Rather than the Modernists continual desire to be relevant, and their valuing of innovation, in the Orthodox Church, we view innovation as the mark of heresy. St. Jude says that the Faith was once delivered unto the saints -- we can expect no new revelation until the second coming.

We are taught that it is our duty to live and pass on the Orthodox Faith in its purity -- just as we have received it without changing it either by adding to it, or taking from it. We Orthodox have no need to be relevant to the Modernist spirit -- because we have seen heresies come and go. Long after Modernism has been completely discredited and is a faint memory -- the Orthodox Faith will still be standing. Rather than trying to hitch our wagon to the latest fad (such as environmentalism) we hold fast to the Traditions we have received from the Apostles, just as we have received them.

One of the biggest snares which Satan has laid for us in our day is Modernist Orthodoxy. This is especially a problem for converts from Protestantism, because the Modernist Orthodox mentality is Protestant in origin, and so the convert is likely to be attracted at first to aspects of it because he will find himself at home there -- it will strike a cord of familiarity. Surprisingly, the origin of Modernist Orthodoxy is not primarily from converts who have brought such thinking into the Church, but rather it is cradle Orthodox who have been allured by the false promises of Modernity and have tried to make Orthodoxy relevant too.

Like the Protestants who in their arrogance have thought themselves more knowledgeable than the Apostles themselves, there are Modernist Orthodox who think themselves more Patristic than the Fathers, and who think that they are more faithful to the Liturgics of the Church than the Typicon -- that only now, with their arrival, has the real meaning of the services been unearthed. In typically Protestant fashion, they think themselves able to reconstruct the services so as to improve them.

They think themselves able to discern which Traditions of the Church and which canons are worth adhering to and which can be discarded. In fact, you will find modern "Orthodox Bible Scholars" who have wholesale swallowed all the assumptions of Protestantism Exegetical Methodologies, and who have written Commentaries and introductions to the Scriptures -- which are thoroughly Protestant, only not as good as most Protestant scholars would write.

These modernists have adopted some of the worst of the liberal theories about the origin of the Bible, such as the JEDP theory [a theory of the authorship of the Pentateuch which claims that four distinct sources can be identified as the basis thereof. This theory has been brought into serious question by other Protestant scholars such as Ivan Egnell] and then proceed to interpret the Pentateuch in terms of the individual sources in isolation and in disregard of the actual canonical shape of the text. Even good Protestant Scholarship has rejected this [even among Protestant scholars who accept some of the ideas of one form of the JEDP theory, the better ones, such as Brevard Childs, acknowledge that it is not the theology of the "J" source or of the "D" source, but the theology of J, E, D, and P that we have to deal with -- in the form that we have received as Canon].

These scholars also all but completely ignore what the Fathers of the Church have said about the Scriptures -- what could be more Protestant, or more antithetical to Orthodoxy. These modernists, flaunting this tradition, or that canon, protest that none of these are the essence of the Faith but it is true of them which is written, "He who despises small things will fall little by little."

Exerpts from "Acquiring An orthodox Mind"

Alexandr

Dear Alexander,
As I trust you know, the Catholic Church considers Modernism to be a particularly pernicious heresy, which has been formally condemned by Rome. The oath against it makes it clear that this is not a joke.

Fr. Serge

I could not agree more Father. That is my point exactly. Modernism is the Arianism of the 20th century. It is an infectious organism that must be quarantined. The first rule of epidemiology is to isolate, and then destroy. When modernism rears it's ugly head, it is the responsibility of all Christians, Orthodox and Catholic to band together to snuff it out before the infection spreads, and healthy Churches are infected by it.

Alexandr

I recently read an article by James Hitchcock on the disaster in the Roman Rite, from which some progress it being made. He has an interesting comment with regard to this heresey:



His article, "Liturgy and Ritual" is here:

http://www.adoremus.org/1206LiturgyRitual_JHitchcock.html

Check out the beginning of the third paragraph for a good laugh.

Many thanks for drawing Hitchcock's article to my attention - I hadn't noticed him doing much for the past few years but this article is excellent.

One slight criticism - the bit about liturgiologists and terrorists is a cheap shot and has been around for a long time. Much of the present problem has been caused by people who repudiated genuine education and expertise in favor of "creativity". Father Louis Bouyer, to name only one person, was a quite genuine expert on the Liturgy - and he utterly repudiated the mess that the Roman Rite metamorphosed into after the introduction of the Novus Ordo; he described the result as "a decomposed cadaver". His books are still well worth reading.

Fr. Serge

Fr. Serge,

I didn't see him taking a cheap shot at Fr. Bouyer, whose book, "This Tremendous Lover," is one of my favorites. I thought Hitchcock's comment was indeed directed more at the local level, which, in the Roman Rite, countless Americans, understand it as you describe it.

One of the interesting things I noted in your translation of the Ordo Celebrationis (which I have just only begun to read), which you mention in the introduction, is how Blessed Theodore Romzha, to whom many of us here have a devotion, immediately reprinted the Divine Liturgy when Rome promulgated it.

Alexander, I agree with you 200%!