Ah, A, you don't understand Orthodoxy at all. What you are seeing is no surprise to me nor to TRD, I suspect. Your eyes are Western, rooted in your former Protestantism and informed by your present Latin Catholicism. Orthodoxy is definitely not a democracy nor an oligarcy of hierarchs nor a monarchy of a supreme religious prelate. We don't take votes, and we submit only when our priests and hierarchs preach The Orthodox Faith. And when they don't, we straighten them out. It is, rather, a synergy, as I said; the hierarchs, clergy and laity together, each fulfilling its proper role. It is The Church, centered on the Eucharist which is Christ. This is neither Roman nor Protestant. It is 2000 year old Christian ecclesiology and it works.
Well, then I don't see how you are any different than Protestants, who mostly don't even pretend to submit anymore. If I am the one deciding whether what the 'authority' is saying is 'authoritative', then *I* am my own authority. The 'authority' is only token, not actual.
But still, I don't believe you. :-) You are not as Protestant as you make yourself out to be, even if you talk about authority just as Luther did.
-A8