СВ. ПРЕДАНИЕ

1. About the Apostolic Tradition The word Tradition does not mean an indefinite rumor, not known how it began and spread, but of the apostolic teaching, orally taught, or rules and regulations introduced into the Church by deed. The Apostles completely organized the Church of Christ, in all aspects of spiritual and ecclesiastical life of salvation. But how they organized this is not completely stated in their writings, but was actually done and introduced into Christian life personally by the apostles, introduced and rooted through repeated visits to the Christian societies they founded and repeated corrections of what was faulty - all with their personal actions and words. And the image of Christian knowledge, and the rules of life, and the mutual relations of Christians, and the sanctifying mystical sacred rites, and the rules for church meetings... everything was personally established by word and secured by personal observation... And Christians went to think like that, to live like that, to act like that in mutual relationships, to be governed like that, to be sanctified like that, to serve God like that, as the apostles instituted... Those who converted again took over from them and settled down in their image. The newly emerging generation was all formed according to the structure of Christian society that the apostles left... And then it happened from generation to generation... and it came to us. This entire improvement of Christian society in all parts is the Apostolic Tradition, following which is the urgent duty of everyone who wants to stand in the truth of a Christian. To the word Tradition always add apostolic. The written word of the apostles came later. Churches were already organized everywhere, but there was not yet a single line of apostolic writings. The first writing of St. Paul was in 54-55, 20 years after the Ascension. And the Gospel appeared many years after the Ascension. Nevertheless, the apostolic writings and the Gospel were collected into one book already at the end of the first century... probably under the leadership of St. John the Evangelist. And the apostolic writings appeared not to present Christian teaching, but to eliminate misunderstandings and disorders that arose in private Christian communities. And, therefore, they contain only private objects, and not everything Christian in general. They were already writing to real Christians, fully Christian educated... And although they touched on Christian principles, they did so only to the extent required by the subject they were talking about. In the writings of the apostles, everything Christian is visible, but nothing is fully and systematically revealed. There are indications and hints for everything, but there is no complete presentation, except for those items regarding which confusion arose. That’s why it’s all heresy. Something is written incompletely. The wise will begin to replenish in their own way and get confused. The Orthodox gather... and denounce them. How? Common beliefs. Having gathered, they inquire: how are you? and how is it with you?... They answer: it’s like that with us... and it’s like that with us... and everything is like that. This is how we accepted, and this is how it has been with us since ancient times... This is the main beginning of Orthodoxy: it has always been so, so since ancient times... from the apostles... So this is what Tradition is (6, pp. 18–19)! 2. Continuity of the Apostolic Tradition and fidelity to it of the Orthodox Church I wrote only about the apostles as the establishers of the orders of faith, life, government, the Sacraments and everything that is in the Church. The Apostles completely organized the Church in all parts of the church's saving life. And all this was introduced by them into the life of Christians and how life and work were passed on from generation to generation. Pastors and teachers after the apostles are only guardians of the apostolic Traditions and institutions. Each apostle had several closest disciples, who were inseparable from them and who internalized the apostolic wisdom in all parts. These closest disciples of theirs were their successors in the administration of the Churches and in the supervision of everything, the apostles of the faithful. In the Palestinian churches, in Antioch, in Tarsus, in Ephesus, Smyrna, in Colossae, in Philippi, in Thessaloniki, in Corinth, in Athens, in Alexandria, in Rome and in all other places where the apostles were, their closest disciples remained as pastors after them. It would not occur to anyone to think that any of these disciples would allow themselves to deviate from the apostolic decrees. They actually turned out to be faithful to them. The apostolic men, following the example and commandment of the apostles, while ruling the Church, at the same time raised with them such men who could take their place after them and continue to observe the apostolic teachings and orders. These secondary successors in turn raised the tertiary ones, and so on. Everything apostolic, thus, passed from generation to generation in life and deed. The apostles introduced everything that they betrayed into life - mental, moral, family... and into all types of life. Life from life caught fire... and life, initiated by the apostles, vomited... Here is an example for you... St. Polycarp of Smyrna was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, St. Irenaeus is a student of Polycarp. St. Polycarp died as a martyr around the 60s of the second century. St. Irenaeus lived until the beginning of the third century. This is not the only example, of course. And we can assume that the secondary successors carried the Apostolic Tradition intact until the 3rd century... And the tertiary ones - until half and the end of it. In this way the Apostolic Tradition would have been preserved if none of these successors had written. But the writers soon began and, when they wrote, they mostly wrote as they had been told. That is why, reading the writings of the holy fathers of the second century, we see apostolic words and figures of speech, apostolic views on everything, but there are almost no quotations. Why? - Because they were all guardians of Tradition... And they thought and wrote how the apostles betrayed each Church. The apostolic writings were collected into a book at the end of the first century, under St. John the Theologian. And lists of them spread by the end of the second century. In both these centuries, Christians fed primarily on traditions. You understand Tradition as transmission from mouth to mouth... And it was transmission from life to life, from deed to deed (6, pp. 95–96). Thus, the third century, through tertiary successors, could transmit the apostolic Tradition to the fourth century... In the fourth century, we see completely everything that we now have in the writings of the fathers, although all of it is in parts in the 3rd and 2nd centuries. Allow me now to have a general guidance: the Greek Church faithfully observed the Apostolic Tradition and passed it on to us. This apostolic heritage is with us (6, p. 97). You might be interested in: