The holy fathers of the First Ecumenical Council are likened to the three-hundred and eighteen trained men of his house whom Abraham led out on a mission to rescue his nephew Lot when Lot was captured by a foreign king. This image should underscore for us the fact that Orthodox doctrine is a serious matter. Those who are led astray by false doctrines are held in the enemy’s clutches—but this enemy, the enemy of our souls, is far more dangerous than any human ruler or army. Faith, morals, practice, worship: these are not matters of indifference, but of spiritual life or death. And yet, adherence to Orthodoxy in our beliefs and actions, though necessary, is not sufficient. Because we all fall short of the glorious perfection of Orthodoxy—that is, we fall short of the perfection of the Christ who is perfectly revealed and worshipped in the Orthodox Church—we always remain dependent on God’s mercy, a mercy that neither excuses indifferentism nor can be ignored in favor of a purely human rigorism.
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