I do wonder why church tradition is put above the Bible in the Catholic Church, and why many Protestants are accused of "Sola Scriptura" like that's a terrible thing.
Sola Scriptura (only the scripture) completely ignores the issue that the early church did not have a set canon of scripture, not until some three hundred years later after the Romans stopped persecuting us and the church leaders of the day were able to meet safely and work this stuff out.
2 Here are a couple of things about tradition that I am almost positive is common to both Catholicism and Orthodoxy that you need to understand.
1 A. There are 2 kinds of tradition. Tradition, Holy Tradition is doctrinal, it is canon law, it matters, it has the potential (though doesn't always or for everyone) make a kingdom difference. A good example of this would be the fasts which are meant to teach self-discipline and compassion for those less materially fortunate than yourself.
and 1 B tradition *note the lower case "t"* the little, cultural things that we do that have little if any importance faith-wise
2. The scripture in and of itself is considered Holy Tradition, it would also include the 7 ecumenical councils and the writings of the early church fathers which help us maintain the correct understanding of scripture.
traditions of category B aren't even in the same ballpark in terms of importance and Traditions of category A work in concert with scripture, never trumping it.
Side note, as of the 1,500s of so, protestants, don't even use the complete canon of scripture. From what I've been able to gather from talking to people and listening to arguments on the topic the reason for this seems to be that certain doctrines of that are still present in both the other main branches of Christianity find their biblical backing in the books and parts that were cut out, doctrines that reformers apparently so hated that they tried to pretend (and apparently convinced many) that these things weren't scriptural when in fact they are if we were, in fact, all using the entirety of the canon.
The fact is that the early church gave us the bible, not the other way around. Inspired men led by the holy spirit wrote these things down, and another group of inspired men sorted through what was truth and what was falsehood and compiled those texts which were authentic.
The missing books are what first got me thinking, so I heeded the words of St. James "If any of you lack wisdom let them ask of God who gives to all men liberally." The answer was to re-read the scriptures using the full canon, which I did and then I prayed for discernment again, and my answer, this time, was that this, the entirety of the original canon was the Word of God and that I belonged in a church that acknowledged that.
