But of course I do, FK! There is a world of difference in saying the Scriptures are "God's inerrant word" and the "Scriptures are very important to our faith."
Why are Scriptures so very important to us? Because our faith is a way of life. The message of our Sunday scriptural passages are to be taken with us home and lived. Each chapter of the Gospel carries in it a moral of the story to be used and followed in our journey.
Just to flesh it out, since you appear to challenge my assertion that the Orthodox Church disavows your view of scripture, do you say that the Church AGREES with your view of scriptures and the things you have been saying about them?
The Church reads the Gospels and the Epistles as they are written without making judgment on their factual veracity. The Church is not concerned with the historicity of the events, but with the spiritual message in them.
I can definitely state that the Church interprets the Bible in the allegorical sense, and that this has been the practice of the Church ever since the beginning and that it comes from messianic Judaism.
I was shocked some years ago when an Orthodox priest told me that even if Christianity never happened, it should have been invented! What he meant with that is that if it took a fictional narrative to convey the love of God, so be it.
We believe that God revealed Himself in love and that whatever conveys love to the rest of humanity is from God. That can be a factual act of mercy, or a fictional story, it makes very little difference. It is God's love that is real to all believers no matter how it is conveyed.
But that moral is determined by men, NOT by God. Therefore, the hope that you have must be in those men that you follow, that they were true believers and knew what they were talking about. All this in the midst of the corruption in doctrine that we have talked about that plagued the early Church.
The Church reads the Gospels and the Epistles as they are written without making judgment on their factual veracity. The Church is not concerned with the historicity of the events, but with the spiritual message in them. (bold added)
OK, I wasn't sure if that was just you or the whole Orthodox Church. If the Orthodox Church is not concerned with the historicity of the Bible, then I have my answer as to how it views the Bible, all Orthodox Catechisms and writings to the contrary notwithstanding. If one or a group is unconcerned with historicity, then they completely forfeit any foundation for whatever claims they have about their own faith. Why in the world would anyone follow Patristic writers if THEIR followers threw out the inspired authors of the Bible in terms of historicity? Fables based upon myths. Truly, all that is left is blind faith. Why should I follow Orthodoxy? "No reason per se", I imagine the response would be, "we just blindly believe it".
I was shocked some years ago when an Orthodox priest told me that even if Christianity never happened, it should have been invented! What he meant with that is that if it took a fictional narrative to convey the love of God, so be it.
That shocks me too. Men write fiction. God has no desire to, without making it obvious in advance as with a parable. I'm not going to put words in this priest's mouth, but it sounds like it is possible that he would agree that Christianity as we know it today was basically fashioned by man.