The Fallen Nature of Churches Today - What About the Orthodox Church?

There appears at the moment to be no single, authorized English version of the Bible in the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church bases its Bibles on the LXX in Greek. While the LXX often differs from the Hebrew Bible and consequently from the English King James Version, the ten commandments seem to be quite stable. The only difference of possible significance appears to be the fact that the word Sabbath in verse 8 is plural in the LXX. While this opens the text to interpretation more easily including the annual festivals, it is not necessarily a weakness.

The first sentence in the Orthodox Catechism http://orthodoxcatechism.org/, under the article The Holy Trinity is this: ”We believe in one God. This God is trinitarian. That is to say, God includes three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This should be enough to show the Orthodox Church to be fallen.

The LXX uses Greek words in verse 5 that seem more specific than the Douay-Rheims version, and by the same token, the Orthodox tradition retreats from the extent of idolatry found in the Roman Church.

”The truth expressed above, which is revealed in Christianity, thus forms the foundations of Christian pictorial art. The Image (or Icon) not only does not contradict the essence of Christianity, but is unfailingly connected with it; and this is the foundation of the tradition that from the very beginning the Good News was brought to the world by the Church both in word and image.

”St. John of Damascus, an eighth century Father of the Church, who wrote at the height of the iconoclastic (anti-icon) controversies in the Church, explains, that because the Word of God became flesh (John 1:14), we are no longer in our infancy; we have grown up, we have been given by God the power of discrimination and we know what can be depicted and what is indescribable. Since the Second Person of the Holy Trinity appeared to us in the flesh, we can portray Him and reproduce for contemplation Him Who has condescended to be seen. We can confidently represent God the Invisible -- not as an invisible being, but as one Who has made Himself visible for our sake by sharing in our flesh and blood.

”Holy Icons developed side by side with the Divine Services and, like the Services, expressed the teaching of the Church in conformity with the word of Holy Scripture. Following the teaching of the 7th Ecumenical Council, the Icon is seen not as simple art, but that there is a complete correspondence of the Icon to Holy Scripture, "for if the Icon is shown by Holy Scripture, Holy Scripture is made incontestably clear by the Icon" (Acts of the 7th Ecumenical Council, 6).

http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/catechism.html

The Orthodox position differs from the Roman Catholic in forbidding graven or three-dimensional images according to the commandment. The theological concept of the two-dimensional image differs somewhat as well. A complete parallel is drawn between the icon or image and the Word of revelation, both being seen as of equal teaching authority. In this, as in so many matters, Rome takes an additional step in apostasy, beyond that of other churches. We would be consistent in claiming that Rome is idolatrous in its use of images, while Orthodoxy is not. But by a stricter view of verses 4 and 5, both can be seen as idolatrous.

In terms of verse 7, Orthodoxy appears to measure up to the requirements of the commandment.

But in regard to the Sabbath, Orthodoxy is deficient. Although it does not replace the Sabbath with Sunday, it largely neglects the Sabbath except once a year. ”On Great and Holy Saturday the Church contemplates the mystery of the Lord's descent into Hades, the place of the dead.” http://lent.goarch.org/holy_saturday/learn/ Holy Saturday is celebrated in the Roman tradition as well, but without recognising it as the Sabbath.

Orthodoxy, for the most part, supports the rest of the commandments. It too is deficient as a witness against killing in warfare. If one focuses on practice, both the Roman Catholic church and the Orthodox church are deficient in the issue of killing. The Catholic depredations in World War II, perpetrated by the Catholic Croatians with the tacit blessing of the Church were the backdrop for the recent Orthodox retaliations in Bosnia, retaliations that the world has judged harshly. A serious consideration for the commandment on either side would have saved lives. But neither church had the moral power nor the theological understanding of the commandment to rise to the challenge of influencing its constituency. Orthodoxy too fails as much as Rome on the commandment Thou shalt not kill.

While Orthodoxy does not attain to the same level of rebellion against God that the Roman Church does, its adherence to the Trinity and its neglect of the Sabbath show it to be a fallen church.

The Coptic Church differs from Orthodoxy mainly in the Monophysite question. The Orthodox belief is that the Son of God has two natures, one divine and the other human. The Monophysite position is that there is just one nature, being both divine and human. In practice this has led to the emphasis of Jesus as God rather than human.

The Ethiopian Church differs from the Coptic in observing the seventh-day Sabbath. All of the historical forms of Eastern Christianity have some form of the Trinity. This is true of the Ethiopian church as well, which is also Monophysite. In sum, as viewed by the criterion of the ten commandments, all of the ancient, historical churches are fallen because of idolatry. All take the pagan Trinity. Some more than others engage in highly questionable worship of images. All except the Ethiopian Church neglect the Sabbath, and the Roman Catholic Church actually replaces the Sabbath with Sunday. How clearly all are fallen! These churches numerically make up the vast majority of Christianity today.