The Decree of Pope St. Gelasius – The Liturgical Joke of the Federal Vision
April 17, 2010 4 Comments
By: Jay Dyer
Protestants are generally clueless when it comes to the canon of Scripture. Even the best of them act as if the Bible dropped out of heaven into their academic circles, as God, of course, needs their rigorous scientific exegesis. But what’s the real problem with this? The problem is that the Protestants have taken the Bible out of its proper context – that of the Liturgy. And, for all you Federal Visionaries, the Church already has apostolic liturgies – we don’t need you inventing and fabricating your own. But at least the FV guys are moving in the right direction.
As I’ve stated many times in debates and discussions, the formation of the canon, whether new or old Testament, cannot be separated from the context that gave those books meaning – public liturgy. The only way we know the authorship of the texts is from Apostolic Tradition, as I’ve demonstrated many times, and the milieu of that Tradition was the public readings at the local liturgy. Scholars across various denominations have known this for years. This growth in the knowledge of God via liturgy and sacraments is called “mystagogy.” Eastern Orthodox theologian, Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver, explains:
“Strictly speaking, there never was a Bible in the Orthodox Church, at least not as we commonly think of the Bible as a single volume book we can hold in our hand. Since the beginning of the Church, from the start of our liturgical tradition, there has never been a single book in an Orthodox church we could point to as the Bible. Instead, the various books of the Bible are found scattered throughout several service books located either on the Holy Altar itself, or at the chanter’s stand. The Gospels (or their pericopes) are complied into a single volume — usually bound in precious metal and richly decorated — placed on the Holy Altar.” Read more of this post
