“Not everything in the Church belongs to its Holy Tradition for not everything in the Church is done by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and not everything in the Church pertains essentially and necessarily to the Kingdom Of God. Some things in the Church are just temporal and temporary things, merely human customs and traditions of no eternal and everlasting value. Such things in themselves are not sinful or wrong. On the contrary, they may be very positive and very helpful to the life of the Church as long as they are not taken to be what they are not. Thus, it is very important in the Church to make the distinction between traditions which are merely earthly and human and passing away and the genuine Holy Tradition which pertains to the heavenly and eternal Kingdom of God.” — Volume I – Doctrine and Scripture, Sources of Christian Doctrine: Tradition, Orthodox Church in America, http://bit.ly/2IjdEK8 , year unknown.
The members of the Armed Forces of the United States have the habit of joshing each other. You can always find a Marine willing to “thank” a Navy sailor for providing them “taxi service.” You can always find an Air Force airman who is willing to point out to an Army soldier that they were smart enough to send the officers out to war while the enlisted men and women remain behind waving their planes off. And all the services tend to tease the Coast Guard for just rescuing boaters. And so on. On some weekends in some cities, you can even find MPs and SPs having to rush to a bar to break up a fight between services. But, these type of interactions are not truly serious. During times of war, you can see Air Force pilots strafing enemy positions in defense of Army soldiers. Navy corpsmen can be found on their knees in the midst of a battle, desperately trying to save a wounded Marine. Meanwhile, Coast Guard ships may very well be off a foreign coast performing search and rescue missions, as well as helping with coastal interdict operations.
Something of the same goes on at times between Orthodox clergy. Well, all except the fights at a bar. One can sometimes hear an Antiochian priest joshing a Greek for not using enough English. The Greek joshes right back that the Antiochian does not appear to know modern English (they use a variation of King James English in their services). Meanwhile, they may both tease the OCA priest for not knowing the difference between a monastic and a cathedral rite, while the OCA priest may respond asking why the Greeks and the Antiochians have erased part of the Divine Liturgy. That is not even getting into whether to wear colors on Sunday or whether only gold and/or white are permitted on Sunday. But, on any given Sunday of Orthodoxy, you will see priests from every jurisdiction in the area coming together (at least every couple of years) to jointly state, “This is the faith of the apostles! This is the faith of the fathers! This is the Orthodox faith! This faith has established the Universe!”
Now, this is a very important point. The way I should say it liturgically would be, “Let us be attentive! — Proscwmen.” Just like members of the Armed Forces, Orthodox priests know when it is time to cut the joshing and to gather together to resist the enemy. That is what Sunday of Orthodoxy is all about. But, another way to phrase it is that most Orthodox priests know the difference between Holy Tradition and “merely earthly and human and passing away” tradition. I agree that there are some Orthodox priests that could stand to learn that difference, but they are in the minority.
The same is not true among many lay people, in part because I suspect that we clergy have not given them the universal vision that was imparted to us at our ordinations, and before that at our training to be clergy. As a result, all of us clergy have been the target of people who unceasingly argue that the way Fr. Prior-to-our-arrival did it should be the way that it is done, at least until they die off. We are not even talking necessarily about bringing change, but about simple differences in practice that are meaningless, and were only very local traditions, at most. However, all-too-often it escalates beyond that. One need only do a search of Orthodox discussion sites to see a minority of priests and lay people arguing about matters which would normally be considered “merely earthly and human and passing away” as though they were part of the substance of the faith. For example, all too many times, some of the arguments against the West are not about the doctrinal differences, but about differences which have existed between the East and the West since before the Great Schism. And many of these differences were never the subject of argument when there was unity between East and West.
But, let’s bring it back to Orthodoxy. One of the biggest dangers and headaches to troops engaged in combat is friendly fire. Friendly fire can be anything as innocuous as a stray bullet killing or wounding someone on your own side, to a gross mistake in which someone deliberately kills one of their own comrades thinking that they are an enemy troop. But, the worst, and most horrible case, of friendly fire is when there is a very deliberate killing of your own troops because it helps the overall effort in a particular battle. For instance, let’s say that your troops are holding a pass against the enemy. You are able to bring in a bombing run that will seal the pass but kill your own troops. You choose the bombing run because “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” (Spock, The Wrath of Kan, uhm, I may be a bit of a geek). The same is true among Orthodox writers.
Sadly, there are too many Orthodox writers who are so intent on winning the war against a perceived enemy that they do not care about publishing some theological speculation that may hit as many friendly troops as hit the enemy. These are the people who will argue about some minutiae of tradition which is not being argued about by even our own hierarchs, or at least not arguing about them to the point of schism. There is no doubt that our hierarchs and theologians argue about many points. But, they know where to stop the arguing. They know where that line is between declaring someone mistaken and declaring someone a heretic/apostate. Sadly, all too many lay writers and some priests and bishops do not know where that bright line is. In the process of defending the faith, they have no compunction in declaring even fellow Orthodox, who have committed no theological sin and are acceptable to their hierarchs, to be suspect and probable heretics and apostates.
This damages the Orthodox faith, “… the faith of the apostles … the faith of the fathers … the Orthodox faith … [that] has established the Universe.” Rejecting the hierarchs, and their application of ekonomia, they seek to impose a Law every bit as damaging as that of the Pharisees:
“‘But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.’ Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, ‘Teacher, by saying these things You reproach us also.’ And He said, ‘Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.'”
Many of these writers reject ekonomia, and with no knowledge of Church History assert that a certain practice has always existed. With no knowledge of Church History, they assert that a particular practice of a particular Orthodox Church is, and must be, the correct practice. With total disregard for the principle of ekonomia, they happily condemn any and every hierarch (and even jurisdiction) who utters anything contrary to their particular beliefs. Ignoring the history of canonical interpretation, they declare that their particular and private interpretation is the only correct interpretation. In doing so, they damage the Church every bit as much as the Pharisees and Sadducees damaged the Israelite nation. I suspect that, in the end-times, it will have been better had they tied a millstone around their necks than that they had engaged in their unfortunate writings.
At the same time, I must aver that there is such a thing as true reformers. There are people who are raised up by God in various and diverse ways in various (but not all) centuries to call us back to Truth. In some times and seasons, the monastics were used by God to call the Orthodox Church back to Truth. In the West, you can see people such as St. Francis of Assisi being used to call the Western Church back to simplicity and missions. And, yes, I do believe that St. Francis was a saint. I do not believe that 1054 was a bright line that prevents us from recognizing anyone in the West as being saintly. Orthodox and Catholic continued to meet together until the early 1400’s. The dividing line is not as bright as some would make it.
So, how do we tell the difference between a true reformer and a Pharisee? There is no easy answer. However, my first response is that if someone is not able to encompass the variety of existing canonical Orthodoxy, then that person is probably not a reformer. If someone is not able to listen to the hierarchs of a jurisdiction, then that one is probably not a reformer. Frankly, the proof of a reformer is often a matter of time, often of many years of time. But, given the history of Orthodoxy, it is safe to say that most critics and reformers turn out to be little more than sinners who need to repent.
Here is an easy rule. If the patriarchates have no problem with [fill in the blank] then you need to stop having a problem with it. If the Patriarchates of Antioch, Greece, Alexandria, Moscow, etc., accept that it is not necessary for an American priest to wear a rasson (cassock) in public, then why do you have a problem with that? If the various patriarchates have no problem with the use of a Western-style clergy shirt, then you should not either. If the various patriarchates have no problem with canons that require an Archbishop to meet with his bishops once a year, yet he does not, then you should not either. Are you beginning to see a pattern? If the worldwide Orthodox communion does not have a problem with a particular practice, then why do you?
We are hurting ourselves with some of our attitudes and writings. It is time for that to stop. Are you Orthodox or are you Pharisee?
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