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.

Strive for peace with every­one, and for the holi­ness with­out which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

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.

…he who is the blessed and only Sov­er­eign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immor­tal­i­ty, who dwells in unap­proach­able light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be hon­our and eter­nal domin­ion. Amen. (1 Tim­o­thy 6:15–16)

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.

1. Ous­pen­sky, The­ol­o­gy, pp. 60–62. ↩
2. Ire­naeus, Against Here­sies, Book II, chap­ter XXXII,5. ↩