2010 Articles

Authority in the Church: Confronting Contemporary Challenges

Dobbs, Frank

The consideration of authority in the Orthodox church leads us directly into the roots of the tradition and history of the Church. To understand the primary sources, we must acquire not just the words and forms that the fathers have bequeathed us; we must go further, and enter into the minds of the fathers; think as they did, and creatively marry the best that civilization has to offer with the deep mysteries of the Incarnation. To be considered faithful, one cannot simply follow the forms of the holy inspired masters, one must also reason as they did and thus conform to them with the mind and the heart.