Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition -  Rev. Deacon Stephen Kaznica

Many of you probably have friends and acquaintances that are non-Orthodox, and no doubt they have asked you questions regarding the Orthodox faith from time to time. Typically, these questions may go something like this: Why do the Orthodox follow so many Traditions? Don’t you believe in the Bible? Christ taught against following the Traditions of men. I believe only what the Bible says.

The life of the Orthodox Church is governed by Holy Tradition. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, makes a point that the Tradition of the Church is "not according to man", it is something revealed by God. Both Scripture and Tradition are gifts from God to the Church. The Church, through sacred Scriptures and Holy Tradition keeps God’s revelation alive, it is the way the Church has received and continually transmits its life. The action of the Church is simply that of putting revelation, preserved in its integrity, into operation. This prepares the faithful to receive its work, or better, the work of Christ who is made known in sacred Scripture and communicated through Holy Tradition.

Scripture is the divinely inspired written Tradition of the Church, the written expression of the revelation fulfilled in Christ. The Orthodox Church teaches that the Holy Scriptures cannot be completely and truthfully understood unless they are understood within the context of the Church. It was the bible that was created for the Church, not the Church for the bible. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it was the Church who sorted out the various Scripture available to it and decided which of them were to be included in the bible and which would not.

It is through the word of Scripture that Christ continues to speak to us and to be actively at work within us through His Holy Spirit. Scripture interprets the work that Christ is doing now, at this moment, for Christ always remains alive and the same. Tradition consists of the continuous experience of Christ’s love, a love ever the same, yet always new, which surpasses all knowledge and limit. Through the Church, the true expression of this love in Holy Scripture is made understandable. The Holy Spirit is active in Tradition because He is active in the Church where Tradition is put into practice. Church, Tradition, and Holy Scripture are woven into a whole, and the work of the Spirit is the soul of this essential unity. Within this unity, it is more to the Church that the Holy Spirit gives the initiative. The Church is moved by the Holy Spirit, a movement that takes place in and through Tradition, and is given life through the link with the Scriptures.

The Orthodox Faith is of a single spirit, a single and common universal consciousness, guided by the Holy Spirit; its dogma is based upon the solid, definite foundations of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Apostolic Tradition. This Tradition may be found in the Apostolic Canons; the ancient liturgies, rites and prayers of the Church; the acts of the ancient Christian martyrs; the ancient records of the history of the Church; in the works of the Holy Fathers and teachers of the Church and finally in the very spirit of the Church’s life, in the preservation of faithfulness to all her foundations which come from the Holy Apostles. The truths of faith which are contained in the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition, fused together into a single whole, define the "catholic consciousness" of the Church, a consciousness that is guided by the Holy Spirit.