Living Tradition

 

Elder Ephraim of Vatopedi, speaking at St Tikhon Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2020.

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Last Sunday, in the homily which included some reflection on I Cor. 15:3: "I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received ... "

I explained that the the terms "delivered" and "received" employed in this key passage by the Apostle Paul, are actually technical terms for the notion of Tradition, as a living body of faith that is "handed down" or "handed over" from one generation to the next. In the process, I shared a passage from a certain Elder Ephraim of  Vatopedi Monastery on Mt. Athos. Here is that passage again:

"Tradition, the true Tradition, not a traditionalism attached to the formalities and the letter of the law, is always innovative ... Tradition is not simply acceptance of the past, nor its preservation in the present. Tradition is interwoven with the life, with the contemporary life of each historical time. Tradition is to receive and to transmit. What the apostle received from Christ himself - "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life" (I Jn. 1:1), this they delivered to the faithful so that they too may have communion through them with the Triune God of love. In the life of reception and transmission there abides the life and the truth of Christ who is thus extended into the ages." (emphasis in the original)

 

Below, I have included some other deeply insightful descriptions of Tradition from two of the most prominent Orthodox theologians of the 20th c. - Fr. George Florovsky and John Meyendorff. These are wonderful texts that should be read carefully and thought over carefully - meditated upon. And yet, they must also be read as "warnings" to us, the generations now alive and responsible for the transmission of the Tradition which we are now immersed in and hopefully living by - the true Tradition that is based on the Incarnation, redemptive death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of man. The Holy Spirit is the "guarantee" (aravon) of this Tradition until the end of time. 

I would like to thank Presvytera Deborah for preparing these texts below.

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“Loyalty to tradition means not only concord with the past, but in a certain sense, freedom from the past, as some outward formal criterion. Tradition is not only a protective, conservative, principle; it is, primarily, the principle of growth and regeneration…Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit and not only the memory of words. Tradition is a charismatic, not a historical, principle.”

Georges Florovsky, “Sobornost: The Catholicity of the Church” [originally published in 1934], in Bible, Church, Tradition: An Eastern Orthodox View, Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972 pg. 47.

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"No clear notion of the true meaning of Tradition can be reached without constantly keeping in mind the well-known condemnation of "human traditions" by the Lord Himself. The one Holy Tradition, which constitutes the self-identity of the Church throughout the ages and is the organic and visible expression of the life of the Spirit in the Church, is not to be confused with the inevitable, often creative and positive, sometimes sinful, and always relative accumulation of human traditions in the historical Church." 

Living Tradition, p. 21. John Meyendorff

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"The very reality of Tradition, a living and organic reality manifesting the presence of the Spirit in the Church and therefore also its unity, cannot be fully understood unless it is clearly distinguished from everything which creates a normal diversity inside the one Church. To disengage Holy Tradition from the human traditions which tend to monopolize it is in fact a necessary condition of its preservation, for once it becomes petrified into the forms of a particular culture, it not only excludes the others and betrays the catholicity of the Church, but it also identifies itself with passing and relative reality and is in danger of disappearing with it."

Living Tradition, 25-26; Ibid.