wrong, of free­dom from the defile­ment that comes of the love of pleas­ure, and from cov­et­ous­ness, to the end that we may of set pur­pose win before­hand and achieve all that the life to come of its inher­ent nature pos­sesses. (On the Spir­it, Chapter XV)

For as we believe in the Fath­er and the Son and the Holy Spir­it, so are we also bap­tized in the name of the Fath­er and of the Son and of the Holy Spir­it; first comes the con­fes­sion, intro­du­cing us to sal­va­tion, and bap­tism fol­lows, set­ting the seal upon our assent. (Chapter XII)

The whole Bible speaks of a per­son­al faith. A per­son can only be saved through his own faith. Bap­tism has its role and import­ance in Chris­tian­ity. Nev­er­the­less, the Bible points out clearly that bap­tism is of value only when it is accom­pan­ied by faith. This faith is mani­fes­ted through sub­mis­sion to God’s words.

But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the king­dom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were bap­tized, both men and women. Even Simon him­self believed, and after being bap­tized he con­tin­ued with Philip. And see­ing signs and great mir­acles per­formed, he was amazed. Now when the apostles at Jer­u­s­alem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John…. (Acts 8:12–14)

So those who received his word were bap­tized, and there were added that day about three thou­sand souls. (Acts 2:41)

So it is absurd to think that chil­dren will be saved through the evid­ence giv­en by their god­fath­er at their bap­tism. Moreover, in real­ity, in most cases the god­fath­er does not lead a Chris­ti­an life. How can he then guar­an­tee that he will guide the child spir­itu­ally? How can he give testi­mony for the child’s faith when his own faith is dead?

Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. (Mat­thew 15:14)

1.3.2 Are You a Chris­ti­an Because You Are a Good Per­son and You Try to Keep the Ten Com­mand­ments and You Do Not Harm Others?

Anoth­er pop­u­lar idea is that you are Chris­ti­an if you are a good per­son and try to keep the Ten Com­mand­ments, without harm­ing any­body else.

To gain the right under­stand­ing we have to con­sider Jesus’ words:

A new com­mand­ment I give to you, that you love one anoth­er: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one anoth­er. By this all people will know that you are my dis­ciples, if you have love for one anoth­er. (John 13:34–35)

At the same time, it is a new com­mand­ment that I am writ­ing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the dark­ness is passing away and the true light is already shin­ing. Who­ever says he is in the light and hates his broth­er is still in dark­ness. Who­ever loves his broth­er abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stum­bling. But who­ever hates his broth­er is in the dark­ness and walks in the dark­ness, and does not know where he is going, because the dark­ness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:8–11)

To be a Chris­ti­an it is not suf­fi­cient to avoid doing evil. Jesus showed us what it means to love act­ively and to devote ourselves to others.

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the broth­ers. Who­ever does not love abides in death. Every­one who hates his broth­er is a mur­der­er, and you know that no mur­der­er has etern­al life abid­ing in him. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the broth­ers. But if any­one has the world’s goods and sees his broth­er in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little chil­dren, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3:14–18)

We are not liv­ing in the Old Test­a­ment era any more. Through Jesus we have entered into a new spir­itu­al era in which much more is required of us because the rev­el­a­tion we have received is great­er. Keep­ing the Ten Com­mand­ments was a cent­ral require­ment of the Law. Nev­er­the­less, the Old Test­a­ment itself shows that real obed­i­ence goes bey­ond merely keep­ing the Ten Com­mand­ments (Deutoro­nomy 6:5, Levit­i­c­us 19:17–18, Romans 13:10–12, Mark 12:28–34). How much more, then, does the New Test­a­ment require of us! There­fore, keep­ing the Ten Com­mand­ments is not enough—rather through the Holy Spir­it we can grow in the know­ledge and prac­tice of what is good. The stand­ard set by Jesus goes bey­ond evil and requires us to con­siously pur­sue what is good.

So who­ever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:17)

Many pass­ive mem­bers of the “Ortho­dox Church” set them­selves dif­fer­ent stand­ards to live by accord­ing to their own desires; these stand­ards are in turn accep­ted by the church. What Jesus revealed is that the aim of a Chris­ti­an is not to attain to a min­im­um level of Chris­tian­ity in his life, but to strive for holiness.

Those who pro­fess to be Christ’s will be recog­nized by their actions. For what mat­ters is not a moment­ary act of pro­fess­ing, but being per­sist­ently motiv­ated by faith. (The Let­ter of Igna­tius to the Eph­esians, ch. 14:2)

1.3.3 Many People Are Eager to Per­form Form­al Reli­gious Activ­it­ies, but Is That What Being a Chris­ti­an Really Means?

Form­al reli­gious activ­it­ies can ease a per­son’s con­science: going to church, say­ing learned pray­ers, light­ing candles, mak­ing the sign of the cross, ven­er­at­ing icons. These prac­tices are per­fomed by some people out of habit and by oth­ers out of con­vic­tion. Is this the way Jesus showed us to express our love for God and for oth­er people? The Church which Paul describes in his let­ters is far from being a build­ing where people come and go without say­ing a word to the others.

What then, broth­ers? When you come togeth­er, each one has a hymn, a les­son, a rev­el­a­tion, a tongue, or an inter­pret­a­tion. Let all things be done for build­ing up. (1 Cor­inthi­ans 14:26)

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, com­pas­sion­ate hearts, kind­ness, humil­ity, meek­ness, and patience, bear­ing with one anoth­er and, if one has a com­plaint against anoth­er, for­giv­ing each oth­er; as the Lord has for­giv­en you, so you also must for­give. And above all these put on love, which binds everything togeth­er in per­fect har­mony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thank­ful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach­ing and admon­ish­ing one anoth­er in all wis­dom, singing psalms and hymns and spir­itu­al songs, with thank­ful­ness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giv­ing thanks to God the Fath­er through him. (Colos­si­ans 3:12–17)

Seek­ing the spir­itu­al edi­fic­a­tion of oth­ers is the wor­ship desired by God and the ful­fill­ment of Jesus’ commandment.

1.3.4 Is Faith Alone Enough?

James says:

What good is it, my broth­ers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a broth­er or sis­ter is poorly clothed and lack­ing in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, without giv­ing them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shud­der! Do you want to be shown, you fool­ish per­son, that faith apart from works is use­less? Was not Abra­ham our fath­er jus­ti­fied by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was act­ive along with his works, and faith was com­pleted by his works; and the Scrip­ture was ful­filled that says, “Abra­ham believed God, and it was coun­ted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a per­son is jus­ti­fied by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the pros­ti­tute jus­ti­fied by works when she received the mes­sen­gers and sent them out by anoth­er way? For as the body apart from the spir­it is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:14–26)

Clem­ent of Rome wrote in The Let­ter to the Church of Corinth:

And we, therefore…are not jus­ti­fied of ourselves or by our wis­dom or insight or reli­gious devo­tion or the holy deeds we have done from the heart, but by that faith by which almighty God has jus­ti­fied all men from the very begin­ning. (ch. 32:4)
We should clothe ourselves with con­cord, being humble, self-controlled, far removed from all gos­sip­ing and slander­ing, and jus­ti­fied by our deeds, not by words. (ch. 30:3)

Accord­ing to Augustine:

Without love faith can indeed exist, but can be of no avail. (Augustin, De Trin. XV 18, 32) 

Ori­gen wrote:

It is those who not only believe, but also enter upon the life that Jesus taught. (Ori­gen: Against Celsus, Bk. III, ch. XXVIII)

Cyp­ri­an (d. 258) did not con­sider it pos­sible to have faith in Christ without doing what he commanded:

How can a man say that he believes in Christ, if he does not do what Christ com­manded him to do? From where will he attain the reward of faith, if he will not keep the faith of the commandment?…He will make no advance­ment in his walk toward sal­va­tion, for he does not keep the truth of the way of sal­va­tion. (The Treat­ises of Cyp­ri­an, Treat­ise I, ch. II)

…and every proph­et who teacheth the truth, if he do not what he teacheth is a false proph­et. (The Did­ache 11,10, Eng­lish Trans­la­tion by Charles H. Hoole)

2 Ortho­dox Tradition

2.1 Where Can We Find the Ortho­dox Tra­di­tion of the Apostles and Early Church Fathers?

The Church’s claim to Ortho­doxy derives from the con­vic­tion that it has received the faith of the Apostles, as con­tained in the Apostol­ic Tra­di­tion, as inter­preted by the con­sensus of early fath­ers in the coun­cils, and as lived by the true Church through­out the ages, without change or interpolation.

Accord­ing to the Ortho­dox teach­ing the main cri­ter­ia for the right tra­di­tion are:

• It must not con­tain con­tra­dic­tions to the Apostol­ic Tra­di­tion, the Holy Scrip­ture and itself.
• It must have been accep­ted and kept by the apostol­ic churches.
• It must be accep­ted by the major­ity of the early church fath­ers and teachers.

If any tra­di­tion does not ful­fil these cri­ter­ia it can­not be right there­fore it can­not be admit­ted and kept.

Thus, a faith­ful Ortho­dox believ­er must thor­oughly check every teach­ing accord­ing to these prin­ciples and accept only what really belongs to the Apostol­ic tra­di­tion, as the first Chris­ti­ans did:

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thes­salon­ica; they received the word with all eager­ness, examin­ing the Scrip­tures daily to see if these things were so. (Acts 17:11)

We will now address some examples of import­ant teach­ings of the “Ortho­dox Church” which do not adhere to the above men­tioned cri­ter­ia con­cern­ing the right tradition.

2.2 The Ven­er­a­tion of Icons

The ven­er­a­tion of icons lacks any bib­lic­al or ancient Chris­ti­an sup­port before the year 300, which means that someone who defends icon ven­er­a­tion must assume that this prac­tice is based on the simple faith and the unwrit­ten tra­di­tion of the church and espe­cially on the liturgy. In this way the author­ity of their “Holy Tra­di­tion” super­sedes the author­ity of the Bible and con­sti­tutes the basis for the exist­ence of icons. It appears that Church prac­tice is more import­ant for them than what the Bible says. Jesus said:

But the hour is com­ing, and is now here, when the true wor­ship­pers will wor­ship the Fath­er in spir­it and truth, for the Fath­er is seek­ing such people to wor­ship him. God is spir­it, and those who wor­ship him must wor­ship in spir­it and truth. (John 4:23–24)

God is spir­it; that is why Jesus says that we can only truly wor­ship the Fath­er in spir­it and truth. Our wor­ship is very closely related to our prac­tic­al life. God’s nature is holi­ness and right­eous­ness. Sim­il­arly, we ourselves are called to strive to be changed into his like­ness (into the like­ness of his char­ac­ter). This requires whole­hearted devo­tion to God till the end of our lives.

And we all, with unveiled face, behold­ing the glory of the Lord, are being trans­formed into the same image from one degree of glory to anoth­er. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spir­it. (2 Cor­inthi­ans 3:18)

I appeal to you there­fore, broth­ers, by the mer­cies of God, to present your bod­ies as a liv­ing sac­ri­fice, holy and accept­able to God, which is your spir­itu­al wor­ship. Do not be con­formed to this world, but be trans­formed by the renew­al of your mind, that by test­ing you may dis­cern what is the will of God, what is good and accept­able and per­fect. (Romans 12:1–2)

Moreover, the cult of icons is clear evid­ence of hav­ing a false under­stand­ing of God’s nature. Some of the icons depict the Trin­ity as an old man, a young man and a dove. God’s being sur­passes any­thing that is cre­ated. He is Spir­it, there­fore we can­not put him into a form—not even in our mind—since through this we would lim­it him to our human understanding.

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heav­en and the highest heav­en can­not con­tain you; how much less this house that I have built! (1 Kings 8:27)

Among all the icons, Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trin­ity rep­res­ents the cli­max of how far one can go in the wrong dir­ec­tion. Although the icon is kept in the State Tretyakov gal­lery in Moscow rather than in an “Ortho­dox Church”, we find repro­duc­tions of this icon in many places. The painter—a Rus­si­an monk from the fif­teenth cen­tury who is ven­er­ated as a saint by the Rus­si­an “Ortho­dox Church”—wanted to depict the mys­tery of the Holy Trin­ity by illus­trat­ing the nar­rat­ive in Gen­es­is (chapter 18) where three angels vis­it Abra­ham. In the paint­ing there are three men with wings sit­ting around a table.

But there is a great dif­fer­ence between what Abra­ham exper­i­enced from God while speak­ing with the angels, and what Jesus revealed to us in his per­son and through the Holy Spir­it, about God, the Trin­ity. We can­not say that God revealed him­self to Abra­ham as the Trin­ity in the per­sons of the three angels.

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father­’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:18)

The Bible calls Jesus “the image (Greek: eikon) of the invis­ible God, the first­born of all cre­ation” (Colos­si­ans 1:15), because He revealed God. It does not mean that Jesus revealed to us the mater­i­al body of the Fath­er, because there is no such thing. His rev­el­a­tion was a spir­itu­al one, he revealed HIM to us.

It is true, indeed, that the Divine beauty is not adorned with any shape or endow­ment of form, by any beauty of col­our, but is con­tem­plated as excel­lence in unspeak­able bliss. As then paint­ers trans­fer human forms to their pic­tures by the means of cer­tain col­ours, lay­ing on their copy the prop­er and cor­res­pond­ing tints, so that the beauty of the ori­gin­al may be accur­ately trans­ferred to the like­ness, so I would have you under­stand that our Maker also, paint­ing the por­trait to resemble His own beauty, by the addi­tion of vir­tues, as it were with col­ours, shows in us His own sov­er­eignty: and man­i­fold and var­ied are the tints, so to say, by which His true form is por­trayed: not red, or white, or the blend­ing of these, whatever it may be called, nor a touch of black that paints the eye­brow and the eye, and shades, by some com­bin­a­tion, the depres­sions in the fig­ure, and all such arts which the hands of paint­ers con­trive, but instead of these, pur­ity, free­dom from pas­sion, blessed­ness, ali­en­a­tion from all evil, and all those attrib­utes of the like kind which help to form in men the like­ness of God: with such hues as these did the Maker of His own image mark our nature. And if you were to exam­ine the oth­er points also by which the Divine beauty is expressed, you will find that to them too the like­ness in the image which we present is per­fectly pre­served. The God­head is mind and word: for “in the begin­ning was the Word” and the fol­low­ers of Paul “have the mind of Christ” which “speaks” in them: human­ity too is not far removed from these: you see in your­self word and under­stand­ing, an imit­a­tion of the very Mind and Word. Again, God is love, and the fount of love: for this the great John declares, that “love is of God,” and “God is love”: the Fash­ion­er of our nature has made this to be our fea­ture too: for “hereby,” He says, “shall all men know that ye are my dis­ciples, if ye love one anoth­er”: ‑thus, if this be absent, the whole stamp of the like­ness is trans­formed. (Gregory of Nazi­ans, On the Mak­ing of Man, ch.V, 1–2)

Jesus said to Thomas:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Fath­er except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Fath­er also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Fath­er, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Who­ever has seen me has seen the Fath­er. How can you say, ‘Show us the Fath­er’? Do you not believe that I am in the Fath­er and the Fath­er is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own author­ity, but the Fath­er who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Fath­er and the Fath­er is in me, or else believe on account of the works them­selves.” (John 14:6–11)

Is there a con­tra­dic­tion between these pas­sages? On the one hand, no one can see the Fath­er, while on the oth­er hand, Jesus showed us the Fath­er. He must, then, be refer­ring to a dif­fer­ent kind of see­ing. The pas­sages point to the fact that believ­ers can see God, through faith, in a spir­itu­al way. This see­ing was medi­ated by Jesus who reflec­ted the Father­’s nature by reveal­ing his love. He did not mean that through his phys­ic­al form we can see the Fath­er, but his words and his whole life were in accord­ance with the Father­’s will; Jesus’ devo­tion reflec­ted God’s uncon­di­tion­al love for people. Chris­ti­ans “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor­inthi­ans 5:7).

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have nev­er heard? And how are they to hear without someone preach­ing? …So faith comes from hear­ing, and hear­ing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:14,17)

That is why those who fol­lowed Jesus endeav­oured to hand down what they heard from him—and this has been faith­fully pre­served in the New Testament—without ever mak­ing any ref­er­ence to his appearance.

Jesus prom­ised sal­va­tion to those who believe in his words; he did not speak about his face. The Bible strongly emphas­izes faith in con­trast to sight.

Now faith is the assur­ance of things hoped for, the con­vic­tion of things not seen. …By faith we under­stand that the uni­verse was cre­ated by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are vis­ible. (Hebrews 11:1,3)

Jesus said to Thomas:

Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. (John 20:29)

The con­di­tion of being saved which Jesus spoke of points out what real faith in God means—that is listen­ing to his words and put­ting them into practice.

Truly, truly, I say to you, who­ever hears my word and believes him who sent me has etern­al life. He does not come into judge­ment, but has passed from death to life. (John 5:24)

Many Ortho­dox people have icons in their houses, but few of them read and know the Bible, and even few­er prac­tise what is writ­ten in it.

No one has ever seen God; if we love one anoth­er, God abides in us and his love is per­fec­ted in us. (1 John 4:12)

Now the Lord is the Spir­it, and where the Spir­it of the Lord is, there is free­dom. And we all, with unveiled face, behold­ing the glory of the Lord, are being trans­formed into the same image from one degree of glory to anoth­er. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spir­it. (2 Cor­inthi­ans 3:17–18)

2.3 Ven­er­a­tion of Mary

Sim­il­arly to the ven­er­a­tion of icons, the ven­er­a­tion of Mary and of the saints stand at the centre of “Ortho­dox Church” prac­tice and rep­res­ent one of the cent­ral issues in sal­va­tion, des­pite the fact that the his­tor­ic­al evid­ence from the first four cen­tur­ies remains silent on this mat­ter. There is no writ­ten record of pray­ers being addressed to Mary, nor any men­tion of her pro­tect­ive power or that Chris­ti­ans sought her help. Her role is rather seen with­in the over­all plan of God’s sal­va­tion. Out­side of the gos­pels Mary is only men­tioned once by Paul in Gala­tians 4:4—and the atten­tion giv­en to her by early apostol­ic writers was similar.

But when the full­ness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adop­tion as sons. (Gala­tians 4:4–5)

In God’s plan of sal­va­tion emphas­is is not placed on the means by which God incarn­ated, but rather what this means for mankind.

For more details on this sub­ject see our art­icle about Mary.

The Ortho­dox tra­di­tion traces icons of Mary back to Luke, who is con­sidered to be the first per­son to paint an icon of Mary. This, they claim, gives Mari­an icon­o­graphy its apostol­ic author­ity. How­ever, there are no examples of icons painted by Luke which have sur­vived and there are no known cop­ies of the Theo­tokos of Vladi­mir older than the tenth cen­tury.^[1] Thus, the idea that the icons of Mary are sup­por­ted by apostol­ic author­ity is discredited.

His­tor­ic­ally, the devel­op­ment of the cult of the icon of Mary coin­cided with the rise of the cult of saints and their icons.

2.4 Ven­er­a­tion of Saints

Although the hier­arch­ic­al pos­i­tion of the saints is per­ceived to be lower than Mary’s, they nev­er­the­less occupy a sig­ni­fic­ant place with­in Ortho­dox theo­logy and wor­ship, par­tic­u­larly in regard to the use of icons. Little atten­tion was giv­en to the saints in the first cen­tur­ies of Chris­tian­ity. Des­pite this fact, the saints play a sig­ni­fic­ant role in Ortho­dox wor­ship today. Their dog­mat­ic and eccle­si­ast­ic­al value was affirmed by the Coun­cil of Nicaea (787) which declared their role as inter­cessors next to Mary.

Who­ever does not con­fess that all the saints who pleased God, those before the law as well as those under grace, are worthy to be praised; who­ever does not pray to the saints as to those who want to medi­ate for people accord­ing to the tra­di­tion of the church should be ana­them­at­ized. (VIIth Ecu­men­ic­al Council—Nicaea 787)

Was this really the tra­di­tion of the apostles and of the Church in the first cen­tur­ies? Who are the saints to whom Paul addressed his let­ters? For instance in Phil­ip­pi­ans 1:1 he writes:

Paul and Timothy, ser­vants of Christ Jesus, TO ALL THE SAINTS in Christ Jesus who are at Phil­ippi, with the over­seers and deacons….

and there are many oth­er sim­il­ar pas­sages such as 1 Cor­inthi­ans 1:2, Romans 1:7 and others.

The answer is obvi­ous; they are Chris­ti­ans who are con­tem­por­ar­ies of Paul. As a mat­ter of fact, sanc­ti­fic­a­tion (or being holy) is a con­di­tion for being called a Christian.

As obed­i­ent chil­dren, do not be con­formed to the pas­sions of your former ignor­ance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con­duct, since it is writ­ten, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14–16)

Yes, it is true that there are Chris­ti­ans who are more obed­i­ent, but this does not entitle them to be ven­er­ated by oth­er believ­ers who are less obed­i­ent. And neither the apostles nor angels accep­ted worship—they clearly rejec­ted all such attempts:

When Peter entered, Cor­neli­us met him and fell down at his feet and wor­shipped him. But Peter lif­ted him up, say­ing, “Stand up; I too am a man.” (Acts 10:25–26)

When the people from Lys­tra wanted to wor­ship Paul and Barn­a­bas, they rejec­ted it strictly, saying:

Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a liv­ing God, who made the heav­en and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. (Acts 14:15)

Even the angel rejec­ted John’s worship:

Then I fell down at his feet to wor­ship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fel­low ser­vant with you and your broth­ers who hold to the testi­mony of Jesus. Wor­ship God.” For the testi­mony of Jesus is the spir­it of proph­ecy. (Rev­el­a­tion 19:10)

God alone is to be worshipped!

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is writ­ten, ‘You shall wor­ship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Mat­thew 4:10)

God does not need any oth­er medi­at­ors; Jesus is the only mediator.

For there is one God, and there is one medi­at­or between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

His medi­at­or­ship does not mean that a per­son can­not turn dir­ectly to the Fath­er for help or sal­va­tion, but that he urged people to look for God, he showed them the way to him. It was God’ s plan that man should have a rela­tion­ship with him and that people can turn dir­ectly to him. God is mer­ci­ful towards those who seek him with an open heart and he listens to their pray­ers. He alone is almighty and can inter­vene in a per­son’s life. Fur­ther­more, not even saints can do any­thing after their death for those who are on the earth, as is vis­ible from the par­able of poor Laz­arus and Abraham:

And he said, “Then I beg you, fath­er, to send him to my father­’s house—for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of tor­ment.” But Abra­ham said, “They have Moses and the Proph­ets; let them hear them.” And he said, “No, fath­er Abra­ham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” He said to him, “If they do not hear Moses and the Proph­ets, neither will they be con­vinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:27–31)

In the Old Test­a­ment it was clear for the Jews that no-one, not even their greatest fath­ers, could help them after their death, but God alone:

For you are our Fath­er, though Abra­ham does not know us, and Israel does not acknow­ledge us; you, O Lord, are our Fath­er, our Redeem­er from of old is your name. (Isai­ah 63:16)

3 The Ortho­dox Church

3.1 Which Church Is the Suc­cessor of the Apostol­ic Church?

Which Church fol­lows the tra­di­tions of the Apostles? Many claim to, but who is right? We want to draw a par­al­lel from the time of Jesus. When Jesus came and tried to uncov­er the sin­ful life of the Jews, the Phar­isees wanted to kill him. They were very con­vinced of their truth that they kept the law and held to the right tra­di­tions, because they were Abra­ham’s descendants.

They answered him, “We are off­spring of Abra­ham and have nev­er been enslaved to any­one. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every­one who com­mits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are off­spring of Abra­ham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Fath­er, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
They answered him, “Abra­ham is our fath­er.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abra­ham’s chil­dren, you would be doing the works Abra­ham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abra­ham did. You are doing the works your fath­er did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexu­al immor­al­ity. We have one Father—even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Fath­er, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not under­stand what I say? It is because you can­not bear to hear my word. You are of your fath­er the dev­il, and your will is to do your father­’s desires. He was a mur­der­er from the begin­ning, and has noth­ing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own char­ac­ter, for he is a liar and the fath­er of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you con­victs me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Who­ever is of God hears the words of God. The reas­on why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:33–47)

Sim­il­arly, it is of no value if some­body can show his­tor­ic­al con­tinu­ity without hav­ing con­tinu­ity in the way of life and spir­itu­al content.

The unin­ter­rup­ted apostol­ic suc­ces­sion of the Church is obvi­ously dis­proved by the dif­fer­ences between the Church in the first cen­tury and today’s “Ortho­dox Church”. These dif­fer­ences are evid­ent for any­body who reads the Bible and wants to prac­tise Chris­tian­ity as the apostles and the first Chris­ti­ans did:

So those who received his word were bap­tized, and there were added that day about three thou­sand souls.
And they devoted them­selves to the apostles’ teach­ing and the fel­low­ship, to the break­ing of bread and the pray­ers. And awe came upon every soul, and many won­ders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were togeth­er and had all things in com­mon. And they were selling their pos­ses­sions and belong­ings and dis­trib­ut­ing the pro­ceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attend­ing the temple togeth­er and break­ing bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and gen­er­ous hearts, prais­ing God and hav­ing favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their num­ber day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:41–47)

Can we see any resemb­lance between the today’s “Ortho­dox Church” and these first Christians?

In anoth­er art­icle you can read more about the New Test­a­ment Church.

3.2 Form­al­ism and Rituals

Anoth­er import­ant point to note is that already in the Old Test­a­ment God rejec­ted form­al­ism very strictly:

Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sod­om! Give ear to the teach­ing of our God, you people of Gomor­rah! “What to me is the mul­ti­tude of your sac­ri­fices?” says the Lord; “I have had enough of burnt offer­ings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this tramp­ling of my courts? Bring no more vain offer­ings; incense is an abom­in­a­tion to me. New moon and Sab­bath and the call­ing of convocations—I can­not endure iniquity and sol­emn assembly. Your new moons and your appoin­ted feasts my soul hates; they have become a bur­den to me; I am weary of bear­ing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many pray­ers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, cor­rect oppres­sion; bring justice to the fath­er­less, plead the wid­ow’s cause.” (Isai­ah 1:10–17)

The rituals have changed, but what Jesus said to the scribes and Phar­isees is still val­id nowadays for those who per­form some form­al prac­tices but do not prac­tise justice and mercy and faithfulness:

Woe to you, scribes and Phar­isees, hypo­crites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neg­lected the weight­i­er mat­ters of the law: justice and mercy and faith­ful­ness. These you ought to have done, without neg­lect­ing the oth­ers. You blind guides, strain­ing out a gnat and swal­low­ing a camel!
Woe to you, scribes and Phar­isees, hypo­crites! For you clean the out­side of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Phar­isee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the out­side also may be clean. (Mat­thew 23:23–26)

Iren­aeus says con­cern­ing the Church:

Nor does she per­form any­thing by means of angel­ic invoc­a­tions, or by incant­a­tions, or by any oth­er wicked curi­ous art; but, dir­ect­ing her pray­ers to the Lord, who made all things, in a pure, sin­cere, and straight­for­ward spir­it, and call­ing upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ….^[2]

4 Con­clu­sion

So which church is really the Ortho­dox Church? Obvi­ously not the one bear­ing this name, which in real­ity neither keeps the “ortho­dox teach­ing” of Christ and of the Apostles nor prac­tises the “ortho­dox wor­ship” of God which is pleas­ing to him. As we explained above, Jesus Christ nev­er wanted people to per­form form­al reli­gious prac­tices, sep­ar­ated from their every­day life, but He wanted his dis­ciples to fol­low his way of life:

And he said to all, “If any­one would come after me, let him deny him­self and take up his cross daily and fol­low me.” (Luke 9:23)

This way of life is the wor­ship which is pleas­ing to God; this is really what glor­i­fies God—not car­ry­ing out some rituals without chan­ging one’s life. Con­sequently, God builds his Ortho­dox Church not through a man-made insti­tu­tion but through his dis­ciples, his fol­low­ers, who devote their lives com­pletely to him.