Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Nestorian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it). But even if I grant you that Protestants inherit their tradition from Rome, then if RC is proven false, Protestantism is false too by association. But the whole point of the Reformers is that RC is false. Therefore such appeal to tradition is self-refuting.

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).

Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Nestorian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it). But even if I grant you that Protestants inherit their tradition from Rome, then if RC is proven false, then Protestantism is too by association. But the whole point of the Reformers is that RC is false. Therefore such appeal to tradition is self-refuting.

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).

Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Nestorian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it). But even if I grant you that Protestants inherit their tradition from Rome, then if RC is proven false, then Protestantism is too by association.

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).

Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Nestorian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it).

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).

Protestants also rely on living tradition and relationship to help interpret pictures, dogma, and creed; they also claim the Spirit guiding them to ensure the faith is kept as members of the Body.

They may say that, but they can't justify the claim. What is the Body of their Church - a collection of all believers in Christ as God in the most generic and inclusive sense? It's an abstraction and there are no real boundaries. They apply an arbitrary standard and pick and choose things within the tradition (like the Bible, elements of worship, particular Church fathers and councils). Again, there are elements of the true faith, but it's not the wholeness of the faith. It's a binary - you either have the true faith or you don't. There's no 90% faith or having 90% overlap of consensus between all sects that leads to communality. Truth can't be mixed with lies. Even the smallest lie will poison the whole system. This is why it's crucial to defend the faith as deposited in the Church.

The Church makes and publishes its judgments through individual agents and Protestants have it no differently (granted many of them are promiscuous with assigning agency). So it looks the same to me, no differences seen.

The individual agents act in accordance with the mystical body of the Church, not on their own accord. You insist on presenting it the other way around to prop up your false equivalence with the Protestant system which puts the Spirit moving individuals first.

You appeal to our ability to review the Church's judgments and reason, which is exactly what Protestants affirm, the right to review. Perhaps the written decisions of the Seven Councils are as infallible as Scripture? But either way they're individually interpreted in what they say.

That's another false equivalence. In Orthodoxy you're not in a position to judge the decisions of the Church. You may study them and see their reasoning but if you disagree with anything and prefer your reasoning, that automatically leads you to sectarianism, i.e. you and not the Church being the authority and having primacy in judging on theological matters. You see - by the mere act of approaching the matter this way you assume the Protestant framework.

Orthodoxy is having unanimity on all matters of faith. If some contradiction occurs, it has to be resolved - the false teaching condemned and the true teaching affirmed. The arbitration between the true and the false is the Spirit working through the Church, because this task is impossible for the fallible human faculties alone.

It'd be interesting if I did find that Orthodoxy as a whole took some late interpretation that could be charged as "making up stuff that was not there before" because it adapted old text to new circumstances. Well, that's interpretation, not quite as bad as Mary's Assumption in Rome, but it'd be interesting to see if it exists.

You could try. One of the latest teachings in Orthodoxy is Palama's essence/energies distinction which was prompted by Barlaam's western-influenced teaching which contradicted the teachings of the Church. So even this "new" teaching is not new at all but an elaboration of what the previous Fathers taught, brought about by the need to refute this novel contention.

I agree the dying or living of movements is a testament to Jesus's work among the candlesticks. I don't want to keep saying none of this makes the Orthodox distinctive, just uniquely well-reserved, so I'll close there, thanks.

The other contenders would be the apostolic traditions that are alive today - RC, Armenian, Oriental, Coptic. As already mentioned, (Reformed) Protestantism is not a tradition dating back to the Early Church but a radical innovation of the RC tradition (same for Anglicans). It's not even a single tradition, because it's solely defined as opposition to prior tradition and lacks unity of confession (the closest unified Protestant doctrine are the Solas I guess, but one can still be a Protestant even if they reject it).

In the end true Protestantism is radical individualism and nominalism which were later philosophical developments historically. At the time of Christ and the early Church Fathers those ideas didn't even exist (that's another defeater for Protestantism).