IO Holy Tradition: The Source of the Orthodox Faith

IO Holy Tradition: The Source of the Orthodox Faith

THE INNER MEANING OF TRADITION

Orthodox history is marked outwardly by a series of sudden breaks: the capture of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem by Arab Muslims; the burning of Kiev by the Mongols; the two sacks of Constantino- ple; the October Revolution in Russia. Yet these events, while they have transformed the external appearance of the Orthodox world, have never broken the inward continuity of the Orthodox Church. The thing that first strikes a stranger on encountering Orthodoxy is usually its air of antiquity, its apparent changelessness. Orthodox still baptize by threefold immersion, as in the primitive Church; they still bring babies and small children to receive Holy Communion; in the Liturgy the deacon still cries out: "The doors! The doors!' - recalling the early days when the church's entrance was jealously guarded, and none but members of the Christian family could attend the family worship; the Creed is still recited without any additions.

These are but a few outward examples of something which per- vades every aspect of Orthodox life. When Orthodox are asked at contemporary inter-Church gatherings to sum up what they see as the distinctive characteristic of their Church, they often point precisely to its changelessness, its determination to remain loyal to the past, its sense of living continuity with the Church of ancient times. At the start of the eighteenth century, in words that recall the language of the Ecumenical Councils, the Eastern Patriarchs said exactly the same to the Non-Jurors:

This idea of living continuity is summed up for the Orthodox in the one word Tradition. 'We do not change the everlasting boundaries which our fathers have set,' wrote John of Damascus, 'but we keep the Tradition, just as we received it.'

Orthodox are always talking about Tradition. What do they mean by the word? A tradition is commonly understood to signify an opin- ion, belief or custom handed down from ancestors to posterity. Christian Tradition, in that case, is the faith and practice which Jesus Christ imparted to the Apostles, and which since the Apostles' time has been handed down from generation to generation in the Church. But to an Orthodox Christian, Tradition means something more con- crete and specific than this. It means the books of the Bible; it means the Creed; it means the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils and the writings of the Fathers; it means the Canons, the Service Books, the Holy Icons - in fact, the whole system of doctrine, Church govern- ment, worship, spirituality and art which Orthodoxy has articulated over the ages. Orthodox Christians of today see themselves as heirs and guardians to a rich inheritance received from the past, and they believe that it is their duty to transmit this inheritance unimpaired to the future.

Note that the Bible forms a part of Tradition. Sometimes Tradition is defined as the oral teaching of Christ, not recorded in writing by His immediate disciples. Not only non-Orthodox but many Ortho- dox writers have adopted this way of speaking, treating Scripture and Tradition as two different things, two distinct sources of the Christian faith. But in reality there is only one source, since Scripture exists within Tradition. To separate and contrast the two is to impoverish the idea of both alike.

Orthodox, while reverencing this inheritance from the past, are also well aware that not everything received from the past is of equal value. Among the various elements of Tradition, a unique pre- eminence belongs to the Bible, to the Creed, to the doctrinal definitions of the Ecumenical Councils: these things the Orthodox accept as something absolute and unchanging, something which cannot be can- celled or revised. The other parts of Tradition do not have quite the same authority. The decrees of Jassy or Jerusalem do not stand on the same level as the Nicene Creed, nor do the writings of an Athanasius, or a Symeon the New Theologian, occupy the same position as the Gospel of St John.

Not everything received from the past is of equal value, nor is every- thing received from the past necessarily true. As one of the bishops remarked at the Council of Carthage in two hundred fifty-seven: 'The Lord said, I am truth. He did not say, I am custom.'" There is a difference between 'Tradition' and 'traditions': many traditions which the past has handed down are human and accidental - pious opinions (or worse), but not a true part of the one Tradition, the fundamental Christian message.

It is absolutely essential to question the past. In Byzantine and post- Byzantine times, Orthodox have often been far too uncritical in their attitude to the past, and the result has been stagnation. Today this uncritical attitude can no longer be maintained. Higher standards of scholarship, increasing contacts with western Christians, the inroads of secularism and atheism, have forced Orthodox in the last hundred years to look more closely at their inheritance and to distinguish more carefully between Tradition and traditions. The task of discrimination is never easy. It is necessary to avoid alike the error of the Old Believers and the error of the 'Living Church': the one party fell into an extreme conservatism which suffered no change whatever in traditions, the other into spiritual compromises which undermined Tradition. Yet despite certain manifest handicaps, the Orthodox of today are perhaps in a better position to discriminate aright than their predecessors have been for many centuries; and often it is precisely their contact with the west which is helping them to see more and more clearly what is indis- pensable in their own inheritance.

True Orthodox fidelity to the past must always be a creative fidel- ity; for true Orthodoxy can never rest satisfied with a barren 'theology of repetition', which, parrot-like, repeats accepted formulae without striving to understand what lies behind them. Loyalty to Tradition, properly understood, is not something mechanical, a passive and auto- matic process of transmitting the accepted wisdom of an era in the distant past. An Orthodox thinker must see Tradition from within, he must enter into its inner spirit, he must re-experience the meaning of Tradition in a manner that is exploratory, courageous, and full of imaginative creativity. In order to live within Tradition, it is not enough simply to give intellectual assent to a system of doctrine; for Tradition is far more than a set of abstract propositions - it is a life, a personal encounter with Christ in the Holy Spirit. Tradition is not only kept by the Church - it lives in the Church, it is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The Orthodox conception of Tradition is not static but dynamic, not a dead acceptance of the past but a living discovery of the Holy Spirit in the present. Tradition, while inwardly changeless (for God does not change), is constantly assuming new forms, which supplement the old without superseding them. Orthodox often speak as if the period of doctrinal formulation were wholly at an end, yet this is not the case. Perhaps in our own day new Ecumenical Councils will meet, and Tradition will be enriched by fresh statements of the faith.

Tradition is the witness of the Spirit; the Spirit's unceasing revelation and preaching of good tidings . . . To accept and understand Tradition we must live within the Church, we must be conscious of the grace- giving presence of the Lord in it; we must feel the breath of the Holy Ghost in it ... Tradition is not only a protective, conservative prin- ciple; it is, primarily, the principle of growth and regeneration ... Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit and not only the mem- ory of words,

Tradition is the witness of the Spirit: in the words of Christ, 'When the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth' (John xvi, thirteen). It is this divine promise that forms the basis of the Orthodox devotion to Tradition.

THE OUTWARD FORMS

Let us take in turn the different outward forms in which Tradition is expressed: