Teaching basic Orthodox doctrine, as important and essential as that is, is only a partial introduction to the Orthodox faith. The Orthodox faith is a way of life. It is not simply making an intellectual assent to a series of doctrines or teachings. Orthodoxy is a way of life involving the whole person; the body, the mind, the soul, and the spirit.

So, to understand Orthodoxy, a series of talks concerning the basic teachings of the Orthodox Church must be complemented with an ongoing exposure to the life of the Church (particularly that life which is expressed in the Church’s common worship). We’re going to be talking a lot about the Liturgy of the Church because it is when the Church comes together to be the Church in the worship of God that the life, the faith, the hope of the Orthodox Church truly comes alive.

The desire for the Truth must be at the root of anyone’s search for God. Our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, promised,

Any examination of Orthodox doctrine has to begin there, addressing the ultimate questions of life. Is there a God? What is He like? What is the nature of creation? Is there a plan to creation? Do we, the human race, come from the hand of a Creator or are we the result of blind chance? Are we merely a complicated animal or something far and immeasurably more? What is our destiny and the destiny of the universe? Is there eternal life? What is that like? All of these ultimate questions are at the root of any discussion of Christian doctrine.

What we teach, what we live, what we do, everything that we are as Orthodox Christians is what C. S. Lewis described as "mere Christianity," – plain, simple Christianity. Everything that the Church believes and does and hopes for all holds together and everything is basic, nothing is non-essential.

Another thing that must be said at the beginning of any teaching concerning Orthodox doctrine is that the teacher must make a declaration that in everything he is going to say he is going to serve as a mouthpiece of the Church’s faith. In the Orthodox Church there is no room for individual opinions being taught as the official teaching of the Church. Whenever the teacher expresses a personal opinion it must be labeled as that, to set it apart from the teaching of the Church that has been held generation after generation for nearly 2,000 years.

The first and essential point is that the Orthodox understanding concerning faith is that what we believe has been revealed to us by God. It is, therefore, a revelation. Something that is a revelation is not the product of human thought. As we sing in the Divine Liturgy before Holy Communion, "God is the Lord and has revealed Himself to us." This basic claim that God (who is outside creation, eternal and not a creature, the one, true, and only God) has revealed Himself to human beings is at the heart of the Christian faith. This Judeo-Christian teaching, as distinguished from any other religious system that exists or ever has existed in the world, refers to the self-revelation of God.

In these words, in which it is claimed that the one, true, and living God speaks to a human being, two things are done - a commandment is given and a promise is made. God tells Abram that he has to leave behind everything that he has known and to go some unknown place. And then God gives Abram a promise, "In you (literally, through your seed) all the families of the earth shall be blessed." And, our father in faith, Abraham, believed God and did what He commanded.

So Abraham is the recipient of God’s self-revelation. And moving forward in time from Abraham, God’s self-revelation intensifies. God begins to call a people to Himself, the descendants of Abraham. Six hundred years later the people of Israel have become slaves in Egypt and Moses becomes the recipient of God’s revelation, being commanded by Him to lead the people out of Egypt into the promised land of Israel. And Moses asks God a penetrating question, "What is your name?"

God reveals Himself to Moses as He who has existence in Himself, without a creaturely beginning or end in time. And God’s revelation continues to intensify over the centuries through the likes of King David and the prophets.

The self-revelation of God that occurs in the Old Testament (from Abraham until the coming of the Promised One) reaches its greatest intensity in the coming of Jesus Christ, the coming of the One who is both God and man. Any discussion of Christian doctrine will spend most of its time, as we will see, addressing, "Who is Jesus Christ?" (another ultimate question). This eternal question is asked of every member of the human race.

He (Jesus) said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Matt 16:15

It is the Christian teaching that the self-revelation of God is given to us fully, perfectly, completely through Jesus Christ.

It is very important for any one encountering the Orthodox Church to learn the meaning of the word "Tradition" very clearly because it is at the basis of how the Orthodox Church has lived through the centuries. Tradition comes from a Greek word that is used frequently in the Scriptures, paradosis. Translated literally, paradosis means something that is handed on from one person to another (in the same way that a baton is handed over in a relay race). Something that is "traditioned" is passed on from one person or group of people to another group of people.

The clearest use of this word in the Bible is found in St. Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians where he speaks of basic Christian teaching – what is at the heart of the matter.

For I delivered (paradosis – "traditioned") to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

St. Paul is passing on something that he received and that is the essential meaning of what the Orthodox understand by tradition.

In the Orthodox context, tradition means an experience – an entire life of living out the teachings that come from the God who has revealed Himself, that have been lived out by the people of God in time and space and history. Tradition is the record of the living out of the revelation of God by His people. This experience of Orthodox Christianity (mere Christianity) has been faithfully passed on, handed over, from one generation of the people of God to the next.

The Bible is understood by Orthodox Christians as being the principle written record of the experience by God’s people of God’s revealing Himself to them. It is understood, therefore, that the Church wrote the Bible. Many heterodox Christians make the claim that the Bible is the word of God, and so it is. But the word of God was not written directly and personally by God. The Holy Scriptures did not fall from heaven in a fully complete written form. Who were the Scriptures written by? They were written by human beings inspired by God and what they write is the Truth about God. And they write what they write as members of God’s people.

In the early years of the Church those most important books of Holy Scripture, the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (the records of the life and words of Christ), did not exist. Several decades would pass before the first gospel would be written. It would be nearly the end of the first century before all four gospels would be written. Three hundred more years would pass before a decision would be made in the Church that there would only be four gospels (the Bishops of the Church did not canonize such writings as the gospels of Peter, Nicodemus, Thomas and James and other unnamed gospels). The Church determined that the four Gospels contained what had always been believed, passed on, "traditioned" from the beginning and that the others were deficient (having added things that had not been part of the deposit of the Faith from the beginning).

So, the books that are in the Holy Scriptures are there because God’s people, through those who were set aside as having the authority to make the decision, decided which books would be part of the Bible and which would not. The Church, as God’s people inspired by God, wrote the Bible. The Church produced the Bible – the Bible did not produce the Church.

The Holy Scriptures are the principle and most honored written record of God’s revelation to His people. The Holy Scriptures cannot be completely, truthfully understood unless they are understood within the context of the Church that produced them, that declared them to be what they are. So, the Bible is the book of the Church, the first source of the Christian tradition.

• The Liturgy of the Church

Liturgy comes from a Greek word meaning "common work." When we speak of the Liturgy of the Church it means the labor of the Church when it comes together to be the people of God and worship God. In the whole body of the Church’s common worship, in the entire body of the public prayer of the Church (the services for the various hours of the day, the various days of the week, the feast days of the Church, the seasons of the Church, the sacraments of the Church, etc.) we have a record of what the Church believes. The rule of faith, the standard of what we believe, is established by how we pray.

The best answer to the question, "What do you Orthodox believe?" is, "Come and see." Come and see what we do when we assemble together to be the Church in common worship of God. Anybody who exposes himself or herself intensely to the Church’s common worship will have a better course in Orthodox faith, doctrine and practice than any series of talks could give. And so, the Liturgy is the second source of Holy Tradition.

• Councils of the Church

A council is a meeting of those in the Church who have been given the authority to decide what is faithful to the tradition of the Church and what isn’t. The first council, described in the Holy Scripture, takes place in the Church of Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-29).

When Gentiles began converting to faith in Christ there was great debate among the Jewish believers regarding the question of whether or not the Gentile converts had to observe all the Jewish laws. The answer was not immediately obvious because Christ had not spoken to such a situation. As the ones who had been given by Jesus the authority in the Church to distinguish between what was true and what was not, the Apostles had to meet and had to decide what was to be done with the Gentiles who wanted to be part of the Church.

Not only did the Council of Jerusalem resolve the matter, but they also made it clear that the decision was not merely a human decision.

The Church makes very bold claims, astonishingly bold claims. She makes very bold claims because her head, Jesus Christ, makes very bold claims that must be faced, that cannot be ignored. For example, Jesus claimed to be God, to be equal with the Father. One’s response to that ultimate question from Jesus, "Who do you say that I am?" determines whether one will or will not be a Christian. There have been many councils that have met through the centuries of the Church’s life and they have decided many questions. We’ll be referring to them constantly in this series. The answers that they give to the questions that have to be resolved come in two forms – creeds and cannons.

• Creeds and Cannons

Creeds are statements of faith. In most of these talks we’ll be examining the most important of the Church’s statements of faith in the creeds, the Nicene Creed (written at the First Ecumenical Council, in the city of Nicea, in 325 A.D.). This is the creed that begins with the words, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…" There are many other creeds that are used that come from other councils and they are a source of the Church’s tradition.

The word cannon comes from the Greek word that means "rule," as in a ruler or a yardstick. The cannons measure what is to be normative in the practice of the Church. Cannons provides answers, for example, in matters of disciple in the Church, or morality. What is to be done when people in the Church fall into sin? How are they to be reconciled to the Church? What is to be done when there are disputes between two churches? The cannons of the Church are a body or rules, a body of norms, to regulate the discipline of the Church and their source is the councils.

• The Lives of the Saints and the Teaching of the Fathers

In every generation of the Church there have been those people who have lived the teachings of Christ faithfully, heroically – those who attained while living in this world the destiny for which, as Christians, we believe God has created us (to share His own life). The ultimate promise about the Christian revelation is that it is true. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Free from what? Free from error, free from sin, free from emptiness, free from death. Free for what? Free for something that is indescribably great – to partake in the life of God Himself, to be united with God, to have communion with God. Orthodox churches are filled with icons (images) of the saints from all the ages, the heroes of the Church. They are present in the Church, they are sources of the Church’s experience, to show the way to life, to show each one of us that, yes, it is possible to reach this destiny to which God calls us.

Within their ranks there is a group we call, "the fathers" (which includes many women). By a father of the Church we mean one who was wise in teaching or who defended the Church doctrine (often at the cost of his life or in great suffering). The writings of the fathers of the Church bear witness to the tradition of the Church. When the Church reads the writings of the great fathers (such as St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Athanasius the Great, St. Basil the Great or many others in every century of the Church’s life), we find in them faithful and true testimonies to what the Church has always believed and experienced about God.

• Church Art (iconography, music, architecture)

Some may be surprised that art would be included along with such exalted things as the Holy Scriptures and the Liturgy of the Church and the saints and the fathers. In the minds of some people art is a secondary thing, a decoration. But the Orthodox understanding of the nature of the human being and the way God has made us and the way He has revealed Himself to us is that material creation is very much involved, is essential. One could say that the Orthodox faith, the Orthodox experience, is a very holistic one. It involves the whole man. It involves the material creation. The entry of God into the material world, the taking by God to Himself of human flesh (the Incarnation – God becoming man, God becoming flesh, God becoming matter) is uniquely at the heart of what it is we understand to be Christian faith.

Art is the use of material things (matter) as the medium to be a reflection of the revelation of God. For the Orthodox art is very central to what we know of how God has revealed Himself to us. In an Orthodox Church building one is immediately surrounded with all sorts of things that appeal to the senses. These include: 1) iconography (the way in which holy images are portrayed in the Church); 2) Church music (the way our Church services are sung and the chants that are used in the Liturgical services of the Church are at the heart of our experience in the Church as the people of God); and 3) Church architecture (even the way a traditional Orthodox church is built is a visible testimony to the faith of the Church as it has been experienced throughout the ages).

And so, we have these basic sources of the Orthodox Christian tradition (a.k.a., "Holy Tradition"), what has been passed on from generation to generation of the faithful from Christ and the Apostles even to the present time.

• Holy Scriptures (the Bible – Old and New Testaments)
• The Liturgy of the Church
• Councils of the Church
• Creeds and Cannons
• The Lives of the Saints and the Teaching of the Fathers
• Church Art (iconography, music, architecture)

How are these sources used in the Church? All of them hold together in unity (one is never used in isolation from the other). Things cannot be taken out of their proper context (e.g., "Sola Scriptura") and properly understood. The Orthodox claim that all the problems, false teachings and misunderstandings that have occurred in 2000 years of Christian history have taken place because people, misguidedly, have taken one or the other source of Christian tradition, isolated it from everything else, and treated it as an independent unit. Rather, when all of these sources of tradition are accepted as the common fountain of the self-revelation of God, it is our faith that they will bring us to the life and destiny that God has prepared for man, to know Him who has offered us the Truth that will set us free.

In the next session we will turn our attention entirely to the Holy Scriptures in, "What We Believe About the Bible."

In the remaining sessions we will use the Nicene Creed as an outline for explaining Orthodox belief.

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried; And the third day He arose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets; And I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The martyr’s witness of St. Ignatius, second bishop of Antioch, at the beginning of the second century still burns brightly in Orthodoxy memory. St. Peter himself had founded the church in that great metropolis where "the disciples were called Christians first" (Acts 11:26). St. Ignatius’ witness in the early Apostolic church, and the touching reaction by the Christians of his time to that witness, proves helpful moreover in understanding what the "right glory" of Orthodoxy is all about.

Keenly aware that the Bishop of the trouble-making Christians now stood before him, unafraid and of his own free will, Trajan asked: "So you are a disciple of Him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate?" Ignatius calmly replied: "I am the disciple of Him who nailed my sin to the cross, and who trampled down the devil and his machinations." Having heard of the bishop’s reputation among the Christians, Trajan asked curiously: "Why do they call you the ‘God-bearer’"? "Because, within me, I bear the living Christ," Ignatius replied. As if to crush "the living Christ" Himself, the Emperor issued his brutal order to the guards: "Let him who bears the Crucified One be taken to Rome in chains and fed to the lions for the people’s entertainment."

Ignatius actually kissed the heavy chains with which the guards bound him, calling then his "most precious spiritual pearls," for they allowed him to follow the example of St. Paul. They were a sign, a precious ornament announcing to all that he was soon to gain that prize for which he longed above all earthly comforts: Christ Himself.

Dispatched on foot, Antioch’s God-bearing bishop was escorted by an unsympathetic Roman guard. We know from epistles he dispatched along the way that he deeply pondered the final bloody scene in the Roman arena where, in one last liturgy of glory, he would simultaneously be both the priest who was sacrificing, and the victim being sacrificed. He moreover expressed, in a letter sent ahead to the faithful in Rime, his burning desire to accomplish this final witness without hindrance. Strongly opposing any thoughts the Roman Christians might have about intervening, he pled with them: "Allow me to become an imitator of the passion of my God. […] Let me become the food of the beasts through whom it will be possible for me to find God. I am God’s wheat and the teeth of the beasts will grind me so that I may be found a pure loaf for Christ."

Asia Minor, through which the Roman guard escorted Ignatius, boasted many Christians, having been evangelized from the beginning by Paul and the other Apostles. As word spread that the God-bearing Bishop of Antioch, Ignatius, was on his way to Rome to witness in the arena, the faithful poured out to venerate the future martyr.

At Smyrna there was a particularly poignant meeting with Smyrna’s Bishop, Polycarp, his much younger fellow-disciple of John the Beloved. Polycarp had accompanied their master into banishment on Patmos two decades before. Now, very briefly, he could draw grace and strength from the witness of the older Ignatius. Many years hence and at past eighty years of age, Polycarp too would bear his own witness in the Roman arena at Smyrna where he would die on the pyre.

During the halt in Smyrna other neighboring bishops also came there to meet Ignatius and seek his blessing. Antioch’s God-bearer left Smyrna for Rome, it is said, not as one condemned to death, but as an athlete on his way to win a coveted prize.

Yet the "right glory" emanating from Ignatius seemed even more abundant once his martyrdom was complete. Christians in Rome piously heeded his admonishments not to interfere, allowing him to become "food for the beasts" and "a pure loaf for Christ." After assisting at his final liturgy to the glory of God, however, they did slip surreptitiously into the arena and gathered up a few large bones left by the beasts, wrapping them in fine cloth as martyr’s relics and piously dispatching them back to the faithful in Antioch.

St. Ignatius’ relics thus retraced the route he himself had made so shortly before, bound by his "most precious spiritual pearls." At their passage they were greeted with an even greater triumph than that greeting in martyr’s chains. Were these relics not tangible proof of the victory of the resurrected Christ who had conquered natural frailty in Ignatius’ flesh and blood? By the power of God he had won the prize he coveted.

Venerating his relics with love and awe, the faithful accepted miracles and wonders emanating from them as something natural and not at all surprising or extraordinary. In the primitive church, as in the Orthodox Church today, miracles and wonders emanating from relics were understood as quiet confirmations of the "right glory" of God at work within the mystery of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Mystery of the Church, p. 75-79
William Bush
ISBN 0-9649141-7-4
Regina Orthodox Press, 1999