Church Traditions - A Headscratcher for Evangelicals

How can we invite our evangelical friends into the riches of Orthodoxy?

Tonight’s post was triggered by a conversation with an evangelical friend who commented that liturgical traditions seen in Orthodoxy are not seen in the Bible. So, the below is more of a brain dump of my current processing. 🙏🏻 I feel like I have written about this and associated topics repeatedly, but maybe it bears repeating because I firmly believe this to be true.

I completely understand the concern - I had it, too, when I first encountered Orthodoxy! When you have spent (in my case) 45 years studying the Bible (Old and New Testament, and only the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible, of course), and when you have been taught that it is the only thing we can form our faith beliefs on (Sola Scriptura - Scripture alone, one of the five Solas of the Reformation), it is tough to see things that don’t have biblical precedent.

(Side note: I explained the Five Solas more here:)

Tonight’s conversation centered around the repetition of prayers, which seemed to my friend like a hypnotic tool. The question was why things needed to be repeated—doesn’t God hear the first time around? Of course, the answer is a resounding YES. God hears before we even speak our prayers.

Yet, in the Orthodox world, we repeat things thrice in our prayers and qole (hymns) because we worship the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Andrei Rublev’s Trinity icon

The first example of such repetition is the Trisagion we sing as we are just starting the Holy Qurobo.

Led by our priest, we, the people, sing:
PRIEST: qadeeshat aloho. (Holy God.)
PEOPLE: qadeeshat hayel-thono, qadeeshat lo moyootho destlebt hlofayn ethraham 'layn. (Holy Almighty. Holy Immortal, Holy Immortal, Who was crucifed for us, have mercy upon us.)¹
We sing it three times.
(Another sidenote: It’s important to note that the Syriac Orthodox Church sings the Trisagion as Christ-focused, whereas the Eastern Orthodox world references the Trinity in each person while singing. But that’s for another day.)

Later in the liturgy, again we sing “qadeesh, qadeesh, qadeesh” - holy, holy, holy. Three repetitions. And here is where I would like my friend to open up Isaiah 6:3: “And one called to another and said, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And then Revelation 4:8: “And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.'” It is absolutely biblical to sing praise to God thrice. The seraphs and living creatures are doing it!

One of my favorite clips is by our Patriarch, His Holiness Mor Ignatius Aphrem II. In it, he discusses that not everything IS in the Bible. Jesus taught His disciples for forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3 discusses it). And the final two verses in the Gospel of St. John tell us that not all teachings of Jesus were recorded in the pages of Scripture (see John 21:24-25). Here is the clip:²

Another page I probably linked to before, which immensely helped me with this when I was investigating Orthodoxy, is found here: https://syrianorthodoxchurch.org/2010/03/tradition/. It helped me understand what the Church means when it speaks of holy tradition.

So, I have one final tip for my Sola Scriptura friends: discussing this topic is useless unless you allow yourself to experience Orthodox life. Especially right now, during this beautiful season of Lent, I appreciate few things more than the riches the holy traditions of the Church have brought into my life, which have breathed a new and most precious life into my Christian walk.

Oh, and one final-final tip: A book that greatly helped me was Mark Shea’s “By What Authority.” I recommend it to you. Mark found his way to Catholicism, but I am almost certain that’s because no one invited him to an Orthodox church first. (Hint to my Orthodox brethren: invite a friend to the liturgy!)

I love my friend and pray daily that the riches of Orthodoxy will find their way into my friend’s heart. My friend already loves Jesus, just like I did. With many of my friends, I sense a craving for a deeper relationship with the Lord. And I have seen other friends become catechumens and be received into Orthodoxy. Lord, have mercy on us all!

1. For a full liturgy book for the Holy Qurobo, look here: https://polishmiaphysite.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/liturgy-aramaic-english.pdf

2. The original was posted by @urhotheway and can be found here https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EEvEfh9p1/