But the question that I pose is not is the church ORTHODOX but does the Church posses AUTHORITY? For you there is today no visible authority in the Church. Rather all those in positions of authority are to be judged by the individual faithful, i.e. private judgment.
Nor can you simply appeal to antiquity. The Church today is the same as that in the time of the Fathers. Either it possesses an infallible authority from Jesus Christ or it does not. If the visible Church of the Fathers had this authority then so does the visible Church today to which the individual believer must submit. If the visible Church today is fallible and cannot command obedience then the Church of the Fathers was also fallible and cannot command obedience two thousand years latter.
"In these times St. Jerome could express his feelings with the sad exaggeration: 'The whole world groaned and was amazed to find itself Arian'"
It was indeed the authority of the popes to which all could look that saved the Church from the Arian heresy. Thus we have the following quote affirming this authority from St. Jerome in his letter to Pope Damasus:
It is but with the successor of the fisherman and the disciple of the Cross that I speak. Following none in the first place but Christ, I am in communion with your beatitude, that is, with the Chair of Peter. On that rock I know the Church is built. Whosoever shall eat the Lamb outside that house if profane. If any be not with Noah in the Ark, he shall perish beneath the sway of the deluge.In the end you either submit to the authority of the church visible or you are a Protestant.
"For you there is today no visible authority in the Church. Rather all those in positions of authority are to be judged by the individual faithful, i.e. private judgment."
Sorry. I misunderstood your point. So, here's back at you. I quoted St. Vincent of Lerins, most likely a lay monk in A.D. 435 on the island of Lerins, but he might have been a hieromonk. Nobody knows for sure. In any event St. Vincent is considered a canonical saint East and West because of his "Commonitory". Are you accusing St. Vincent of being a Protestant, or of promoting the idea of a visibly divided Church, or of promoting individualism? I ask because I'm just going with what he said we should do under the circumstances presented to us by Taxachusetts Man.
The challenge these days, at least in my opinion, is to FIND the Church. Once found, it is not for us to question her authority. But the Orthodox don't look at ecclesiastical authority as the azymites do. For us, a bishop loses his authority if he "preaches heresy with bared head". I suppose you might call that individualism. Orthodox Christians do not.