Eastern Orthodoxy

“ The Orthodox Church is considerably the largest in the East. But it is by no means the only Eastern Church. The idea, which one still sometimes finds among Protestants, of one vast "Eastern Church," united in the same primitive faith, knowing nothing, never having known anything, of the Papacy, is the crudest fiction. There neither is nor ever has been such a body. Eastern Christendom is riddled with sects, heresies and schisms, almost as much as the West. ”

“ Who cares nowadays for what is dully orthodox? Who ever heard of a hero in orthodoxy nowadays? The thing is impossible. There may be, of course, thousands of orthodox heroes, but one never hears anything of them. ”

“ Much has been already accomplished by the enlightened men who have taken up the cause of the apostles, and who are labouring hard to dispel the dark cloud of ignorance which hangs over the minds of my countrymen like a heavy cloud. With the knowledge and the elements of the true faith which they are zealously disseminating, I do not despair not merely of a thorough reform of the Orthodox Eastern Church, but of an entire change in the mutual relations of the several religious bodies. ”

“ Orthodox believers 'never read the other side.' The mastery of standard Unitarian books is no part of clerical preparation in the Church of England, and orthodox Nonconformist ministers are 'not genuinely and honestly acquainted with the adversary at all.' The moral results of Protestant orthodoxy are, in this writer's opinion, deplorable. ”

“ Orthodox churches have fallen away, more or less, from the doctrine of justification by faith. They have fallen back from the central point of Christianity, faith in Jesus, in different directions, and seek to be justified by a law,—some upon a law of belief, and others on a law of emotion. ”

“ Jesuit missionaries after the Reformation stirred up schisms in some parts of the Eastern Church, and in Austria, Poland and elsewhere large numbers of Orthodox Christians submitted, either willingly or under compulsion to the see of Rome (see Roman Catholic Church, section Uniat Oriental Churches) .
Doctrines and Creeds.—The Eastern Church has no creeds in the modern Western use of the word, no normative summaries of what must be believed. It has preserved the older idea that a creed is an adoring confession of the church engaged in worship ”

“ It has always been very hard to be Orthodox; for, to do so, one must distinguish the Persons, and yet not divide the substance, of the Deity. In keeping the three Persons distinctly separate, there was great danger of making three distinct Gods. On the other hand, if one tried to make the Unity distinct, there was danger that the Persons would grow shadowy, and disappear.
The heaviest charge against the Church doctrine of the Trinity is, that, driven to despair by these difficulties, it has at last made Orthodoxy consist, not in any sound belief, but only in sound phrases. ”

“ One might say that any heresy inspires them with less horror than the Catholic doctrine about the Pope, and that they consider the rejection of this doctrine a sufficient proof of a healthy orthodoxy. But the day will come when every Russian who loves orthodoxy above all else will no longer regard with so much horror as now a church which is far better calculated than the Greek Church to furnish him with arms wherewith to defend the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Real Presence, the sacraments, the veneration of Mary and the saints. ”

“ You have levelled an arrow at the very seat of life of what is considered orthodoxy in divinity, it is impossible but that the wound should be severly felt. For you are not insensible sir, that it is not only the general, but almost the universal sentiment of orthodoxy, from his holiness the Pope down to the smallest child who has been taught to lisp the christian name, that the revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ was designed to prepare mankind in this world for heaven and happiness in another. ”

“ All the sects of Christendom do, indeed, place faith at the root of the Christian life; but some make it essentially an intellectual act, others essentially affectionate, and others an act of will. Orthodoxy makes it, in substance, a sight of faith, or an act of looking at spiritual realities. Sometimes it is called a realizing sense of spiritual things. But, at all events, the sight of truth is considered the beginning and root of religion by the Orthodox party in the Church. We are saved by the word of truth ”

“ In the case of others, one sees so much that would have to be changed—false doctrine, reckless mutilation of the old faith, and rival conventicles. But the Eastern schism has still left us on both sides with the same faith in almost everything. Of course they would have to accept the whole of the Catholic faith. In that, no desire for reunion, no spirit of conciliation, can ever make the Holy See waive anything. There can be no compromise in matters of faith. But the Orthodox already have, and jealously keep, practically all that faith. ”

“ Men and women who are orthodox are generally so for the same reason that they are English or French—they were born in England or France, and cannot help the good or ill fortune of their birth-place. Their orthodoxy is no higher virtue than their nationality. ”

“ Let us lay to heart the rudimentary and incomplete character of a faith which simply accepts the teaching of Jesus Christ, and does no more. The notion that orthodoxy is Christianity, that a man who does not contradict the teaching of the New Testament is thereby a Christian, is a very old and very perilous and very widespread one. ”

“ It was the most momentous subject of controversy during the fourth century, the age of the greatest Fathers of the Eastern Church, the age of its keenest polemics and most masterly theological literature. The Nicene Creed, the essential standard of doctrine for the orthodox in the East, was formulated for the express purpose of excluding and crushing this heresy, which at times held its head so high, encouraged by imperial favour, that it threatened to dominate the Church and supplant the rival orthodox theology. ”

“ In large sections of the Church the greatest stress is still laid upon Christian doctrine, especially as expressed in dogmatic forms. If a man thinks that orthodox doctrine is the test of a healthful and vigorous church, he will make that the determining element in his judgment whether Christianity is advancing or declining. In this sphere we have to distinguish three things: (1) The popular orthodoxy, which is determined by the consensus of teaching from the pulpit ”

“ He said in an address given at a meeting of Congregational ministers in London in September, 1886:
“I think I am as orthodox a man as there is in this world. Well, what are the tests of orthodoxy? Man universally is a sinner; man universally needs to be born again; there is in the nature of God that power and influence that can convert a man and redeem him from his animal life; and it is possible for man 607so to bring to bear this divine influence in the ministration of the Gospel as that men shall be awakened, and convicted, and converted, and built up in the faith of Jesus Christ. ”

“ This, although quite an artificial nation, is as dear to them as our fatherland is to us, while in comparison all matters of dogma and theology are quite secondary. For this reason it is that there are rarely any conversions from one Eastern Church to another. And for this reason, too, it is that—as has well been observed—“for a Jacobite to turn Orthodox would be like a Frenchman turning German.” ”

“ The first Protestants were the children of the Pope's own patriarchate, whose fathers had been converted from Rome, who had used the Roman rite, and had received the Holy Orders they now rejected from the Pope. Thirdly, the Eastern Churches are far nearer to us than any Protestant congregation. Practically, as we shall see, the only thing wrong with the Easterns is the schism. Their faith hardly differs at all from ours. ”

“ They did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what I say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of God, or in the divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. ”

“ The Easterns know quite well, of course, that all Anglicans do not think like this, but if what the Patriarch of Constantinople a year or two ago called "the Ritualist sect" ever becomes the whole Church of England, then, indeed, in faith there would be little to choose between Anglicans and Orthodox. ”

“ However, the belief in the resurrection of the body, though expressed in the ancient liturgy, is in such utter contradiction to our entire attitude toward both science and religion, that it may be considered obsolete for the modern Jew. Orthodoxy, which clings to it in formal loyalty to tradition, regards it as a miracle which God will perform in the future, exactly like the many Biblical miracles which defy reason. ”

“ Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned. We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defence of the Catholic faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the rites, and customs of the East. ”

“ The service of the Orthodox Eastern Church is always performed in the native language, and consists of prayers, scripture-readings, a sermon, which is, however, generally only a simple explanation or commentary on chapters from the Holy Bible, and in chaunting hymns. ”

“ But as the world and the Church differ as to which is the right system of belief—as there are a vast multitude of systems—and as all sects and parties, and all men, believe the system they themselves hold to be the right belief—Orthodoxy, in this sense of right belief, means nothing. In this sense there are as many orthodoxies as there are believers, for no two men, even in the same Church, think exactly alike. ”

“ The orthodox regarded the pietists as a new sect, with dangerous errors that threatened the pure doctrine of the Lutheran Church; while the pietists maintained that they held by pure Lutheran orthodoxy, and only set aside its barren formalism and dead externalism for biblical practical Christianity. The controversy gathered round the doctrines of the new birth, justification, sanctification, the church, and the millennium.
The new birth. The orthodox maintained that regeneration takes place in baptism (§ 141, 13) , every baptized person is regenerate ”

“ For neither does religion consist Orthodoxy, or right opinions; which, although they are not properly outward things, are not in the heart, but the understanding. A man may be orthodox in every point; he may not only espouse right opinions, but zealously defend them against all opposers ”

“ Therefore the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews endeavors to show them that all which was really good in the Jewish priesthood, temple, ritual, was represented in Christianity in a higher form. It had been fulfilled in the New Covenant. Nothing real and good can pass away till it is fulfilled in something better. Thus the Roman Catholic Church stands, as a constant proof that Protestant Christianity yet lacks some important Christian element which Romanism possesses. Orthodoxy, confuted, as we suppose, over and over again, by the most logical arguments, stands firm, and goes forward. ”

“ The Roman Catholics, again, are called heretics by the Greek Church. So that orthodoxy, in this sense, seems an impossible thing—something which, if it exists, can never be certainly ascertained.
[pg 006] Whenever a body of believers assumes the name of Orthodox, intending thereby that they are right, and their opponents wrong, they evidently assume the very point in dispute. They commit the fallacy called in logic a petitio principii. They beg the question, instead of discussing it. They put will in the place of reason. ”

“ Hardly had the Orthodox doctrine triumphed over that of subordination, against those who denied the equal Deity, than it was obliged to turn round and contend against those on the other side, who denied the humanity of Christ altogether. ”

“ But while on the outside the Midianites of denial were prowling for these clinging souls, within the camp they were assailed by a meticulous orthodoxy that was only too eager to cast them forth. The bishop dwelt for a time upon the curious fierceness orthodoxy would sometimes display. Nowadays atheism can be civil, can be generous; it is orthodoxy that trails a scurrilous fringe. ”

“ We want the communion of the Christians to whom St. Paul brought the faith at Ephesus and Corinth, the children of the men of Antioch who first were called by the name in which we all glory. And we need, too, the righter balance that would be restored by reunion with the Orthodox. In spite of our loyalty to our own rite, and in spite of our natural pride in being not only Catholics but Latins and members of the greatest Patriarchate, we have to realize that the Latin Church is not, has never been, the whole Body of Christ. ”

“ Faith and philosophy formed a new alliance. Orthodox professors gave in their loyalty to the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming," and the man who taught that "God was in process of becoming" welcomed the orthodox professors to the circle of his disciples. He was more orthodox than the orthodox; he gave the theologians new explanations of their own dogmas, and supplied them with arguments against their own foes. Trinity, incarnation, atonement, redemption, were all interpreted and justified, to the complete satisfaction of the ecclesiastical powers. ”