wf, no doubt your forebears rebelled against a "coercive centralized hierarchy" in the West and by the 15th century. But that has not been the history of The Church east of the Adriatic. It may be why there was no Reformation there. As a matter of historical fact, Christians immediately following the Apostolic era were indeed bound together by a common faith, united together with their clergy centered on the bishop celebrating the Holy Eucharist. We know this from multiple late 1st century and very early 2nd century writings, those of +Clement of Rome and +Ignatius of Antioch being the foremost, at least in my opinion.
wf, you work with a group of Orthodox. Do you think they'd let some bishop or priest get away with changing their Holy Tradition? Americans have made a fetish of shedding traditions of all kinds, to the detriment of our society in many cases. But people from other places think differently and tradition is fundamental to their lives and societies. The Orthodox mindset, or worldview, is the same and change is simply rejected; that's why I can say that an ancestor of mine from, say, 400, if he showed up at the Liturgy this evening, would recognize immediately what was going on. He'd likely even know the majority of the prayers. Because lex orandi, lex credendi, he and I would believe virtually the exact same things. We don't allow and haven't allowed anyone to mess that up. No form of Western Christianity, whether it be the Latin Church or the various Protestant ecclesial groups, has that mindset.
As usual you bring something interesting to the discussion.
As a matter of historical fact, Christians immediately following the Apostolic era were indeed bound together by a common faith,...
You might want to pass this on to your RC brothers and sisters. I don't think they got the memo.
...united together with their clergy centered on the bishop celebrating the Holy Eucharist.
There is a great deal of debate about when this began to occur. The office of Bishop only developed after the number of Christian Churches (mostly house churches) had grown dramatically. The clergy were still being selected by the individual churches. It was in the 2nd century that a hierarchy began to develop and Scripture began to be disregarded as the rule of the faith.
wf, you work with a group of Orthodox. Do you think they'd let some bishop or priest get away with changing their Holy Tradition?
They are less inclined than their RC counter parts, but in the end they follow the party line. The EO have fallen into the same trap as the RC, only to a lesser degree, because they have accepted "tradition" as an equal of Scripture.
that's why I can say that an ancestor of mine from, say, 400, if he showed up at the Liturgy this evening, would recognize immediately what was going on.
Then the question the EO should be asking is how different are your religious services from the Apostolic Era and the generations immediately following.