The answer
What is the material of Christian tradition? Or, what is the deposit that the Church received and preserved throughout the generations? In fact, Christ did not give His disciples and apostles a written document. Instead, He prepared them to follow Him and to accept Him dwelling within their hearts. They heard Him teach and followed Him everywhere. They saw Him pray, comfort people, treat sinners kindly, heal the sick and give life to the dead. They saw Him celebrate the Last Supper and grant them peace after His resurrection. Finally, He sent them His Holy Spirit, not only to remind them of His own words and to help them follow His example, but also that they may have unity with Him and that they may partake in His divine life. This is the essence of our tradition: “unity with the Lord Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.” For God the Father gave up His own Son for us, and the Son also gave Himself up for us (see John 3:16, Gal. 2:20, Eph. 5:2).
This is the Tradition, “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), or the “Gospel” written in our lives and engraved in our hearts. It is a continuous, living gift, received by the apostles who delivered it to their disciples by the Holy Spirit who bears witness to Christ within the life of the Church and unites her with the Savior.
In other words, this act of transmission or delivery did not occur only through the apostles’ writings, but also through the Holy Spirit who guided their feelings, attitudes, worship, behavior, and preaching. He granted them a new life that is “the life in Christ,” in the life of the Church throughout the generations as He continues to live and work in the Church yesterday, today, and tomorrow; inspiring her life and filling it with a continuity of life, faith, and love, and not a static imitation of the past.192 Thus, tradition is the living stream of the one life of the Church, which carries the past in all its aspects as a living present and extends the present towards the future without deviation. This is the essence of “tradition.” When we study tradition, we must focus on its contents which include:
a. The message of faith in the Holy Trinity and God’s saving works, and the teaching
of it.
b. The acts and words of the Lord Christ.
c. The books of the Old and New Testaments and the experience of the Church Fathers
and their understanding of the word of God, etc.
d. The spiritual and behavioral program in Christ Jesus.
e. The pattern of worship: its concepts and order.
f. The canons of the Church and the order of worship, such as prayers, fasting,
prostrations (metanoias), feasts, etc., which are practiced in a spiritual manner for the edification of the Church and the growth of every believer’s spiritual life and personal relationship with the Holy Trinity.
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
192 See, E. O’Brien (ed.), The Convergence of Traditions: Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant (Herder & Herder, 1967): p. 22.