Rock and Sand : Part I

Hello and welcome today I'll be discussing with my guest a fascinating but admittedly broad subject that is the Protestant Reformation in its many shapes and forms and its strengths and weaknesses from an Eastern Orthodox Christian perspective and my guest is father Josiah Trenholm senior pastor of st. Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside California and the author of the new and in my opinion groundbreaking new book Rock and Sam an Orthodox appraisal of the Protestant reformers and their teachings published by new Rome press and available on amazon.com father Josiah welcome and congratulations on a meticulously researched documented

and well-written book thanks a lot Kevin I'm happy to be with you today I'm very much enjoying the book and recommend it to both Protestants as well as Orthodox who want to know more about the Protestant Reformation and how we understand its Many shapes and forms first father I think our listeners and viewers would be interested in some personal background you come from a reformed Calvinist tradition don't you it's true it's true though I am an Orthodox Christian now I wasn't born and raised as an Orthodox Christian I was born and raised as a Presbyterian

in Southern California that is my background and I understand that you studied with some pretty heavy reformed heavyweights well that's that's True it most of my all of my formal education has been a a Protestant education I went to an evangelical undergraduate school called Westmont College a very beautiful College up in Santa Barbara which is associated with the of angelical tradition I did my masters of divinity at a Calvinist reform school graduating from Westminster Theological Seminary and then I did my doctoral degree at a Church of England School the University Of Durham in northern England

so I've been educated by the cream of the crop of Protestantism who are some of the reformed teachers that maybe some would would know about that but whom you studied under well I consider myself very blessed to have studied under some really talented reform minds people like dr. RC sproule very well known he's a very well known fantastic communicator he was my systematic theology professor dr. J I Packer Dr. Sinclair Ferguson John Gerstner Roger Nicole Richard Pratt and the great immensely intelligent John frame who in my opinion is perhaps the the most competent Protestant reformed

theologian alive today so a logical follow-up that some of our listeners and viewers are going to be interested in knowing father Josiah Trenholm is with all that background what are the key reasons you decided to leave the Protestant tradition and become Eastern Orthodox And pursue the priesthood hmm well it I should say just off the cuff given that my my leaving and becoming Orthodox was not something that that I did in passion it wasn't something that I did because I had been offended by my Protestant teachers in fact I keep a deep reverence for many

of them and I have received so much light and so much instruction from many of them that I am continually thankful for them what happened to me really was that I I would say two things Drove me to hold the orthodoxy one was a deep sense that my tradition in which I had been raised was unstable that the winds of the secular culture were blowing very hard and the church was not standing firm there are a few definitive moments in which my eyes were open to this I remember once one of my professors telling me

that our traditional conservative Reformed Church probably would have women ministers within 25 years and this is a man I Deeply revered a tremendous pedagogue and I remember being crushed by that because I knew it to be true I had seen it in the denomination in which I was raised the Presbyterian Church USA I was now in a more conservative reform movement and here he was telling me that that was going to happen there also that sense that the the Protestant Reformed movement and even Jellicle ISM in general did not have a stake an unmovable stake

for the Faith that was competent to resist the blowing of the winds of unbelief in our own culture deeply affected me and I was very impressed by holy orthodoxy which has a 2,000 year track record of resisting the opposition of the world this was very very impressive to me I remember telling my wife who were married very young and I remember telling her sweetheart I can't imagine investing my life in a church and raising my children in that church Knowing that my children will not have that church when they become adults that in fact all

of this investment will be for naught that deeply affected me and I would say a second while that was happening I was reading the patristic riders and the more I did that the more I felt that deep weight the depth of Orthodox theology and the breadth which is which is far broader than the reformed tradition and I began to visit Orthodox churches and I would say this Was the final the final grip that where God just grabbed us and pulled us into the church was that the worship of holy Orthodoxy is so profound so sublime

to worship the whole eternity with awe and reverence as I knew it should be from reading the text of Scripture but was not my experience in the reformed tradition to find that in Orthodox worship this was irresistible hmm thank you great answer turning to your book father josiah Trentham what does the Title of your book rock and sand mean to convey as relates to the Protestant movements and churches and nondenominational groups and the Orthodox Church rock and sand these are words taken from our saviors teaching at the end of the Sermon on the Mount Kevin

where he speaks about the coming judgement and the floods that will certainly come on the great day in the future and he calls his disciples to build their life upon the rock of Obedience to His commandments as the only way to survive the great earthquake which is coming in the great judgment he talks about a house that's built on the rock and a house that's built on the sand one survives the flood one does not I used that image it to convey what I sense to be the difference between orthodoxy which is the church built

upon the commandments of Christ not on the pinions of men even intelligent men like The Protestant reformers the Orthodox Church the one Holy Catholic and apostolic jerk is built upon the faith that Christ gave through his apostles and forgive me but I believe with all the good intentions of the Protestant reformers the churches that they ended up end up setting up in their own name much against their wishes initially is a church that doesn't have the promise of Christ attached to it that he will preserve it against the gates of hell And that he will

lead it into all the truth I think that the Protestant churches were man-made but as an ex Protestant and one who obviously has great respect for many of its participants and brothers and sisters in Christ what do you see as enduring virtues or any positive accomplishments of the Protestant Reformation before we get into anything critical well I would say there are many Kevon in fact in my own life I have many beautiful Christian Souls who are Protestant in faith who in many ways I look at as being more orthodox than me there living off of

the capital of the Orthodox Church what I would call borrow the capital they don't know for instance that their New Testament that could not exist without the Orthodox Church that the Canon of Scripture was put together by Orthodox bishops and that it was not an easily accomplished task and yet they loved that scripture better than I often Do and better than many Orthodox Christians often do and so they actually are living more orthodox lives in this area then then we Orthodox Christians often do I think the devotion to Scripture in much of the Protestant movement

the devotion to education the devotion to missions the devotion to cultural engagement at least in contemporary Protestantism I think all of these areas are areas that Orthodox Christians could learn to appropriate Their own tradition from those who are not in their tradition but are living the tradition better than we are hmm you know moving towards the Reformation and our conversation today father Josiah Trenholm you know I hear from some Orthodox Christians that they're often negative about the Reformation because of you know the many changes from apostolic Christianity which have taken place we'll talk about some

of those but what were the Reform Is supposed to do given some of the errors of the Latin Church some of which we also broke from in 1054 ad what were they supposed to do if not break from the from the Latin Church you raise a tremendous question and very insightful I think and we should be cautious in placing judgments upon the Protestant reformers as though they had the the benefit of hindsight after 500 years that we have looking back on their condition it's easy for us to say well Why didn't they do this and

why did they do that but the options that they themselves felt that they had at the time perhaps were more limited and then we think for instance let's take Martin Luther Luther was a Catholic priest monk and he knew he was deeply affected by the novelties that had arisen in the Latin Church during the scholastic period so this is after they had left orthodoxy after the Great Schism had taken place between the East and the West and numerous Latin councils had been held local what we would consider the local Latin councils supporting practices that are

abhorrent to orthodox such as the real externalization of concepts of salvation the idea of indulgences and selling indulgences which I'm hoping what we'll talk about more these things provoked tremendous pain in Martin Luther's life and initially when he was raising academic controversy and trying To stir up dialogue on these subjects he appealed to us he appealed he said I stand with the Greeks he said and he was trying to point out that this was an innovation on the part of the papacy and that this isn't something that even the orthodoxy knew and he had a

very good point there that interest in us which also was was I would say even more alive in his confidant Philip Melancthon who actually wrote to the ecumenical patriarch and Ecumenical Patriarch this Was Joseph this is in the 16th century dispatched a deacon Deacon missles was his name who came and lived for six months with Melanson helped him translate the Augsburg confession into Greek and really gave him an experience of what was going on with us that initial contact between the Lutheran movement and orthodoxy I think from the Orthodox perspective is the the direction that

Orthodox if we could look back and wish something else that Happened that that would have been developed more now remember we're dealing with the great church in captivity under the Ottomans right lots of difficulty our patriarchs were very confined plus we're talking a pre technological age we couldn't call each other on the phone one letter from the Lutheran theologians took six months just to get to Constantinople if the patriarch waited up for a year to answer it or studied his his answers and said It we're talking two years for one simple exchange so that's the

area we I think the direction we would have hoped it would have went I think that is initially the direction then Martin Luther wanted it to go he was a gas that his followers were calling themselves Lutheran's but that is exactly what of them happening his church is built upon personalities and instead of returning to the root of the Tree because a Latin aberrant branch it grown what we ended up getting was many many more aberrant branches and I like to follow up on that a little bit later about the dialogue between the Lutheran's and

the ecumenical patriarch at that time the first principle of the Reformation father Josiah Trentham you know universally embraced by the main branches of all Protestantism as you point out in your book is Sola scriptura Or by scripture alone and that's a doctrine that the Bible alone is the only infallible source a rule of faith and practice and that the Bible alone contains everything necessary for salvation you call this teaching a heresy from which the other Protestant mistakes and errors and heresies flow and of course that's going to sound harsh to some of our Protestant listeners

please explain that well let me say first get remember that I used to Teach this dogma myself as a Presbyterian and I was a licensed pastor a licensed minister in the Presbyterian Church and I taught this and I was deeply convinced of it I have since bitterly repented of it but it's very understandable why the Protestant reformers fell into this concept they fell into this concept because they fought to themselves what are my options I can believe in tradition or I can believe in the Bible it's obvious that The Latin tradition has become corrupted and

therefore what am I left with I'm left with the scriptures I should say up just off the cuff also that Sola scriptura was understood different ways by different Protestant reformers yes what they're understood in one way swingley understood it another way the radical Anabaptists understood it another way and the Church of England reformers understood it yet another way and the the measure of differences have To do with how the scripture is dealt with in relationship to sacred community and tradition in the church Luther was very much more conservative not from an orthodox perspective but within

this schema of prot Reformers he was on the conservative and it was criticized by people like swingley who thought that luther didn't take the principle of Sola scriptura far enough so within the Protestant Reformation there was a lot of Controversy on exactly how Sola scriptura would work out from an orthodox perspective this is in fact the mother of the Protestant heresy and you're right to say that I point this out in my book it's not me saying it this has been the first principle of Orthodox witness to the Protestant reformers from the 16th century we

we pointed out from the very beginning that if we do not respect the tradition of the church if you make the mistake that Luther made which was to jump from a recognition of the errors of Posts ISM Latin councils to a criticism of ecumenical councils as soon as you make that move that unsubstantiated false move which Luther and all the Reformers agreed on that all general councils had erred as soon as they did that they made them popes of the church that was not the consciousness in the mind of the church for a thought made

themselves popes of the church absolutely they Became judges of ecumenical councils and if their judges of ecumenical councils who is going to judge them right now they would say no we're judging the ecumenical councils by the scriptures but they didn't agree on what those Scriptures taught themselves so unfortunately as soon as you break that accountability I like to think of it this way if Martin Luther was living at the time of the Apostles and the first Council of the church took place which Was the council that met in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts chapter 15

this was a council like all councils that was convoked in response to the appearance of a heresy this heresy was the Judy icing heresy Jews who had become Christians we're following Saint Paul around trying to convince his Gentile converts that they had to accept Jewish customs they had to be circumcised they had to keep the fasts of the Jews etc the church convoked the council in Acts Chapter 15 they made a decision and then they issued a statement together that began with these words it has seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to

decide this and then they made a statement saying that the Judaizers were wrong Gentiles do not have to become Jews and they made four simple requests of Gentile converts and then they said APIs Apostles to carry that statement throughout the entire church to ensure that it was Obeyed what would Martin Luther have done then if all general councils err would it have been legitimate for Martin Luther to stand up let's say he was living in Athens and he said no I'm sorry I disagree with the Apostles they're in a contradiction to the scriptures and the

Apostles would have said you don't have that right because you're misunderstanding our council didn't you hear us it has seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to decide this The faith of the church is that corporately when the church needs to she can come together and be confident that her decisions are guided by the Holy Spirit and that the gates of Hell will not prevail Martin Luther doesn't have that conviction as a follow-up to the father Josiah how do orthodox regard the authority of Scripture in relationship to apostolic big T tradition as opposed

to some small tea traditions and please define the latter apostolic tradition That is a very large question actually a multiple question yes I think a great definition of tradition is that tradition of the church is the life of the Holy Spirit in the church this is our life it is the eternal life in the kingdom that our Savior bequeathed to us that constitutes the church itself it's very raised on that tradition for us is the ultimate authority so the large umbrella that we would obey is apostolic Tradition this is mentioned constantly throughout the New Testament

this is the faith once delivered to the Saints this is the holy tradition that the Apostles passed on to the churches and expected to be obeyed both oral and written st. Paul was very clear st. Paul was very clear he wrote to his spiritual children in the city of Thessaloniki to whom he wrote multiple letters but we have to in the New Testament first and second Thessalonians he wrote to them that it Was necessary for them to and firm and hold to the traditions that they had received from him so here's the umbrella the big

umbrella is the apostolic tradition and then he said whether by letter or by mouth it came apostolic tradition which is the ultimate authority came to the church through letters and through mouths and that can be seen in the life of the Thessalonians themselves Paul lived with them for a year and a half I believe in The Acts of the Apostles he taught them day in and day out for 18 months can you imagine having has your pastor the great apostle and sitting with st. Paul and having him teach you day in and day out think

of the education the formation the spiritual guidance you would have received from the Apostle he left you two small letters one with five chapters one with three most of what you would have received from st. Paul would have been oral imagine that after that time He had to go away on his office telling ministries his missionary trips then he was martyred in Rome the Protestants would like us to think that the moment st. Paul died when Nero put him to death and cut his head off all of a sudden the only apostolic teaching that remained

binding are these two little letters I mean spoken that way it's just preposterous it's absolutely ridiculous if you were living in the Church of the Thessalonians and You had been informed by st. Paul and he had taught you many other things like how to pray how to face East how to make the sign of the Cross that baptism was by triple immersion and immersion he taught all of those things according to the Holy Fathers and many more you knew these from his own lips the idea that only what he wrote would be the ultimate authority

would have been a preposterous idea and it is a preposterous idea from that from the perspective of the Orthodox Church father would you go so far as to say then that not everything that is necessary for salvation is in the written scriptures of course of course what's necessary for salvation is the church the church is the body of Christ the church is His divine human presence on the earth and the church is the conveyor of the life of heaven too the church has as her heart and as her great gift to her children the very

words of God to possess the Oracles of God and st. Paul's words to possess the Oracles of God this is our our great dignity it's it's a tremendous gift to us and we rely upon the Scriptures absolutely but we also rely upon other aspects of apostolic tradition in the church we rely upon the lives of the saints we rely upon the holy liturgy we rely upon the sacred canons we rely upon sacred art we rely upon iconography these are all the writings of the fathers that we could go on and all These are all means

by which God communicates his life to us and they are in harmony with Scripture and with each other yes you know the doctrine of justification by faith alone is taught by Martin Luther and refined by Philip lanthum and adopted by all the subsequent reformers is considered by most that I've read you're more knowledgeable than I it so correct me if I'm wrong you know the lynchpin theology of the Reformation st. John Chrysostom The most influential commentator of the Pauline epistles in the patristic era wrote extensively about justification long before Luther and Milan phone and you

have a PhD n work on st. John Chrysostom so could you briefly describe what justification by faith alone means and how does patristic teaching on justification differ from that of the Reformers and Protestants hmm this could be a show of its own it should be but nonetheless so the fee day is one of the Great Reformation slogans and in fact this dogma of the Protestant faith articulated by Martin Luther from his own experience really from his own inner August has become the hallmark although I should say at the outset that there is controversy amongst the

Protestants themselves about exactly what this is very much like there were different opinions of what Sola scriptura is so for instance Martin Luther had a concept what he called the glorious exchanged Which lies behind his concept of justification by faith alone that made his colleague and his great friend Philip Millington very nervous so nervous in fact that Melek then refused to put the word alone in the Augsburg confession in its paragraph about justification by faith Luther wanted the word alone in there Luther had imposed the word into his German translation of the Bible which did

not exist which was just the original spring from a fountain Of mistranslations that continued to this day in the Protestant movement we could even go back beyond Martin Luther we could go back to John with Cliff for instance and then later later into William Tyndale who made very conscientious mistranslations of the New Testament in order to further Protestant ideology and this is going on today for instance with the New International Version which is a very much not a translation very much an interpretation In order to promote evangelicalism if listeners want to know more about that

there are footnotes in my book documenting this reality so even between Luther and his close friend mailings and there was tension about justification by faith alone hmm mellon Finn did not want the word alone in there and that is something that the Orthodox support because the word alone does not exist in the New Testament it exists only as the consequence of Martin Luther's specific concept of justification I would also say that Luther was so uncomfortable with any other concepts of justification that he wanted to remove the Epistle of James from the New Testament in fact

he called the Epistle of James an epistle of straw which scandalized many other of his followers including Melancthon and Mellon convinced him to drop this let's not revise the canon of the New Testament please and of course the Reason he wanted to do that if that st. James is so explicit in Chapter two that justification is not by faith alone in fact that's a quote Abraham was not justified by faith alone this is John James chapter two and he goes further and says that he was justified by his works so an Orthodox would simply say

that if any Christian tradition forms a dogma of justification that is on that then makes it so uncomfortable with the actual Words of the Apostles themselves so uncomfortable that they want to eradicate them something is wrong hmm something is wrong we believe in justification by faith but we do not believe in justification by faith alone we believe in justification of faith working in st. paul's language through love which is the emphasis of st. James st. James says justification by faith alone is a mental game that even Satan has possession of this mental Proposition Satan knows

that God is one but that is not a faith that he leans on he is a person trusting in God and letting fruits come from that Union in fact it's a dogma that Satan hates hmm father in Protestantism there appears to be somewhat based on what we've been discussing you know a gulf between faith and works specifically though as it relates to salvation itself but Protestants as we know do good works all over the world have done great works all Over the world for many many years ago and they also acknowledge sanctification which seems to

include good works how does the Protestant teaching of sanctification differ from the Orthodox understanding of salvation as theosis tremendous question let me respond to your initial affirmation first by acknowledging that I agree with you that there are many many beautiful charities and acts of Christian compassion that are Protestant born and lead it's Absolutely true however the Protestant teaching one of the fruits of their of their new soteriology their 16th century and following soteriology is to put an emphasis upon salvation in the past you know the word save in the New Testament is sold so this

is the most common word and it's used by the writers of the New Testament in all three tenses it's used in the past tense is used in the present tense it's used in the future tense If you asked a Protestant which of those three tenses they thought should be the emphasis or what is in fact the emphasis of the New Testament they would invariably say the past their focus is to make sure that people are saved and when they meet an orthodox or they mediate Catholic I can't tell you how many times even as a

priest I have met a Protestant or an F angelical and they have inquired sometimes discretely sometimes not if I am saved this is Their emphasis in fact that emphasis on salvation is a pact at past act as a born-again experience as a time when a person F Jesus into their life that emphasis upon save salvation in the past if not the emphasis of the New Testament if you had three columns and you lifted all the references of past present and future you would see the New Testament emphasis believe it or not is on the future

salvation is primarily a future reality for an Orthodox it has a past Reality it is given as a gift as a free gift in response to faith and repentance in the sacrament of baptism where a person is born again then it is worked out as st. Paul says we work out our salvation with fear and trembling forgive me but there is no trembling in the Protestant concept of salvation we work out our salvation with fear and trembling presently and we look forward to the day when our Lord Jesus Christ will come back in glory and

definitively And finally deliver us from our enemies and bring us into its eternal Kingdom that is our future salvation and for an Orthodox we're not saved until you're saved so we could say yes I'm saved and if we mean I've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and you know into Christ in Baptism or I am working out my salvation in a life of faith now but for us mostly we have our emphasis like the new testament upon the future we're looking to be saved in the future that Concept guts unfortunately undercuts the the

motivation in prata sysm for sanctification so even though sanctification is formally in the systematic theologies of broad system it is not the emphasis of the Protestant church which is why the spiritual siblings are almost non-existent in the Protestant tradition it's why they don't have a feel of kaliya it's why they don't have a tradition of saints like we Do and sadly it also means that their expectations for what can be done in the Christian life and for the transformation that can take place in a person's life are low and when they read or when they

when they touch an orthodox saint when someone would read the life of saint john of san francisco who lived in our times or st. nick toriel's these are 20th century Saints they would just be left dumbfounded and either deeply motivated to find out how this could Happen or convinced that this was all fraud hmm because it's not in the Protestant experience I remember as a Protestant the greatest when I became Orthodox the greatest shock was to move from a tradition that focused upon dogmatic teachings and ideas to moving into the Orthodox tradition which focuses on

spiritual life and to see that the majority of our books were not written we don't even have systematic theologies the majority of our books are Written about sanctity and about how to live the Christian life yes that was a tremendous shock prayer is the emphasis in the Orthodox tradition and was most definitely not the emphasis in Calvinism yeah it's always struck me there is a big movement as you are very aware of with richard Foster and Dallas Willard Willard on spiritual formation it seems as if evangelicals especially are becoming more aware of the spiritual formation

void that exists in just a Kind of an extrinsic sense of justification because I wonder why fast yes if you're already saved it's all done yes I'm well in fact I think that very question has been put and answered which is the reason that all no evangelicals and Protestants do theft I remember being in a meeting several years ago and with a collection of pastors in New York and after Rick Warren of Saddleback Church who i esteem very highly was there and I had read his Purpose Driven Life up very well-known very well-known book in

fact it's the most published book in the history of the human race other than the Bible because that it's true and I went up to him you know he divides that book into 40 chapters with spiritual devotions for each day and I went up to him on a break I said pastor Rick I said I really enjoyed your book I said but that 40 days of fasting I said you stole that from us and you Didn't give any credit and he laughed and he embraced me he said you know brother you're right I got that

from the Desert Fathers and that that's how he kind of organized his 40 days so there is no doubt what you're saying there said there is a discovery at least by some but unfortunately it has not because the structure of Protestant is what it is it hasn't trickled down and hasn't become normative for the Protestant and evangelical life this is An area I think that evangelical Orthodox interaction could really benefit the evangelical tradition we can be benefitted in a lot of ways also but this is an area learning the spiritual disciplines that could really really

be good for them I would agree with that you know you mentioned papal indulgences and I really want to follow up on that father Josiah Trenholm one of the most recognized practices that was the spark if you will of the Reformation in Germany in Western Europe was the use and sale of papal indulgences by the Roman Catholic or the Latin Church that is the selling of the absolution of sins yet you don't mention in your book or in your footnotes which are very copious and very educational just the footnotes that are that the eastern church

itself and not the Slovak Church but the Eastern Church the four pent arcs of the East also sanctioned and sold what were called patriarchal indulgences very Similar to papal indulgences from the 16th through the 18th centuries and up to the 20th century in Greece so I'm curious why you didn't in reference that largely unknown fact even among Orthodox in your book which tends to be very very open and transparent the question that you proposed to me I would dispute just a little bit Kevin so first I don't think that the practice of the Orthodox Church

the infusion of this Scholastic Western concept and of indulgences is as Thoroughgoing in the 16th through the 18th century that you're suggesting I would say this when the Augsburg confession was sent to the ecumenical patriarch it's paragraph on indulgences was accepted completely by the ecumenical patriarch so this at the very beginning of the process of Reformation we made our formal the most formal stamp on the Protestant rejection of indulgences I remember at the same time the Catholic counter-reformation with The birthing of the Jesuits was a plan to offset the educational efforts of the Protestants and

the Pope's sent the Jesuits not just to Protestant areas but to Orthodox areas the Jesuits were extremely aggressive and they did have some success in convincing some of our patriarchs to start using their language in fact the confession for instance of Peter mochila this is really based on Jesuit template it was the most westernized Creed that Was ever written in the Orthodox Church were generally or confession issues they were generally not a confession writing Church but in this period some confessions were made and so I would say that the the appearance of indulgences was an

aberration that went against the the most formal initial statements of our patriarchs in support of the present Reformation they were the influence of the Jesuits they phased out very quickly they were not consistently upheld and When they were being issued they were being criticized like many other patriarchs at the same time so it does exist and it's one of the sad expressions of westernization and illegitimate westernization in orthodoxy which is still somewhat of a problem I should mention to father that the Orthodox ultimately condemn their use at a local Council of Constantinople in the latter

18th century based on the fact that it was essentially money based they Did actually come out and say indulgences were not the purview of the patriarchs they were they rejected because of the use of money as the vehicle as opposed to repentance and penance you know Kevin I should just say one more thing at the same time even in the most egregious circumstances and indulgence to an orthodox is very different from an indulgence to a Catholic yes for us because on principle we don't believe in Purgatory and this was something that was very clearly articulated

by st. mark of Ephesus at the Council of Ferrara forints in 1438 and 1439 we have four of his homilies acts that today against purgatory this was something that the Orthodox would not go for so what we talked when we were issuing patriarchal indulgences we weren't issuing them to deliver people from hundreds of years in purgatory this was this was a matter of binding and loosing history for that Person alive today and the release from purgatory was the main marketing scheme if you will of papal indulgences that's what they really got people to purchase you

know the Reformers it made up a cut up a jingle kind of a little hymn to say to make fun of the indulgences preachers like Johann Tetzel who really irritated Martin Luther and they would say a coin into the coffer Jing's and a soul from purgatory serene it was just very crass yes was that marketing anyway Father Moving along many of the major reformers like Martin Luther and Philip and Lachlan and Lutheranism John Calvin and the reformed tradition Thomas Cranmer of the Church of England the Wesley's Methodism quoted pre-reformation Eastern Christian fathers as you pointed

out they they understood that the Greeks existed even before the Latin Church did or you know most of the teaching came from the east in the early ecumenical councils we'll talk a little bit about That and they quoted people like Chrysostom Basil the Great Gregory the theologian so my question is how much actual continuity theologically and in terms of church polity or doctrine did the Reformers maintain with their patristic forebears the question of theological continuity of their form is with you with the Orthodox faith once again is has to be answered in félicité of ways

because different reform traditions had different levels Of mold of continuity the Lutheran's when they issued their book of Concord I think in 1580 which was a summary of different Lutheran confessions that they thought together could be read as kind of any statement of the Lutheran faith appended to it a book of theological witnesses in which they had many many of the great Fathers quoted Saint John Chrysostom the Cappadocia ins st. John of Damascus Saint Cyril of Alexandria many witnesses Especially to the areas of their particular concern however I would say just in general that their

use of the patristic tradition should be described as selective so for instance the number one church father universally for the Protestant reformers was sin Agustin of Hippo and they were able to access his writings because a fantastic nearly complete edition of Augustine's works was published in 1480 and most of the process reformers had this edition Luther devoured in his own words he devoured the writings of San Agustin however they selectively used San Agustin as a matter of fact BB Warfield the great 19th century Calvinist Princetonian theologian said that the Reformation was in essence the triumph

of Augustine's doctrine of grace over doctrines Augustine's doctrine of the church whether or not you think that's true what's clear is he himself is saying that the process reformers Only took what they wanted they took the dogmas in Agustin that they thought would support them they did the same with st. Cyprian John Calvin quoted Cyprian quite a lot in his Institute's so I would simply say that in general the Greek tradition was not very accessible to them and the Latin traditions they quoted selectively that's better than not wanting to quote them at all and there

were some branches of the radical Reformation that weren't Interested in the witness of the fathers at all zou ingly was the most arrogant of all the profs and reformers and essentially said when he defended his own new teachings in what were called to see his 67 theses which were feces that were collected from his sermons he said in his writings that the gospel had not been taught with such clarity from the time of the laughed apostle until him and this this idea which creates what I call the Protestant Parenthesis theory the idea that the truth

somehow disappeared when the last apostle died and was reignited through the witness of this or that apostle this has provided the paradigm for every type of somatic sect that has grown in the West especially in America the job is witnesses 1844 charmin from Mormonism all of a sudden Joseph Smith has has restored you know the church was apostate and now it's been restored hmm this of course is more egregious than What the process of reformers did they kept more continuity than either of those groups did but still the principle is the same they can't for

us we follow the witness of the church as articulated by st. Vincent of lorenz he says in his comment or iam he said that the way that you can know if your faith is the Orthodox faith it's not by quoting scriptures every heretic does that it's by showing that what you believe Has been believed by all people in all places at all times since the time of Christ that's how you know the tests of antiquity and geography that's how you know in fact your faith is faith once given to the Saints hmm father you know

there are many Orthodox I've heard who have said that the Reformation was in many ways a reinterpretation of the Christian faith and they connect this idea with the idea of the development of doctrine the doctrine wasn't set and Infallibly set by the Apostles in the apostolic tradition but needs to continue to develop led by the Holy Spirit as they would argue and there's been so much of this in the West how do orthodox view this idea of the development of doctrine differently for us the faith as I mentioned was something that Christ gave to us

and the articulations the dogmatic articulations of the faith over time have primarily been issues of clarification in response To heresy so we don't we each ecumenical council we don't believe is establishing something new now the Catholics who have a much more robust positively speaking concept of the development of doctrine which they've had to kind of create to justify the creation of new dogmas that the ancient church didn't recognize like the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary like the infallibility of the Pope etc They've try to make an argument that what development of doctrine is is

a seed growing into a tree so they try to maintain continuity they have a far greater emphasis on that than the Protestants do themselves who are much more content simply to say this is what the scripture says and maybe there were whole periods of darkness in which the church was airing they're much more content to say that however from an orthodox perspective our concept of Originality what we think of when we think about the faith originally given we think that originality for us today is being faithful to the originals we don't think originality is coming

up with something new like you have to do when you go do a PhD in a Western University you have to come up with a Doug a dissertation on some subject known as ever discussed which fuels innovation in theology especially in the area in the area of theology so in Orthodox would be much very much uncomfortable with the idea that you could end up articulating a dogma that previous generations would not recognize as their own faith you point out in your book father desire rock and sand that from the beginning there was and we've discussed

some of this that there was a wide spectrum of difference within the Protestant Reformation and you made a distinction within the reform movement that I actually find useful between Those you call the Protestant Magisterial reformers and those you describe as radical reformers and some of the earlier reformers apparently were closer to the apostolic tradition as you pointed out can you explain in general terms I'd like to talk briefly about some of the specific areas where the Magisterial and the radicals may have diverged but can you tell us in general what the differences might be between

these two camps within the Reformation And maybe name some of their leaders absolutely when Luther invented a new concept of authority and rejected the traditional low sigh of authority with bishops councils dogmatic decrees in canons when he rejected those and he invented the concept of Sola scriptura he took the top off of the bottle a uncork the bottle and he couldn't get the genie back in and so from that moment on some of his followers very Quickly like within five years of his breaking with Rome which I think took place in 1524 within five years

some of his closest friends and disciples began to criticize him on the same principles that he was using to criticize the papacy hmm that he wasn't being thoroughgoing enough in his Reformation that he was too conservative he was accepting too much and they became reformers of the reformer and that process continued and continued to Continue some of the main Harry's were this the mass Martin Luther kept the basic structure of the mass he altered the language of the canons such that it wouldn't be viewed as a sacrifice the church structure he kept for instance in

his small catechism he required a yearly auricular confession that is a confession in the precincts of the church to a priest he taught the for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist he kept sacred art this upset many of The Reformers he thought that are using Orthodox language he thought art was sermon for the eyes as we do as we do in fact and so immediately some of his own his own followers began to criticize him for holding on to too much now I went it went so far not just to fuel the movement

of the anabaptists who rejected by Kanaga if you adjusted statuary rejected christian art they also rejected the baptism of infants which they said was the first and chief heresy Of the Pope as well as the real presence of Christ in the Sweeney and swingley and Luther almost went to war over the central worship right of the Christian Church which is the Eucharist now this this should be the real eye-opener for who are in the tradition of Sola scriptura if the scriptures are clear you would think that those who are the great teachers of the scripture

like the profs and reformers would be able to agree on that what the significance of The central act of Christian worship is the Eucharist yet none of them could the Lutheran's had their definition the swingley ends and the out of active Ted their definition of with you grift the Calvinist had their definition of what is the verse and they all fought that their expressions their dogmatic statements on that point were the clear teaching of Scripture and in fact they almost went to war the princes that were supporting them and remember that Protestantism is nothing about

political supporters this is very much a political movement we were talking about it in the realm of theology right that's only one perspective to understand the Protestant Reformation and in my opinion is not even the great reason to understand the present Reformation which is very much a land grab and a push back against the temporal authority of the Pope by nationalist princes who wanted Authority and found in the Protestant reformers a Means to push back against the Pope and to seize monasteries and to seize money and papal taxation that's for another discussion no down but

they almost the prince is supporting these reformers almost went to battle over the differences the unresolved differences of the major protestant reforms about what the eucharist itself is so who would you consider in the denominations that we know of today in contemporary christened 'm who would you consider the Magisterial x' and whom would you consider the radicals i should just say that that language of Magisterial and radical is not my language this is traditional Western Church historiography the Magisterial reformers Martin Luther John Calvin Martin Butte sir and many others these these were the great movers

and shakers Thomas Cranmer in the Church of England these were the great movers and shakers of the what became the mainline Protestant Denominations people on the radical side followed swingley Zwingli denounced the Anabaptists he met he thought he secretly believed in their tenant of not baptizing infants but he thought it would be too upsetting and what caught simple unrest if he's supported that but most of their tenants came from Zwingli and then they had many great theologians themselves people like hoop Meyer people like menno simons from home come the Mennonites the Amish etc Those are

on the far side why it's so important for us why that movement why the Anabaptist movement is so important for Americans is that the the reformers were through Magisterial reformers were continental realities and America was founded by people seeking religious freedom from continentally Reformed churches they wanted to come to this country in order to have religious freedom to be dissenters and many of them held less than traditionally Protestant dogmas they weren't traditional Lutheran's they weren't traditional Church of England people they were traditionally Calvinist to perform although some of them were you're talking Puritans and the

Huguenots and those yes absolutely after the Huguenots were the French Protestants especially who descended from Calvin who was a Frenchman even though he didn't spend much of his find there but this country has deep deep Anabaptist roots and the great influential forms of Christianity today are from Anabaptist roots in America so you would say and we're going to get to America as we proceed into our second part of this interview but since we discussed it now so you would consider them the history of American Christianity to not be of the Magisterial reformed tradition but really

more of the Anabaptist and the radical reformed tradition you know Kevin the Puritans that came in and settled in the early colonies were primarily Episcopalian Presbyterian and congregational there was a lot of going back and forth but that should shock and orthodox because it shows you that even the Puritans who were Episcopalian priests who came here people like eventually 200 years later like George Whitefield and John Wesley who were ministers of the Church of England they they did not view having a bishop and Having the liturgical forms and sacraments like an Orthodox would an Orthodox

would never say oh you can have a bishop or leave him for us we know from the father's that where the bishop is the church is no bishop no Church and yet the Puritans many of them left the Church of England without a second thought and even moved into Presbyterianism and then into Congregationalism a good example of Jonathan Edwards who many consider to be The laughed Puritan in America he lived from 1703 to 1758 he started out as a Presbyterian minister and he moved to a Congregational Church now this is a radical change in church

polity but it shows to you that really polity ecclesiology this is the ultimate Achilles heel of the Protestant movement there was no unanimity among for the Protestant reformers about exactly what the church is they knew what it wasn't it wasn't Rome but they couldn't provide An alternative that was consistent and therefore it became to this day in the present movement forms the form of the church church governance the sacraments these things are viewed very much as a di Alfre not important unnecessary I want to focus on a couple of things father as a follow-up to

that let's talk a little bit about traditional church hierarchy because it's in Scripture presbyters deacons and bishops what do you say in response the claim of some Protestants that I've heard that the traditional church hierarchy in order of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches do not represent the order or polity of the quote early New Testament church but was rather the creation of the imperial church of constantine of the 4th century yes this is a very common affirmation by Protestants especially by American type of Angelica's I remember after I had just become Orthodox I

was teaching a Bible Study and I had some friends in it who are from an epidemic or background and their pastor was interacting with me in writing about what I was teaching them which I thought was very nice and he wrote me a very extended letter in which he juxtaposed exactly what you're saying he says why are you talking to them about bishops priests deacons diocese of authority sacraments when you should be teaching them about the New Testament this is what he's told me and I wrote Back to him and I said I'm teaching them

about bishops and priests and deacons and sacraments and authority because it's in the new test the New Testament teaches about those things and I have them I said who exactly do you think Timothy and our Timothy and Titus here are huge spiritual sons of st. Paul whom he expected to be leading churches in Crete in Ephesus whom he expected to be doing ordinations to the laying on of hands Which he says communicates grace whom he expected to solicit obedience from the people to whom they they owed a responsibility I said who do you think they

are said here here are very clear examples of bishops they weren't just press Pater's they were called upon to ordain precipitous in every city like Paul had done in his own example as recorded next chapter 14 they were required to make dress Pettersson to make deacons but they themselves were Higher they weren't of the 12 apostles but they were higher than priests and deacons here's a clear example of bishops presbytery and deacons that all Christians were responsible to have and in fact if you didn't have them as we see in the Acts of the Apostles

if you were not yet connected to the Apostles and their authority you had to be and the Apostles went and would lay their hands upon you and bring them into the into your flock so the idea of Independency and the idea that somehow the church is not a living organic physical organism which is very much at the heart of the of angelical movement is not a New Testament teaching you can search Kevin the New Testament until you're blue in the face looking for a single image of the church that isn't tangible and concrete the idea

as has been invented especially in the apogee local movement that the church is invisible We think that that is a wonderful description of the evangelical teaching on the church that it's an invisible Church because it doesn't exist if something doesn't exist it is invisible in fact but every image in the New Testament about the church a tree a temple a body a building a vineyard have you ever seen invisible trees bodies temples in other material they exist in written space and time they're real you had a real and when it's real then you Put straight

takes structure seriously when you think it's invisible you can discard structure we also to father have don't we writings that predate the imperial church of st. Constantine that speak about traditional church structure from Saint Ignatius of Antioch in what this the first century now you're referencing very wisely the Apostolic fathers these are the spiritual sons of the Twelve Apostles themselves well I know what Kind of church Jesus left the apostles then you should look what kind of churches the Apostles built exactly you can actually go to many of the places where the apostles were in

your New Testament you can still go to Corinth you can still go to the Thessaloniki and you can find the descendants of the apples and their spiritual children there and you can see what they look like st. Ignatius taught a very clear Structure of bishops priests and deacons in the church and he died maybe in a hundred and seven Polycarp we have extremely clear teaching from st. Hippolytus we have teaching from Tholian from st. Cyprian these are all wonderful Saints profound theologians of both the Greek and Latin tradition long before Emperor Constantine came on the

scene yeah I think that's important to raise let's talk a bit about liturgical form you mentioned that some were more Conservative and some others you know in contemporary Protestant Christianity there's much emphasis on spontaneity of prayer and worship that is not structured liturgical form as you point out in your book and spontaneous prayers there's a lot of prejudice against written prayers by of Angelica 'ls was this a tenet of the Magisterial reformers great question you make me think about an interaction that I had many years ago with a reformed pastor it Was an accidental interaction

because I was I was catechizing a young woman who had been raised reformed and was becoming Orthodox and she was communicating her process with her former pastor in the reformed tradition and he was very upset that she would become an Orthodox Christian and I was wondering what his concerns were and he sent her a letter and in the letter he had Xerox the sermon by the great 19th century Baptist preacher of London Charles Spurgeon in which Spurgeon said that prayer must always be extemporaneous and that to pray with pre-written words was to quench the spirit

I mean many evangels believe that today absolutely many do many do this is a tremendous irony since should anyone have said that at the time of the Protestant Reformation in Martin Luther's congregation or John Calvin's congregation they would have been corrected immediately the Reformers Wrote out their liturgies they all had liturgies that's number one they were all written John Calvin did not permit a single prayer to be made extemporaneously really absolutely not and I think the best way to understand their mind is that this is an expression of dependence upon the tradition they recognized how

serious it is to talk to God in his house you don't just walk into God's house and use the resources alone of your own mind and heart because That is a very limited pool CS Lewis says it very beautifully in one of his articles I believe it was in God in the dock although I'm not positive he said that the reason the church is always used written prayers prayers composed by deified men and women who were close to God his friends and knew how to approach him how to speak to him this is one of

the reasons that we use those prayers he says the reason that church has always use written prayers is because if you Don't if a pastor prays extemporaneously he's asking his congregation to do three things at the same time that are impossible to do the first is to listen super carefully so that you get the words because you don't know what's coming the second is to theologically evaluate what's being said to see if it's correct and the third is to save the ahmen if you don't say the amend the prayer is not your prayer if you

do say the ahmen everything that was said in The prayer is now yours it's the hook that connects you to the prayer and a person can't do those three things at the same time hmm interesting talk a little bit about the sacraments and the real presence of Christ and the Eucharist I know that in your book you quoted Zwingli is referring to sacraments as bear signs and empty symbols but obviously since we've got this demarcation between the majesty Rios and the radical is not all of them Felt that way so how did the Magisterial to

find baptism and Holy Communion and how did the radicals define baptism and Holy Communion it's a wonderful question about the sacraments we've talked a little bit about the differentiation on the Eucharist and we noted simply that each of the major traditions the Lutheran the Reformed and the Anabaptist all had different dogmas about this and I should point out additionally since that time the art the art the opinions Of the Protestant reformers themselves have not been maintained by their own spiritual children so today Martin Luther might very well not recognize Lutheran churches as having anything to

do with him whatsoever he was having that problem even during his own lifetime many many Reformed churches today have no appreciation for the Eucharist received the Eucharist very very what they think at least of the Eucharist very very rarely often in the Evening and maybe only quarterly whereas John Calvin taught that receiving Holy Communion every Sunday was of great import now ironically he actually never got that done because he ultimately was accountable to politicians who didn't want that to happen I thought it was two people so that's shift to point out that not only was

there a major difference with differences regards to the Eucharist amongst the Reformers themselves but their successors to this Day for the last 500 years have also altered their teachings very very much some Luther's concept of the Eucharist was never formally accepted by his Lutheran followers really no and John Calvin called the presence of Christ in the Eucharist a spiritual presence yes maybe you could tell us a little bit about what you think that means I doubt that because I'm not sure that John Calvin knows what that means nor any of his followers I've ever known

what that Means okay he was trying to to navigate between the Lutheran position which he thought was too Catholic ah even though Martin Luther affirmed that the real presence of Christ was not technically in the elements he find that to say that you're eating the body of blood of Jesus literally was going too far and at the same time he had this wing lands on the other side who he thought were nuts and just to tell you how intense this debate Was Martin Luther was known to have said that he would have rather drunk raw

blood with the Pope then shared mere wine that is untranslated wine with the fanatics and imagine what he would have said about those who use grape juice interest and that's a shocker when you think this is your death angelical today and you think Martin Luther is the founder of your movement and he's a great hero for you to be disowned by him it has to be a pretty pretty shocking Reality on the subject of baptism we have great differences as well Martin Luther remained extremely focused and committed to baptismal regeneration the reformed tradition left less

so although an argument could be made for that although many today in the reformed tradition do not believe in baptismal regeneration and the anabaptists absolutely do not believe that anything on the inside takes place in Baptism baptism for them is merely an external Sign of something that is invisibly taking place previously hmm interesting too that you point out that there is really such a gulf between what the early Magisterial reformers believed and what we believe in this country today is of angelica 'ls one of which is the ever virginity of the mother of god whom

all including Zwingli which blew my mind you point this out in your book believed in our virginity I would think if you were on the street corner and asked 10 Evangelicals maybe mainstream Protestants if the the mother of God remained ever virgin they would say of course not yes they would think that that's Mary ala tree coming out but you're right that Protestant reformers share the tradition of the church with regards to the Virgin in her uniqueness they showed that even the most radical ones so father continuing this discussion about the sacraments and other practices

of the Early church and the way some of these practices changed you know there's a lot of I would I'm going to use a tough word antipathy towards the use of and the understanding of icons and iconography among modern evangelicals in particular maybe some mainstream Protestants I'm not as familiar with them was that the case with the Magisterial so you can spoken a little bit about that and and and what would you say to that once again there was not a unified witness on What the Protestant opinion of sacred art would be and Martin Luther

maintained the interior of his churches fairly untouched swingley while he was preaching had his followers remove everything in the church and destroy it on the principle that statues were idols John Knox and Scotland literally was preaching in the Cathedral of Saint Andrew and of which there are remains to this day right on the beautiful North Sea there and while he was preaching the Destruction of that magnificent Cathedral including the relics of saint andrew the first-called apostle were completely destroyed really that by that time he was done preaching the building itself was destroyed so there is

a wide divergence in in the roof in much of the reform movement there was a great and antipathy towards depictions of Jesus Christ this is especially true in the Presbyterian tradition for instance in the Westminster Confession of faith in The longer catechism that that Westminster Divine's produced in their commentary on the second commandment thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven images to worship them they explicitly say that to make any depiction of Jesus Christ as a violent day of violation of the second commandment and is idolatry now we Orthodox know what that is that

is the reappearance of a much older heresy called iconoclasm that tormented The church for a hundred and fifty years from about 700 until 843 or so and we would simply point out to those reformed Protestants who believed that you should not depict Jesus Christ we would just point out this to depict Jesus Christ is not to depict the divine nature therefore there are accusations that we are depicting God of our own creation or false we are simply bearing witness to how God depicted himself the Son of God could we Turn with the father in time

became a man assumed human flesh became a human being and remains a human being therefore for the church to make pictures of Jesus Christ is not just possible it's necessary as a promotion of the gospel and to bear witness to the greatest miracle in the history of the world which is that God became a man and remains action that remains a man so the witness of iconography is to the gospel itself and we find it tragic that people Would oppose the depiction of Jesus Christ now most evangelical today would not oppose on principle making pictures

of Jesus but they would not because of the historical nature of the movement and their disconnect from tradition they they would not think that depictions of Jesus have any authenticity to them whereas an Orthodox will win an orthodox looks an icon of Jesus Christ we believe that we're looking at Jesus Christ yes and I don't know if this is it This has true historical Verity or not but I've heard some classic Byzantine historians say that one of the reasons the first emperor opposed icons was because he started to believe what the Muslims were saying that

it was because of the heresy of what they called idolatry that they were losing that the Byzantines were losing their wars against the the Persian Muslims and therefore I don't know if that's true or not but from what I have taken from Thatta this is a very commonly held position of course it's a historical position it's something that is assumed that can't necessarily be proven but Leo had lost almost half of his territory actually preached about that and mentioned the fact that we're losing these battles because of ideology so that's it that's that exists in

history some of those early sermons and of course Muslims do not believe in the great miracle of in car They do not believe God has a son when they took over Jerusalem and they built the Dome of the rock they edged into stone facing Christian Jerusalem overlooking all of our churches God has no son so of course they would oppose what we do yeah and to think that iconoclasm could have been influenced by that should be somewhat of a shock to those that oppose the idea of icons talking as we start to wind down father

on this first segment I would like to Ask you about how the Magisterial is and the radicals of the Reformation understood the Saints and not only that there were pious men that lived but we ask for the intercession of the Saints the mother of God and the various Saints because we don't believe they are quote dead and no longer in existence we have reference to this in the gospel and the parable of Lazarus the rich man who retained his sense of who he was and his family and so on and so forth how did The

Magisterial understand and the radicals understand Saints and why is that not a factor in today's a Protestant and of angelical world great question universally the Protestant reformers resisted prayer for the departed there are a few witnesses to it in the Anglican tradition which is the least radical of the reformed traditions but we could say universally the process reformers ceased to pray for the dead When they became Protestant and this was very much associated with their universal rejection of purgatory for them praying for the dead would imply that a person is imported purgatory and really and

Orthodox would simply respond and say praying for the departed is a universal Christian custom we have witness to this from the earliest days of the church in fact it's even a Jewish custom has borne witness for instance in the Maccabean history and second Maccabees when judas maccabees lost many of his soldiers in a battle against the great pagan who are trying to impose Greek idolatry upon the Jews as he was collecting his dead on the field of battle he found that those who had died in fact had idolatrous medals under their shirt and he recognized

that they the reason that they were killed was because they had been unfaithful to God and God allowed them not to be protected by His divine Grace and he asked the high priests the Jewish high priest to make prayer and he offered sacrifice for the souls of his departed soldiers so this this was a part of Jewish tradition this is how Jews prayed this is important because this is how Jesus prayed as a Jewish man in synagogue and in the rights of the Jewish religion so if you think that praying for the departed is terrible

you have a problem unfortunately with the Lord Jesus Christ in his own practice if You read John chapter 10 John chapter 10 has an it is an account of Jesus participating in Hanukkah celebrations this is also very difficult for Protestants to grasp because one of the one of the tenets of the Protestant movement was that nothing should be done in worship without explicit warrant of Scripture of course this falls from Sola scriptura if the Scriptures you have to base your life on the Scriptures alone and worship is such an important part of Life you should

do anything that the Scriptures don't tell you to do and worship the problem with that is that's not how Jesus lived Chanukah is no way authorized as a service for the Jews and yet Jesus was participating in the festival of Hanukkah during which there were prayers for the departed so praying for the departed is the universal Christian tradition it was universally rejected very much because they thought it had to do with purgatory we Orthodox Don't believe in the purgatory but we pray for the departed because we don't believe that death is simple the idea as

found in the Westminster Confession of faith at the moment you die instantaneously you're in heaven or paradise if you're a Christian we can't find that in any of the pages of the New Testament for us the process of death is a process and the movement of the soul is not something that happens instantaneously and prayer for that Person is very helpful and provides tremendous consolation and we also don't think it's over until it's over and this has to do with what we mentioned earlier about salvation ultimately final salvation is on at the great judgment and

the return of our Savior and it is possible and there are many examples in the history of the church of people who are in Hades being taken out of Hades and being brought into paradise and we pray that that Would happen especially on the day of minute cause we've heard that you mentioned the book of Maccabees and of course in most of the Protestant scriptures those are called deuterocanonical or apocryphal and they don't they're not packaged with the scriptures that they read so many of them have never even seen or heard of that yes this

is another example of the difference between the Protestant reformers and contemporary Protestants Or their descendants the apogee locals very few average Eliquis no are even familiar with what we would call it and Orthodox the longer Canon of the Old Testament because it's simply not in their Bibles but what is of interest if that it was in the Bibles of all the Protestant reformers it was even other Bibles that they published now they didn't always put them in the same places that the Orthodox Catholic did sometimes they put them between the Testaments someday sometimes they put

them at the end and because there are teachings in the longer Canon that are diametrically opposed to Protestant things like I just shared with you praying for the departed they would often put a qualification in their statements and say these are read for moral example but not for the establishment of dogma now that's a failed concept because if your moral example is praying to Saints you're Establishing a dogma but the process of reformers were very familiar and matter-of-fact Martin Luther wrote commentaries upon the so called Apocrypha he wrote a commentary on Tobit in the 19th

century when the United Bible Society began to publish their Bible for the first time ever out of Great Britain Bibles were published without the longer Canon and since then that's become normative which is tragic now there are many many Christians in America who simply don't know anything about the Maccabee in history don't know anything about total bit about the wisdom of Solomon very precious material yes well father let's end on this note and we'll continue in this very fascinating conversation in segment 2 and my guest of course is father Josiah Trenholm his book is rock

and and an Orthodox appraisal of the Protestant reformers and their teachings I highly recommend it is published by New Rome Press and you can purchase it on amazon.com and hopefully we will see you for the second segment