Kolo: I don’t agree
Okay, then the OT is not a foreshadowing of Christ. I think the Church is clear that the revelation was gradual and that what was revealed was true but the puzzle didn't come together until Christ. At any time before that, the revealed Truth was known to various degrees.
The truth itself comes form God and it's absolute, but the amount revealed is gradual. More was revealed at different stages, and therefore the revelation was made in steps or degrees, each step revealing a bit more.
Here is what Met. Maximos of Pittsburgh has to say about the Fathers and scripture
They worked out what was revealed but they did not add or take away from it.
The Church depends on all these Fathers and the insights they have concerning the living faith of the Church, present in living continuity with the early Church in the life of the Church through the ages.”
But they do not reveal more truth than was revealed.
Bottom line...the Bible is only part of the Holy Tradition of The Church, the most important part, but only a part, along with the writings of the Fathers, the Councils, the Creeds, the Canons, the Divine Liturgy, even our architecture and iconography
Yes, the Church is a living, breathing organism. It is not just the faith but life in faith. It's a complex lifestyle and mindset. But fasting rules, for example are not it, although many treat them as such. They are man-made inventions, Kolo. So, not everything in the Church is this "inspired" immutable tradition handed from generation to generation. The gifts used to be brought in from outside when St. John Chrysostom wrote his homilies. Today, they are made next to the altar.
One of the biggest problems is separating what is human and what is divine. Unfortunately, the Church tends to treat everything as "divine." A lot of it is human. And even to this day, the typikons of Mt Athos (which the Serbian/Russian Church follows) is different from that used by the Greek Church, and this has been a problem for the Serbs as some of the priests educated in Greece use a different typikon.
And the calendar issue, which divided Orthodoxy and which has no signs of healing, is a human invention, and not divine. No doubt, the Church safeguards what was passed on from the Apostles to the Apostolic Fathers and Church Fathers all the way to us. But not everything that is seen and heard in the Church is inspired.
I don't know to what extent the Fathers were "inspired" and to what extent they were just good scholars or theologians.
“The truth itself comes form God and it’s absolute, but the amount revealed is gradual. More was revealed at different stages, and therefore the revelation was made in steps or degrees, each step revealing a bit more.”
Agreed
“They worked out what was revealed but they did not add or take away from it....But they do not reveal more truth than was revealed.”
“One of the biggest problems is separating what is human and what is divine. Unfortunately, the Church tends to treat everything as “divine.” A lot of it is human. And even to this day, the typikons of Mt Athos (which the Serbian/Russian Church follows) is different from that used by the Greek Church, and this has been a problem for the Serbs as some of the priests educated in Greece use a different typikon.”
I don’t think we use the typikon of the Church of Greece, but rather that of the Great Church at Constantinople, but I could be wrong.
Agreed again, assuming you mean that they explained more clearly for men what the scripture had revealed.
“So, not everything in the Church is this “inspired” immutable tradition handed from generation to generation.”
Not at all; indeed somethings handed down from generation to generation are clearly NOT inspired, “Greekiness” for example.
“The gifts used to be brought in from outside when St. John Chrysostom wrote his homilies. Today, they are made next to the altar.”
Actually, through the month of October the prosphora for ur parish liturgies were made by my wife in our kitchen, which is not a room next to the altar...but I know what you mean. :)