This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The Seventh Sunday of Pentecost: The Sunday of the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council

Today at Divine Liturgy, we commemorated the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council who gave us the Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon

Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.

I think it very simple for us in the West, considering it was St. Leo's letter that in large part fought for and preserved the apostolic understanding of the Person of Christ: if you don't believe this, you are not in line with Christian belief.

The trick is to put the rest of our beliefs in line with this one.

Theotokos: If you believe Chalcedon, you believe in the Incarnation, and if you believe in the Incarnation, you must believe that Mary was, indeed, the Mother of God, not just the mother of his humanity.

Sacraments: If you believe Chalcedon, you believe in the Incarnation, and if you believe in the Incarnation, you must believe in the reality and efficacy of the Mysteries of the Church

Sacred Scripture: If you believe Chalcedon, you believe in the Incarnation, and if you believe in the Incarnation, you must believe in the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, for they derive their being and force from Him who is both the Word of God and the key to their understanding.

Holy Church: If you believe Chalcedon, you believe in the Incarnation, and if you believe in the Incarnation, you must believe that the Holy Church is not some merely spiritual fraternity, but is an entity with flesh and blood and a history, and that this Holy Church is both human and divine, with the authority to forgive sins and to guard and keep the Faith once for all delivered to the saints.

In the Christian Faith, you cannot select your beliefs a la buffet-style theology. It's a whole cloth matter. If one piece is missing, the remainder will find itself skewing off into heresy unless corrected. Neither can you add to the cloth, for once again, the result is a certain imbalance. Holy Orthodoxy has been criticized by what some claim to be its too-great focus on the past. But Orthodoxy has maintained the Faith whole and entire, and brings that Faith, without change, into the present. It is the standard and the standard-bearer. Thanks be to God.