Lemon Schist wrote: ↑Sat 2 August 2025 7:41 pm
Patriarch Dositheus II in his Confession (Synod of Jerusalem 1672) .... I was surprised by his decree regarding reading scripture.
Around that time, some Roman Catholics and some Protestants took extreme positions on Scripture. Both of these extreme positions contradicted the ancient, historic Orthodox Christian patristic approach. Some Roman Catholics were suspicious of the original language texts and modern language translations and reaffirmed the Latin Vulgate and recent papal interpretations as authoritative. Some Protestants pushed individual and innovative interpretations of the original language texts or modern translations that were completely against ancient Christian consensus doctrine. Patriarch Cyril Lucaris never renounced in writing the highly-Protestant (Calvinist, specifically) Confession of Faith in Latin and Greek that was attributed to him. That confession was rejected by six Orthodox synods. Patriarch Dositheus, sided against the Protestant extreme (and Cyril's alleged writing) on Scripture, but relied on Roman Catholic-like language to deal with the question. At this time, Orthodox Christians sometimes used Roman Catholic arguments against Protestant positions and Protestant arguments against Roman Catholic positions. The balanced Orthodox Christian position is that laypeople should only read the Scriptures with the consensus interpretations of the other Scriptures, councils, fathers, saints, liturgies, and of the Church as a whole. The Church does not forbid modern language translations and paraphrases, but historically these translations and paraphrases often pushed modern (non-ancient, non-Orthodox) understandings, such as failing to distinguish between icon and idol and failing to distinguish between divine-adoration (absolute worship) and relative veneration (relative "worship" in older English).
