EPILOGUE
I will close my attempt to reply to the fundamental questions that were posed in the beginning, by returning to the Protestant booklet that gave rise to this commentary.
The purpose of the book (as mentioned in the Prologue) was to show “on the basis of God’s written word and Ecclesiastic History” (remember this mention of Ecclesiastic History) that “the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church does not originate from Christ or the Apostles, but is human-made and of a much later date. And most importantly, it opposes the Holy Bible and is consequently detrimental to the souls that believe in it.”
In the Prologue we are also warned that for historical issues, it refers us to the book ‘Ecclesiastic History’ by Stefanides. This is an interesting point, because –as we saw- Protestants are not too comfortable with the lessons of Ecclesiastic History. In the best of circumstances, they read it selectively.
It is also interesting, that in another edition of this group, they do not deny the historical testimony that the Canon of the Holy Bible was validated by the Church of the 4th century.
So, we ask them: Isn’t it at least logical that they accept the fact that that Church was indeed “the pillar and the foundation of the truth”? (Timothy I,3:15) How else would the Canon on the books of the Bible be correct? How therefore is it possible, that the teaching of those Pentecostals has nothing to do with the faith of that Church?
Quite simple: Because they never comprehended that which the deceased father Justin Popovic had clearly proclaimed: that the Tradition of the Orthodox Church could never relate to voluntary religions, warrants and teachings of humans, since, for the Orthodox, “Tradition is the ever-living Divine-Human Christ, Who is ever-present in the Divine-Human Body of the Church.” (Orthodox Church and Ecumenism, Greek edition: 88-89).
File created: 10-9-2005.
Last update: 10-9-2005.