Frederica Mathewes-Green has written a little meditative book which is kind of an inter-sectarian apologetic, that is it is aimed at the Roman and Protestant Christians explaining and sharing with them some of the differences between those (largely more familiar traditions to the Western audience) and the older traditions of the Orthodox church. And there are some key insights here that indicate it might be good encourage inter-sectarian/ecumenical sharing between the Western traditions and East. Let me try to explain one of the key items them she highlights.
The Orthodox church has had less change in their beliefs and traditions from the early church, perhaps because after the schism they didn’t have the authority to make change. So they held to and refined what they had, but did not make any large doctrinal shifts in emphasis or method. Their traditions were a little different coming from the Eastern/Greek half of the Roman Empire’s split not the West.
Roman and Protestant traditions, highlight their differences, which often key on atonement and justification. In the Early church, justification (by faith vs works etc) was not such an important thing. Why? Well, it seems the main point is that forgiveness of our faults/sins is not the main point. The main goal or point is eschatological, that is to say it is aiming at the future joining with God. A persons life, soul, and spirit should be pining for, searching for, and preparing for “theosis“. This desire, driven by the Holy Spirit, in the west would be called santification, but it amounts to more in the Eastern tradition because it is not something which is just done to a person, but that your conscious, active, and earnest participation is called for. This in turn, drives the whole thing along, repentance, charity, fasting, and prayer all with the goal in mind of spiritual exercises aimed at reaching for the divine.
It seems to me, from my (amateur) perspective, we Protestants have a lot we might learn from this.
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Continuing the Discussion