I truly appreciate all of your responses, chanter, Matrona, and prodromos. Chanter, I do and will always remain focussed on Christ. I do not, however, believe that the laity should ignore Church politics. That is how the Western churches have become what they are - the ignorance and repression of the laity. Please forgive me, everyone, because I am about to wax longwinded! The Roman church for many centuries kept her laity in great darkness through denying them their right to worship and hear and read the Scriptures in their own native languages. Needless to say, an ignorant laity had little to no voice in the affairs of the church. You know, of course, that the Orthodox Church hasn't behaved in that sad manner. During the early Protestant Reformation, many Christians gave their lives to end this darkness. The last 500 years have been a struggle to return to the Light. It is a shame that experience taught us so much distrust that we spurned parts of the Tradition, but I can understand why that happened. Unfortunately, for the last 150 years or so, Protestantism has increasingly become revisionistic where the Scriptures are concerned as well, picking and choosing what to believe and either ignoring or reinterpreting to suit its fancy. Two polarities dating to the 19th century have contributed to this: "Higher Criticism" and "Form Criticism" vs the other extreme, dispensationalism (the popular theology of Evangelical fundamentalism, and simply a form of 19th century adventism). Both these trends have rendered two responses, (1) a tendency to an extreme form of the sola scriptura principle in which each reader truly becomes his own pope, and (2) replacing reading the Scriptures with reading about the Scriptures. We know too well the results of the first, and I am amazed at the patience of those who have taken the second path, given that no two popular or scholarly writers today agree. In spite of it all, or maybe because of it all, most Protestant churches are inviting disaster by further rejecting ancient Tradition. Faithful Calvinists have held on tight to the Westminster Confession, but their dry rationalism is not something I find to be an acceptable alternative, although I admire them for maintaining high moral standards. Then there's Vatican II, in which the Roman Catholic church decided that it admires two non-Christian traditions (that I will not name for fear of being slapped on the wrist by somebody) as "adoring the same God we adore." Uh-uh. No one who denies the atoning death and resurrection of Christ adores the Father! Not remotely an option.
Guess who's left by process of elimination. I'm at this point on the outside looking in at the fruit, and I need to see a good tree somewhere! Historical Unity and Faithfulness have been preached to me in the past by other Orthodox folks; I don't want to find out that it isn't as true as they claimed.
Your frustrated friend,
countrymouse