welkodox said:
That's what I mean about being consistent with the past. I've seen people write on the Internet "Orthodoxy hasn't changed". Yet we have changed, and are changing. It's happening before our eyes.
I've repeatedly quoted examples on various threads in this forum where the Orthodox Church has changed (my favourites include "Canon 101 of the 6th EC", usury, Deaconesses etc.). So why are you telling
me this? Is it because you find it exasperating? If so, I can understand. But I hope you can understand that I find it exasperating to hear people on the internet claim to speak for the Orthodox Church and tell her what she
should believe simply because the Fathers disagree on certain issues. The "daily dogmatic voice" of the Church is not the Internet; it's not even the writing of the Fathers who, as we know, have disagreed on issues. The daily dogmatic voice of the Orthodox Church is the daily cycle of her Liturgical Services where each prayer, ode, kontakion, troparion etc. is a mini homily. And there is
nothing in this daily dogmatic voice of the Church which supports the notion of "penal satisfaction". And I don't just mean the Divine Liturgy, I mean the Triodion, Pentecostarion, Menaion, or any liturgical book. I can find references in the Liturgical Services to the dogmas about Icons, about the Two Natures, about the title "Theotokos", the Incarnation, the Divine Economia...etc..., but why would there not be any reference in the Liturgical Services to "penal satisfaction" if this truly were supposed to be an acceptable view of our redemption?
So, is this what you wish to change in the Orthodox Church? That she should start including the view of Penal Satisfaction in her liturgical services? You would have to accept that this would constitute a
dogmatic change, similar to the current dispute over the "Moghila" prayer of absolution in the Mystery of Repentance adopted in the 18th century in Russia which now raises the question: "Do priests have the power to forgive sins on earth?"- Liturgically, Russian Churches say 'yes', and most non-Slavic ones say 'no'. So now, we have a doctrinal dispute.
But as I've repeatedly said on this thread and elsewhere, doctrinal disputes is how the Church comes to define the dogmas which she
does clearly believe, and she does this by holding up the erroneous belief (heresy) as an example. Take the example of the Iconoclasm dispute: the only reason that there we are called "Iconodules" is because at one stage "Iconoclasts" came about and started spreading their ideas.
And yes, some people may lose the point of the dispute and turn it into a political "us" vs. "them" instead of Orthodoxy vs. heresy, but we should know that that is bound to happen somewhere along the line, and it shouldn't surprize us, but nor should it be allowed to draw our attention away from the real issue, which is the doctrine, no matter
where the heresy which challenges it has come from- whether it has come from "us" or "them".