The following articles in the “About Orthodoxy” section are all taken from one book: "These Truths We Hold - The Holy Orthodox Church: Her Life and Teachings" Copyright 1986.  This book does a good job of laying out the history and teachings of the Orthodox church.  The facts and correct beliefs we have about God are very important, but they should always bring us closer to God, to relationship with and experience of Him.  Vladimir Losskey writes: “The purpose of our knowledge about God is our union with God.”Our experience of God is, necessarily, shaped by the facts we believe about God.[4]  What we believe, our doctrine, matters.[5]  Theology may use the terminology of scientific study, but it must set the spirit on the path to contemplation.[6]  Theological teaching is indispensable, but is also a hinderance in that our concepts about Him can become an idol.[7]  We only know God in He shows us of himself.  The Father reveals Himself through the Son in the Holy Spirit.[8] 

A related concept is that the Church is a hospital for our diseased souls.  Metropolitan Heirotheos writes: “A person’s knowledge of God depends on the extent to which he has been cured and on his spiritual state.”[9]  “Orthodox theology is the voice and the word of the Orthodox church.  Neither Orthodox theology, nor the Orthodox Church, is an ideology, but a means of healing.  That is to say, the Church is a spiritual hospital and Orthodox theology, which is the revelation and knowledge of God, knows how to heal people.”[10]

-Reader Christopher

 

[1] Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 9.

[2] Lossky, 40.

[3] Lossky, 21.

[4] Lossky, 22.

[5] Lossky, 10.

[6] Lossky, 14.

[7] Lossky, 14.

[8] Lossky, Erickson, and Bird, In the Image and Likeness of God, 15.

[9] Vlachos and Mavromichali, The Illness and Cure of the Soul in the Orthodox Tradition, 191.

[10] Vlachos, Selfe, and Mavromichali, The Science of Spiritual Medicine, 33.