Constantine Cavarnos: “Orthodox Tradition and Modernism”

The Orthodox always regarded the unchanging persistance of the Orthodox Church in Sacred Tradition as her boast. On the contrary, the heterodox--with exceptions, especially in recent times--regarded this persistance as a sign of decline, as a sign of deficiency in her inner life. In particular, the Protestants hurled the reproof that the Orthodox Church is “dead” and likened her to a “petrified mummy.” This demonstrates the ignorance which the heterodox customarily have about the true essence of Christianity, and shows to what degree they confuse the revealed faith with the different worldly systems, with the different human contrivances and creations. Since in the crafts and the sciences there is a continuous development and perfection, they think the same thing ought to happen in the Christian religion, that here too there should be a continuous revision, change, and replacement of the old by the new--in a word, “modernization.” Looking at Christianity rationalistically, they misunderstand its revelatory character and demote it to the level of the systems which the mind of man has formed on the basis of reason and observations of the five senses.