From the Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsy's lecture at the 22nd Annual Fr. Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture, "Orthodox Today: Tradition or Traditionalism?," given 30 January 2005:
A central affirmation of Orthodoxy is faithfulness to Tradition. This is true in every setting and context. Orthodox Churches and Orthodox Christians in the various "new worlds" of Orthodoxy in Western Europe, North and South America, and Australia are as committed to Tradition as are the Orthodox in the historic centers of Orthodoxy in Europe and the Middle East. The common ground between those who are born and raised in Orthodox families and communities and those who convert to the Orthodox faith is adherence to Tradition. Tradition is also the common ground on which Orthodox Christians of today stand with Orthodox Christians who lived in preceding centuries. . . .Posted by Clifton at February 6, 2005 09:43 AM | TrackBackOrthodox Tradition’s role in the life of the Church is primarily the Holy Spirit’s witness to Christ. As a sign and expression of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, Tradition gives to us freedom in Christ’s Truth. It liberates Orthodox Christians from ideological or intellectual or spiritual captivity. It equips us as Orthodox Christians to resist co-optation by any narrow perspective, way of life, or ideology. It gives the freedom to engage some philosophies and world views in dialogue, to identify the poison contained in some world views, and to acquire learning and knowledge in order to bring this knowledge to the service of the Gospel. . . .
The great and insidious enemy of Truth and Tradition is reductionism. This is so because in the reductionist mode it is easy to take a truth, an element or dimension of Tradition, and give them such an emphasis that the wholeness, the catholicity, of Truth and Tradition are violated and diminished. This style of Orthodoxy offers the possibility to be totally self-assured of one’s radical adherence to Truth and Tradition, while in reality acquiescing in a partial and distorted Tradition.
The temptation to reductionism is acute in the world today. We see it in political life. We see it in academic life. We see it in religious life. It is certainly present in the Christian world. Orthodox are sometimes insightful in debunking the various secular reductionisms. We are less perceptive in noting the reductionisms to which we ourselves are inclined, the simplifications into which we ourselves so easily fall. . . .
The living Tradition unites us with those who went before us in the community of the Orthodox faith. It unites us with one another in fidelity to the apostolic faith. And it orients us towards God’s future, as we follow Christ. And our fidelity to Tradition protects us from the dead ends and idolatries of liberalism and traditionalism through the gift of freedom in Christ’s Truth.
The aphorism of Professor Jaroslav Pelikan, found in his five-volume history under the title The Christian Tradition, is a vivid image of the Tradition/traditionalism polarity, offering us a challenge and criterion for life in the spirit of the Orthodox Tradition: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”
cparks posted a link to "Limits of the Church" in the below blog (http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/who/crete-01-e.html).
First, let me say how disappointed I am in a few Traditional Christians like ourselves increasing traffic at the World Council of Confusion (I only half jest ;).
My first impressions of this article essay: First, I am a bit surprised by what appears to me to be a serious lack of consensus and theological grappling in the last few hundred years with this issue. The meat of what Florovsky says the Church says about this issue is from St. Cyprian and the Blessed Augustine. I expected more later development.
Second, It would appear to me that Augustine's theology can really only apply to "close" schism - to a Church that has split off over a single or restricted group of issues. Augustine assumes that the sacramental life of the schismed Church is in fact the same as the Orthodox Church. Fast forward 1500 years. What does the "sacramental life" of most protestant churches have to do with the Church's? Very little, as far as I can tell. The Episcopalian’s are now crypto Unitarians. To talk about the "validity" of Episcopalian sacraments is to stretch the meaning of sacraments beyond anything Augustine could have imagined, IMO.
Augustine theology seems to give us a way back from Schism - a way to heal a division when there has been a real repentance on the part of the schismed Church. I can see it applying to a real healing of the Great Schism between the Church and Rome.
It seems inadequate (IMO) to the protestant situation. I think that final statement by Met. Philaret, while of course a profound affirmation of Faith in the work of the Spirit (and for us to not be anxious), and a sign of just how silent modern Orthodoxy is on the limits of the Church...