Orthodox Reflections

Part VIII of the Western Series

How Western Beliefs Changed the Original Gospel Message

 … The Great Schism and the Protestant Reformation …

Irene Polidoulis MD

with the blessing of her spiritual father

Schism with the East

The Byzantine Empire enjoyed a brilliant historical period between the 9^th and 11^th centuries. Constantinople dominated the Mediterranean world with wealth, culture and artistic achievement. In the West, however, the Dark Ages set in with ignorance, immorality and degradation. As a result, Pope Leo IX (1048-1054 A.D.) started a reform movement to strengthen the Western church. He insisted on the filioque clause, bolstered the authority of the Popes, and enforced celibacy (no marriage) for the clergy. He even took over Southern Italy & Sicily (which were part of Constantinople’s Patriarchal see) by removing Eastern clergy and closing those churches which did not conform to his demands.¹

The population of the Byzantine Empire in 1054 A.D. was around 20 million to 21 million, with Kievan Rus numbering an additional 5- 8 million. The estimated total population of Western Europe at the time was approximately 23 million people. The Great Schism effectively cut the global Christian population into two roughly equal parts, but with material wealth highly concentrated in the East. 

The Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, protested to all this, and responded by closing Latin churches and Latin monasteries in the East. Then, Pope Leo IX sent a letter to Patriarch Michael Cerularius and to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos, demanding submission to him alone. Papal supremacy, which had taken over in the West, was now being imposed upon the entire Church. The Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch responded to these demands by sending a moderate response to the Pope, trying to preserve harmony between the two sides. Pope Leo interpreted the reply as arrogant and sent three delegates to Constantinople with another letter, in which he again asserted total supremacy, insisting upon complete obedience to his demands.¹

 While the three delegates were in Constantinople, the Normans invaded Rome and imprisoned Pope Leo IX who died in 1054 A.D. All actions should have been suspended until a new Pope was chosen, but the three delegates persisted for months. When the Patriarch did not give in, the delegates entered the Church of St. Sophia, and interrupting the Divine Liturgy, deposited the Bull (Decree) of Excommunication on the Holy Altar table, excommunicating the entire Eastern Church. It read,

…Michael [Cerularius] and his followers, along with all the heretics, guilty of the above-mentioned errors and insolences, together with the devil and his angels shall be considered anathema [cut off from the Church].¹

A few days later, Patriarch Michael called a Synod in Constantinople, where the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch excommunicated the three delegates. The year was 1054 AD. From this point on, the Western Church became known as the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Church as the Eastern Orthodox Church. At first, this schism seemed to be one of many misunderstandings that had occurred in the past because of emerging differences between East and West due to the shift in language, culture and mindset. It seemed to be a local issue that would eventually blow over, as previous disagreements had also done;²  but as time went on, differences and offences continued to arise between the two sides which drove them even further apart. The most important of these was the Crusades, particularly the Fourth Crusade.¹

The Fourth Crusade

Pope Urban II was the first Pope to raise an army. During the latter part of the 11^th century, he promoted the First Crusade to free the Holy Lands from the Arabs. To reach the Holy Land, the Crusaders had to travel through the East, but wherever they encountered Eastern clergy, they treated them as heretics, removed them from their churches and replaced them with Latin clergy. They made every attempt possible to forcibly Latinize the East. Three more crusades followed which treated the East in a similar fashion, but the last of these, the Fourth Crusade of 1204 A.D., was by far the worst.¹

At that time, an ambitious and foolish Byzantine prince promised money and more soldiers to the crusaders, if on their way to Palestine, they came to Constantinople and helped him take the Byzantine throne. Without consulting the Orthodox Church, he also promised the Eastern Church’s full submission to the Pope. After the crusaders arrived, his inability to make good on any of his promises resulted in one of the worst disasters of Christian history. On Good Friday, the crusaders invaded Constantinople, killing, raping, destroying and sacking the city for three days, profaning and looting monasteries, convents, hospitals and orphanages.  Countless irreplaceable treasures of ancient and Christian art and learning were destroyed or lost, including some of the greatest masterpieces of church articles, books and iconography, many of which reappeared in the Vatican Museum, where they remain on display to this day.³

The invasion spread and the invaders, who occupied Constantinople for 57 years, also replaced the Orthodox Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem with Latin Bishops. The Patriarchs, clergy and people who did not submit to Papal supremacy and Roman Catholic beliefs fled in what is known as the Byzantine Exile. At first, Pope Innocent III was horrified by the 4^th crusade, but later he accepted the disaster because the crusaders elected a Latin “emperor” and a Latin Bishop as “patriarch,” who recognized Papal Supremacy. Pope Innocent III sent a letter to the new Byzantine leader, Theodore Lascaris, stating that although he did not justify the violence of the crusaders, he declared their actions were “a tool of Divine Providence” in punishing the Greeks for their refusal to accept the Papal See and that now they would be wise to become obedient subjects to the Pope.³

The Great Schism of 1054 A.D. could have been solved as previous disagreements had been. However, the Sack of Constantinople by the 4th Crusade set the divisions in concrete. How can you rebuild trust after such a betrayal?

The exiled Byzantines settled in Nicaea, in modern day Turkey, where they regrouped and formed the new Nicaean Empire. This empire grew and eventually recaptured Constantinople in 1261 A.D., restoring the Orthodox Patriarchs and clergy to Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem.³

The Fourth Crusade was considered an act of war against the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as the Byzantine Empire, thrusting even deeper the wedge of schism between the Western and Eastern churches. The sack of Constantinople instigated the decline of the Byzantine Empire and was a major blow to Roman Catholic West and Orthodox East relations. A contemporary Byzantine scholar writes the following:

 The harm done by the Crusades to Islam (in the Holy Land) was small in comparison with that done by them to Eastern Christendom. Pope Urban II had bidden the Crusaders go forth so that the Christians of the East might be helped and rescued. It was a strange rescue; for when the work was over, Eastern Christendom lay under infidel (Islamic) domination and the Crusaders themselves had done all that they could to prevent its recovery.¹  (Steven Runciman)

In 1261 A.D., after the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople under the leadership of Emperor Michael VIII Paleologus, the Orthodox clergy were restored to the Eastern churches, but a weakened Byzantium needed a strong military ally to ward off the menacing Ottoman Turks. This resulted in numerous attempts to reunite East and West, but these all failed because the West insisted on a union based on total submission to the Pope of Rome.¹

The most famous attempt at reunion was the 1439 Council of Florence-Ferrara, where, in desperation for military and financial assistance, all Eastern delegates signed their submission to Papal demands, except for one man. This was Markos Eugenicus, Archbishop of Ephesus, along with seven others. He refused to sign in defense of the Orthodox Faith and on the grounds that the Latins were not just schismatics, * but also heretics. ** When Pope Eugenius IV heard that Mark had not signed, he said, “if Mark has not signed, we have accomplished nothing!” ³

As we mentioned previously, in Orthodoxy, Christ (not a Pope) is the Head of the Church; and His followers, both clergy and laity, form the body of the Church. Since Christ is infallible, the body of the Church is the carrier of that infallibility, where the Holy Spirit protects the Church from making error.⁴ Although a union had been signed by Orthodox hierarchs to submit to Rome, it needed to be ratified by the laity to be rendered the infallible decision of the whole Church. When the delegation returned to the port of Constantinople, the people were so upset at them for betraying Orthodoxy, that they refused to allow the ships to dock and threw coins at the delegates trapped in the boats, to shame them for “selling off” the Faith for monetary support. The delegates had to recant their signatures before they were permitted to dock. The people said they preferred the Ottoman yoke to betraying their Orthodox Faith to a Papacy in which they did not believe and could not trust. This is an excellent example that shows how the highest authority in the Orthodox Church is not the hierarchy, but the “Conscience of the Church.” This amounts to the agreement and consent of all the faithful, both clergy and lay persons together.

Fourteen years later, on May 29^th, 1453, Byzantium succumbed to Sultan Muhammed II (Mehmet). Because of the Latin crusades in Muslim occupied territories, the 400 years of Ottoman occupation and slavery that followed, carried with it an intensified Muslim hatred of Christianity. Many Orthodox people were killed by the Ottoman Turks, as martyrs for their faith, but even the Turkish conquest did not destroy the Orthodox faith and ethnic feeling the Greeks possessed. Significantly enough, it was the Church which preserved the spirit and desire for autonomy and liberation through the long centuries of oppression, and supported the Greek War of Independence of 1821.³

Scroll Down to Continue

Schism Within the West

Shortly after the Great Schism, the Roman Catholic church underwent a period of immense turmoil. The struggle for power was so great that sometimes there were simultaneously two and even three contending Popes in Western Europe. Separated from the original teachings of the early Church by a complete abuse of power, the Latin church underwent changes in dogma, tradition and liturgy.¹ A Protestant theologian describes this period as follows:

The leaders of the Church, the Papal court, and the clergy…devoted themselves to their own interests with the result that…selfishness, love of luxury, nepotism, simony and immorality had become the marks of the Church.⁵    (J. Leslie Dunstan)                                       

During the 15^th and 16^th centuries, certain Western European faithful began to protest the Roman Catholic Church’s oppression, injustices and corruption. This led to the Protestant Reformation whose main causes were the following:

1. Taxes

The Church of Rome had gained much land which it governed using the Feudal System, and which it protected with battle campaigns that needed large sums of money. This money came from taxes imposed by the Popes on all Christian provinces of the West, to support the Papal Treasury. The Popes even took control of government offices and ownership titles, becoming political, as well as spiritual leaders.¹ To this day, the Vatican collects a “donation” from all Roman Catholic Churches worldwide and has been operating a private bank since 1942.⁶

2. Indulgences & The Treasury of Merits

The early Church, both East and West, sometimes imposed disciplinary measures, or penances, upon sinners. Penances, which were discussed in Part IV, were types of spiritual exercises that were meant to foster humility through obedience, and to help progress the spiritual growth of a remorseful sinner by means of readings, prayers, good works, and so on. Sinners were restored to the full grace in the life of the Church after Repentance, Holy Confession and sometimes fulfilment of penances. In The Ladder of Divine Ascent, written about 600 AD, St. John Climacus provides an excellent explanation of the Orthodox viewpoint on penances that sometimes involved abstaining from Holy Communion.¹

In addition to penances, the Western church also began requesting money as part of the penance. If sinners paid sufficient money, they were given an Indulgence, which was a paper certificate, like a receipt or proof of purchase, to show that they had received forgiveness for their sins from the Treasury of Merits. The Western church began exercising Indulgences as early as 1095 with Pope Urban II, who gave a “plenary” Indulgence (“full” forgiveness) to those who participated in the Crusades. To help raise money for the Papal treasury, Western theologians later extended the concept of Indulgences to those who supported the Crusades and other causes of the Roman Catholic church with cash contributions.

The Treasury of Merits was a type of spiritual bank account of “excess grace.” This reservoir of “surplus grace” was said to come from the outpouring of Jesus’ Blood on the Cross and from the additional virtues and sacrifices of the saints and martyrs, which “exceeded” the basic virtues or merits they needed for their own salvation. The concept of “excess grace” emerged from the legalistic idea that only a specific minimum amount of virtue or good works was needed for one’s salvation. The “extra” virtue, good works or “merits” of Christ and the saints could be “banked” in a Treasury of Merits, and “bought” by sinners as a “donation” to the church in exchange for forgiveness.¹

The Papal theory of the Petrine Promise supported this practice. If St. Peter was Christ’s representative on Earth and the dispenser of the surplus grace in the Treasury of Merits, then it followed that each Pope after St. Peter would also become the guardian and dispenser of grace in the Treasury of Merits.  This practice took hold despite Christ’s words, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). At first, the West could get away with this type of simony because the Bible was written and read only in Latin, which the common people could not read or understand.¹

During the medieval period, purchasing an Indulgence was considered a good work, as the “donation” supported the church. This legalistic mindset, which stressed works over grace, eventually led to the abuse of almsgiving through the sale of Indulgences. In the extreme situation, forgiveness for sins was “sold” in proportion to the “amount” of excess grace “granted,” such that one could buy their way out of Purgatory or even secure a pardon for future sins.

As was explained previously, in Orthodoxy, no amount of virtue or good works can save anyone. Therefore, there cannot be a “minimum” amount of virtue or good works that will “suffice” for anyone’s salvation. Just being a good “person” is not enough, for in the eyes of God, no one is even “good.”  Jesus said … “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God” (Mark 10:18). By saying this, Jesus was not saying that He was not good; rather, He was challenging the ruler’s understanding of who He truly was.  Since no one, save God, is “good,” let alone “good enough,” salvation requires the sacrament of Repentance and Holy Confession combined with God’s forgiving grace. This requirement is found in Holy Scripture (see Part IV). Since we are all sinners, people do not go to hell because they sin or because they do more bad deeds than good deeds, but because they do not repent.¹

As was mentioned in Part VI, our salvation requires the synergy of faith in Jesus Christ, good works as an expression of our faith (these two prerequisites involve human freedom or will), and God’s forgiving grace, which completes the triad. Without God’s grace, we cannot accomplish anything on our own. In the Orthodox Church, the Sacrament of Repentance and Holy Confession is considered a good work in itself. The Orthodox prayer of absolution recited by the priest or bishop at the end of Holy Confession, asks God to forgive the penitent of all their sins, including those committed knowingly and unknowingly, in thought, in word, in deed, in weakness, and those sins the penitent failed to say during Holy Confession, whether through ignorance or forgetfulness. This, of course, presupposes genuine repentance of those sins the penitent does remember and for which they feel genuine contrition. To willfully withhold known sins during the Sacrament of Confession is itself a grave sin.

3. Purgatory

The Western Church created Purgatory in 1274 A.D., as an intermediary period between death and the Final Judgment. According to this teaching, after death, the souls of sinners pass through a ‘cleansing by fire’ in a place called Purgatory. The length of time spent in Purgatory was determined by the number and seriousness of their sins. Indulgences were believed to lessen the severity of this punishment and the time spent in Purgatory. Western Christians became convinced that their sins would be forgiven by their repentance along with “donations” through the authority invested in the Pope by Christ. Because of these Indulgences, the sinner would spend less time in Purgatory after his death.¹ By the Middle Ages, the practice of Indulgences became widely abused, leading to theological corruption and scandal.

The Orthodox Church does not believe in a Treasury of Merits, Indulgences or Purgatory. As explained previously, in Orthodoxy, forgiveness is not granted by the clergy, nor is it acquired through “donations” or the purchase of Indulgences. Forgiveness is free and comes from God alone, because of our genuine repentance and our face-to-face Sacramental Confession of sins in the presence of a Priest or Bishop. If penances are prescribed, it is for the spiritual growth of the individual. Penance and good works have nothing to do with the ‘merits’ of Christ and the saints. Neither merit nor guilt can be passed on from one person to another, and penance is not a way of “earning” spiritual forgiveness, which is free and a gift from God. It is unacceptable to give an Orthodox Priest money at the time of Holy Confession, which has never been practised in the Orthodox Church.^{7, 8, 9}  The Orthodox Church maintains that Jesus’ death and the outpouring of Jesus’ Blood on the Cross healed Humanity*** and reconciled us to God, bringing us to His heavenly Kingdom. Since Man*** still had the capacity to sin, however, Christ founded the Church, through which Man could remain in God’s grace by participating in the Holy Sacraments.¹

 According to Orthodox theology there is an intermediary stage between death and the Final Judgment. This is not a stage of cleansing or suffering by fire, but a waiting period, which gives the soul a foretaste of its future. After death, those who lived according to God’s will, begin to partially share in the joy of God’s Heavenly Kingdom, while those who lived contrary to God’s will, begin to partially experience the loneliness and alienation from God’s grace that they would experience more fully in Hell. This was beautifully explained by Christ in the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). People must repent and be forgiven in their current lifetime because there is no cleansing or “purging” of sins afterwards. Only the Blood of Christ can cleanse us of our sins with our repentance and participation in the Sacrament of Holy Confession. Eternal life or eternal punishment will be experienced in its fullness after the Final Judgment and Resurrection of all. By the 17^th century, the sale of Indulgences was gradually eliminated in the Roman Catholic church, and evolved into a more pastoral form of penance, designed to spiritually edify the penitent; but the dogma of Purgatory has remained. ⁵

4. The Quest for More Power

In the 15^th and 16^th centuries, Papal taxation, corruption and changes in dogma, became unacceptable to many Western European faithful. They began to protest the Roman Catholic church’s oppression, injustices and the cruel and wrongful way the Pope and his church used to gain more power and followers. Instead of addressing the concerns of the Reformers, the Roman Catholic church responded by giving the Pope even greater power and elevating him to ‘Vicar of Christ’. As a result, many dissatisfied Roman Catholics joined various Protestant groups. By the end of the 16^th century, much of Europe was involved in controversy and war, as the Roman Catholic church struggled to forcibly subdue the Reformers by resorting to imprisonment and even burning at the stake for heresy.⁵

In their efforts to reform the abuses of the Popes, the well-intentioned Protestant Reformers cast out traditional teachings and introduced new ones. Martin Luther broke with Rome, denounced the Papacy, the Ecumenical Councils and the Patristic Fathers. Huldrych Zwingli radically and indiscriminately removed age-old and time-tested worship practices and teachings of the early Church. John Calvin changed the Eucharist from being the focus of weekly worship to an occasional memorial service. He wanted a more democratic church, but became more autocratic than the Popes by ruthlessly putting to death those who opposed him. By casting Holy Tradition aside, anyone could now reform the church according to his personal interpretation and understanding. The Protestant Reformation brought such confusion to Western Christianity that groups began to separate from one another at a fast pace with no single official “Protestant” Dogma.¹

While these power struggles raged within and amongst those in the West, the crumbling Byzantine Empire in the East struggled for survival, staving off but finally succumbing to Ottoman rule in 1453 A.D. Enslaved, isolated and persecuted, the Eastern Orthodox Church could not properly missionize to the West with Orthodox Catechism, to offer the Reformers an alternative  to Rome. In the 1570’s, several decades after Martin Luther’s death, his followers corresponded with Patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople, hoping to find doctrinal agreement with the Orthodox Church. These hopes were based on their understanding that Orthodoxy represented an earlier and purer form of Christianity.

The dialogue failed as the Orthodox rejected the Lutherans’ views on justification by faith alone (sole fide) (see Part VI), the filioque (that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son) (see Part VII), and that the human will came “under a harsh necessity of committing sin” (see Part VI). Although both the Orthodox and the Lutherans disagreed with Roman Catholicism, they also disagreed on what was wrong with Roman Catholicism.⁵  This group of Lutherans may have been more interested in justifying their Protestant views than learning the ancient truths. From the Orthodox perspective, although the Reformers had succeeded in freeing themselves from Medieval Papal despotism, they failed to shed some of the Papal heresies that had led to it, and in the process, they also rejected Holy Tradition, which led to more heresy.

Action and Over-Reaction

From the author’s point of view, one of fundamental problems in the West was the underlying mindset of Roman Legalism. Even from pre-Christian times, Roman Legalism cultivated the idea of a juridical form of justice, often portrayed as a weighing out of works on “a set of scales,” held by an often-blindfolded judge. This imagery implied that justice was devoid of bias (but also devoid of love and mercy), relying solely on the tipping of the scales, for its execution. The extent of this legalism likely reached its peak within Roman Catholicism towards the end of the Medieval Period (5^th – 15^th centuries) alongside the Papal abuses and the start of the Protestant Reformation.

Despite breaking away from the despotism of Medieval Roman Papacy, the Protestant Reformers did not entirely shed Rome’s underlying legalistic mindset. Although they rejected Purgatory, they exchanged Papal Indulgences and the Treasury of Merits for another legalistic idea called Forensic Justification. According to this idea, God acts as a judge who arbitrarily declares a person righteous, without making him internally righteous. It is like being declared innocent in court without being truly innocent. According to this tenet, God credits Christ’s righteousness to the believer, who is now considered righteous because of Christ’s perfect life and atoning death. For example,

A young man breaks the law and goes to jail. The young man’s older brother has compassion on him and persuades the judge to let him, the older brother, serve his younger brother’s jail sentence. The judge does not care one way or another, provided “the price is paid by someone,” so he agrees, and allows the older brother to take the place of his younger sibling.

In this example, the younger brother represents Humanity, and the older brother represents Jesus. The older brother’s sacrifice does not fundamentally change the younger brother by making him innocent, nor does it transform him by making him a better person; but by atoning for his younger brother, the older brother has credited his own innocence to his younger brother to spare the latter from serving a jail sentence.

This type of “credit” by “forensic justification” is similar in mindset to the Roman Catholic “indulgence” from a “treasury of merits.” The only difference is that a Roman Catholic “Indulgence” from a “Treasury of Merits,” is purchased, while the Protestant “credit” by means of “forensic justification,” is not purchased. Because Forensic Justification “saves” a person from jail (hell) without transforming or fundamentally changing them, it renders most Sacraments, including Holy Confession, unnecessary, and it is closely tied to the idea of “once saved, always saved.” It is also closely tied to the idea of faith alone (sole fide). If faith alone is needed to be forensically justified, good works are not needed either. Salvation becomes a “jail free gift card” from God, received by faith alone, and has nothing to do with an individual’s efforts towards their sanctification or personal holiness. This type of legal justification does not involve personal transformation, which in the Orthodox Church is necessary if we are to progress from God’s image to His likeness and Theosis in His Heavenly Kingdom.

In short, because the Latin West’s legalistic emphasis of works over grace led to indulgences and the treasury of spiritual merits, many Protestants rejected this imbalance, by creating an opposite, but equally juridical imbalance, which emphasized faith over works.¹ As explained in Part V, Orthodoxy stresses none of these components on their own, but the salvific synergy of God’s grace, together with our faith and our good works while living a sacramental and liturgical life that sanctifies and transforms us, to progress us from God’s image to His likeness.

This transformative sanctification towards Theosis or Deification, begins in this life and continues into the next, where we unite with God in divine joy, to share with Him His infinite grace and glory. According to the Orthodox faith, this happens when we faithfully follow our God-given Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Our transformation and our salvation take place inexplicably, mystically, beyond our human comprehension, without the need for human fabrications such as purgatory, indulgences, storehouses of merit, or predestination. How God will accomplish our Theosis is a Mystery, and is beyond the reach of Roman Legalism, Protestant Forensic Justification, excessive Western Scholasticism or any other type of human logic. Legalism of any kind relies too much on the logic of the human mind, and not enough on the transformation of the soul through the practise of Love and Humility – the frequency in which God works. Relying too much on our human logic is like telling God that our wisdom is greater than His Wisdom.

The Wisdom of the Orthodox East, on the other hand, has traditionally been the Wisdom of God, which He revealed to us through Holy Scripture and through prayer and Mysticism. Mysticism is the doctrine that God’s Truth may be known through spiritual insight, independently of the mind’s logic. This Truth is revealed by God to the human soul; but just like we must test the spirits to ensure that they are from God and not from the devil, in like manner must we test our spiritual “intuition” before adopting it as a revealed Truth. It is necessary to always use caution with prayer, and to avoid getting caught up in a frenzy of excitement, especially an excitement for change. The main purpose of our caution and prayer is to help along our transformation through love and humility. Mystical experiences should not be our focus or primary goal.

To the Orthodox, the Protestant Reformers rightly protested the abuses of the Roman Catholic church. Their rejection of Indulgences, the Treasury of Merits, and Purgatory were correct, as was their rejection of Papal Infallibility and Supremacy. Unfortunately, they also rejected Holy Tradition on the grounds that the latter had given rise to the former; and along with Holy Tradition, most of the Sacraments such as Holy Confession (John 20:21-23), Baptism (Matthew 28:19), Holy Communion (Matthew 26:26-28, & 16:19, Mark 14:22-26, Luke 22:14-20, John 6:22-59, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26), and Ordination (Acts 6:6 & 1:15-26 & 14:23) through Apostolic Succession (Acts 1: 15-26, 1 Timothy 1:6 & 4:14). Needless to say, Mysticism was also lost.

The end result was that the Protestant Reformers not only broke with Rome, but also with the original Ancient Church of Christ and His Apostles. Rather than conducting a proper search of historical and divine truths, they adopted new theological extremes that continue to create disagreements and more divisions. While every Protestant sect claims inspiration from the same Holy Spirit of Truth in their individual interpretations of ‘sola scriptura,’ one should note that centuries before the Protestant Reformation, the Holy Spirit of Truth baptized by Fire approximately 70 followers of Jesus in the Upper Room – the fledgling Church – which grew to 3,000 on the Day of Pentecost. This day marked the birthday of the Orthodox Church and the beginning of the Life of the Holy Spirit within Her, guiding, illuminating, clarifying, instructing, edifying, and preserving the Truth as the Church grew. This is why the early Church Fathers had one unified interpretation of Holy Scripture, and why they were able to compile the New Testament, which did not fall out of the sky, because it, too, is the product of (reformer-rejected) Holy Tradition.

This summarizes how, much of Western Christianity completely lost its ancient Apostolic identity and did not begin to find it again until recently, during the 19^th century, when Orthodoxy, finally freed from the Ottoman Yoke, began coming to the shores of North America, and the West began wondrously discovering the East, as if for the first time.

To be continued with Part IX – Reactionary Reform Rejects Holy Tradition… 

Footnotes

• In Orthodox tradition, schism is a break in unity. A schismatic is someone who has separated from the unity of the Church and is no longer in canonical communion with it. This separation is often viewed as a grave sin of disobedience. Although schism may lead to heresy, it is not the same as heresy, for schism does not involve a denial of fundamental doctrines. A schismatic is either a person who incites separation from the unity of the Church, or a member of a group that has broken away from Orthodox communion.

** According to Orthodox definition, heresy is not a mere intellectual error but a spiritual one that lacks the inner enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Heresy threatens salvation by leading to a corrupted vision of Christ and His Truth. The term “heretic” comes from a Greek word meaning “able to choose,” highlighting the willful nature of the deviation from Orthodox teaching. Hence, a heretic is a “distorter of the faith” and revealed truth, rather than simply a factious (schismatic) person. A heretic actively chooses to hold and promote beliefs that are contrary to the essential, defined dogmas of the Orthodox Church. Spreading heresy is considered a serious offense and a greater sin than murder. Whereas murder only harms the mortal body, heresy is an attack on the eternal soul because it distorts the divine teachings passed down through the Church, which is the vessel of salvation. One is officially deemed a heretic after he has been corrected and continues to persist in his false beliefs.

*** The terms Man, Humanity are used interchangeably and in the plural sense to mean both the masculine and the feminine together. The terms he, him, his also denote the singular feminine unless otherwise stated in the text. These terms will be used in this manner throughout all Parts of this Series.

References

5. George Nicozisin, The Orthodox Church: A Well-Kept Secret, A Journey Through Church History, pg. 60-68, 73-74, 92-95, 108, 210
6. “The Great Schism: The Estrangement of Eastern and Western Christendom,” accessed August 12, 2018, http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/greatschism.aspx
7. George Nicozisin, A History of the Church – Book 3, 1969, p 43-50, 99-101
8. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, The Basic Sources of the Teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church https://www.goarch.org/-/the-basic-sources-of-the-teachings-of-the-eastern-orthodox-church
9. Constantine Mathews, Eastern Orthodoxy Compared: Her Main Teachings and Significant Differences with Roman Catholicism and the Major Protestant Denominations 2006, pg. 69, 59-60, 69-71
10. Tim Parker, The Secret Finances of the Vatican Economy, updated and fact checked November 07, 2024 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/030613/secret-finances-vatican-economy.asp
11. Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Toronto (Canada), Repentance and Confession, https://www.gometropolis.org/orthodox-faith/church-and-sacraments/repentance-and-confession/
12. The Orthodox Faith – Volume II – Worship – The Sacraments – Penance, https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-sacraments/penance
13. Orthodox Church in America, Confessing in the Presence of a Priest – Questions & Answers, accessed April 10, 2019 https://oca.org/questions/sacramentconfession/confessing-in-the-presence-of-a-Priest