An Orthodox Concern

Orthodox historians and theologians trace their tradition back to the apostolic faith of the early centuries of Christian history. This "living tradition" of apostolic Christianity, they hold, is preserved in the worship of today.

Contemporary Christians typically ask the same question at their first visit to an Orthodox church: why does the liturgy follow such a set structure or order? Their assumption is often that worship in the New Testament was spontaneous. In fact the "order" of Orthodox liturgy has its very roots in the Scriptures, and the Orthodox Christian church has been worshiping this way, without major changes, for almost its entire life of nearly two thousand years. Two words need to be kept in mind as one first experiences the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox churches: "origin" and "changelessness." We should recall that the apostles and the first Christian disciples were fulfilled Jews. From their heritage, with its history of liturgical interaction with God, came the Jewish form of biblical worship, which supplied the origin and basic structure of Christian worship. For this reason we find a highly developed liturgical order in use even by the end of the first century, within sixty years of Christ's resurrection. The second word is "changelessness." Perhaps the most striking and unique thing about Orthodox Christianity, especially in this age of rapid change—even change for its own sake—is its permanence and changelessness. It has been said that one of the distinctive characteristics of the Orthodox church is its determination to remain loyal to the past, its sense of being in a living continuity with the church of ancient times. This commitment to protecting the gospel and keeping its message and its praise to God intact stems from the conviction that our faith is that which our Lord Jesus Christ delivered to us, to which we will add nothing and from which we will take nothing away. If we are going to be "apostolic," then we have to agree to belong to the same church that Christ founded. That church began in the first century, and in a sense all Christians must become Christ's contemporaries. The twentieth century is not an absolute norm, but the apostolic age is. Within this changelessness there has indeed been change. But it has not been a change in the real nature or substance of the faith and practice of Orthodoxy. Rather, it has been a maturing and building upon an unchanging core or deposit of faith. Never changing for change's sake, we change only in order to remain the same. Orthodoxy has always been committed to the exhortation of St. Paul to Timothy to "guard what has been entrusted to your care" (1 Tim. 6:20). At the same time, there is a willingness to enhance our practice of worship in order to make it more heavenly, more spiritual, more edifying.