There is a division found in the Orthodox Church that is also found in the Roman Catholic Church and also the Anglican Church. It is a division that is so old, that is predates the division between East and West. That is the division between what are called doctrinal canons and disciplinary canons. This has caused difficulty, so much that I almost wish that the Church had come up with two different lists, one for doctrinal statements and one for disciplinary canons. This division helps explain some of the variations in fasting rules and also helps explain why synods can change existing disciplinary canons, even those that come from an Ecumenical Council.
In order to explain this difference, I need to take you back to what was really the First Ecumenical Council, the Council of Jerusalem found in Acts 15. Yes, yes, I know that our system of numbering begins with the first Christendom Council after the New Testament was written. But, I wish that history had not chosen that numbering, for the Council of Jerusalem was the real First Ecumenical Council. Acts 15 says:
So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
In other words, believers from various parts of Christendom came together in Jerusalem to discuss questions of doctrine and practice. The doctrinal side was over what parts of the Mosaic Law applied to Christians. The practical side was over what should be the pastoral practice of the Church in the circumstances in which it found itself. Americans, and various western Europeans, have the idea that something is either right or wrong. They have severe difficulties in interpreting Romans 14 in which Saint Paul gives a disciplinary direction that leads to different practices according to the circumstances in which a believer finds themselves. And they have even more difficulties in interpreting the results of the Council of Jerusalem, because a couple of its decisions are not only no longer enforced, but they were not enforced for much time at all.
What were the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem?
It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Well, to this day we abstain from sexual immorality. But, other than in some mission countries, we do not even think about food sacrificed to idols. And, nowadays we clearly eat meat with its blood still in it and we do not even ask about how an animal that we eat was killed. So, why do we no longer obey all the decisions of that Council, particularly in view of the fact that there is no Council that formally reversed the findings of Acts 15? The explanation is that these were disciplinary canons that were open to be changed by future apostolic successors. To say otherwise is to say that the entire Christian Church, both West and East, has been in sin since shortly after the New Testament. While there are Protestant groups that try to claim precisely that, they continue to eat meat with the blood in it. And, if that Protestant group has some “country” folk, they may even eat blood sausage without problems. Therefore, according to Acts 15, a Council which was attended by all the Twelve Apostles, by the relatives of the Lord, and by representatives of all the then-existing Christian world, the entire Christian Church, except for the Seventh-Day Adventists, is living in both active sin and in active disobedience of the regularly approved canons of an Ecumenical Council.
Of course, the other possibility is that even in the Early Church, long long before the legal acceptance of Christianity, there was a recognition that there is a difference between a doctrinal and a disciplinary canon. This is were some of the overly-zealous converts make their big mistake. They hold every canon to be of equal weight and of equal import. But, they are not. If nothing else, Acts 15 says that disciplinary canons can be overturned or mitigated or granted a dispensation even by a local synod of bishops. Let me repeat, to say otherwise would be to say that the entire Christian Church, except for the Seventh Day Adventists, are living in deliberate disobedience of the decisions of the Twelve Apostles and the elders, deacons, and other leaders of the New Testament Church. And, I would certainly hate to make that statement.
So, my advice to some of the over-zealous converts and to some of the Mount Athos monks is to STOP IT and to quit judging the current Church based on the disciplinary canons. Particularly to the monks, let me directly say to you that if you are not seriously ensuring that the meat you eat has been killed according to kosher rules, then you are a fellow sinner with me and have no right to claim that your interpretation of the disciplinary canons is any better than my interpretation. Mind you, I have no problem saying that, because my trust is that the overseers whom God has given us are capable of guiding us. If you question our overseers yet do not obey the rules of Acts 15, then you are simply basing yourself on your personal opinions and your personal interpretation of Holy Tradition.
“…the entire Christian Church, except for the Seventh-Day Adventists, is living in both active sin and in active disobedience…”
I’m sure the SDA’s would agree with you here. 😉
I think your point is well taken here, and I would say that I’ve unknowingly made the same canonical distinction to a point, or at least without a formal name for it. Just like you’ve said, I’ve experienced the Romans 14 difficulty within Protestantism. Because of the failure to make the distinction, unbelievers and apostates often point out the “inconsistencies” with which Protestants interpret and apply the Scriptures (i.e. holding that men should wear short hair, but not stoning homosexuals to death), themselves being the previous recipients of American Protestant “black and white” teachings.