Title: Are we experiencing a Triumph of Orthodoxy? Source:
YouTube URL Source:https://youtu.be/Tg13beGm-WY?si=U-hqv62E7uSMrHjf Published:Mar 14, 2025 Author:Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick Post Date:2025-03-14 19:31:02 by Orthodoxa Keywords:Orthodox Church, growth surge Views:1028 Comments:25
While both Protestants and Orthodox Christians share core Christian beliefs, they differ in areas like authority, salvation, and liturgical practices, with Protestants emphasizing the Bible as the sole source of authority and salvation by grace through faith alone, while Orthodox Christians value tradition and the Church's teachings alongside the Bible.
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The Bible > Orthodox church teachings. Not even close.
The Bible, which was written by the Church and for the Church, itself declares what the source of authority is:
1 Timothy 3:15
"But if I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
Note that even in this verse, St. Paul, who is Timothy's Bishop and ordained Timothy as a Bishop, tells him that he'll give him much more detailed instructions in person (oral tradition) and this letter is just to help out a little before St. Paul arrives in person.
And the Church isn't just some guy picking up a Bible and announcing that he's in charge of a Church now. In all of Paul's epistles, it is pretty clear that he expects to be obeyed by the congregations that are under him, because he's their Bishop. He was ordained, using the system that Jesus Christ instituted - Jesus founded a Church, not a free-for- all bookclub where everyone is free to interpret and misinterpret scriptures however they wish. You can read in Acts 13 about how the Elders of the Church (Bishops) laid hands upon St. Paul and St. Barnabas and ordained them.
My Orthodox Church can show detailed lists of who ordained who all the way back to the Apostles. Most of the Protestant denominations in the USA don't go back even farther than a century, and none of them have a line of ordinations going back to Jesus like the Orthodox Church does.
The Church, the pillar and ground of the truth, is the body which can correctly interpret the Scriptures. The Protestant approach is the same thing Joseph Smith and the Mormons did, just make up a bogus "church" and tell everyone that it really is the church even though he just made it up.
I guess you think that someone could just try to board Air Force One and when the Secret Service arrests them protest:
"Wait a minute! I have a copy of the Constitution, I've read it and believe it, and according to my interpretation of the Constitution I am the President of the United States, so you cannot arrest me!!"
That's how lots of Protestants will sound at the Last Judgement when Jesus Christ asks them why they created fake Churches to compete with the one real Church that He founded.
