Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition

The 1874 Bonn Conference on Reunion:

The genuine Tradition (the unbroken transmission, partly oral, partly in writing, of the doctrine delivered by Christ and the Apostles) is an authoritative source of teaching for all successive generations of Christians. This tradition is partly to be found in the consensus of the great ecclesiastical bodies standing in historical continuity with the primitive Church, partly to be gathered by scientific method from the written documents of all centuries.

Archpriest Januschev [Eastern Orthodox] asked what 'the great ecclesiastical bodies' referred to were. Dr Dollinger [Old Catholic] answered, 'First your own Church, and then the Western Church, except those sections of it which have severed their historical continuity.'

Bishop John Wordsworth, 1900 Special Committee of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Anglicans honour the Holy Scripture as the rule and test of divine truth, by which every form of doctrine, whether derived from ancient tradition or from theological definition, must necessarily be tried.

The Church of England accepts and venerates the primitive traditions of the Church which are in harmony with Holy Scripture, remembering that the Canon of Scripture itself is received from tradition. The Church of England has always proclaimed itself studious of antiquity and averse to novelties.

The 1931 Joint Anglican-Orthodox Doctrinal Commission, London:

1. The Christian Revelation. We accept the Divine Revelation which was delivered once for all in Our Lord Jesus Christ: and we receive it as it is revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and as it has been made known and handed down from the Apostles in the Tradition of the Church throughout the ages by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
2. Scripture and Tradition. We agree that we receive the Divine Revelation in Our Lord Jesus Christ through Scripture and Tradition.

By Scripture we mean the Canon of Scripture as it is defined by Saint Athanasius and as it has been received by the whole Catholic Church.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any that it should believed as an Article of the Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

Holy Scripture is fulfilled, clarified and interpreted by Holy Tradition.

Everything necessary to salvation can be found in Holy Scripture as completed, expounded, interpreted and understood in the Holy Tradition, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit residing in the Church.

We agree that by Holy Tradition we means the truths which came down from Our Lord and the Apostles through the Fathers, which are confessed unanimously and continuously in the Undivided Church, and are taught by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We agree that nothing contained in Tradition is contrary to the Scriptures. Though these two may be logically defined and distinguished, yet they cannot be separated from each other nor from the Church.

The 1935 Joint Anglican-Orthodox Doctrinal Commission, Bucharest:

The Revelation of God is transmitted through the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Tradition.

We agree that by Holy Tradition we means the truths which came down from Our Lord and the Apostles and have defined by the Holy Councils or are taught by the Fathers, which are confessed unanimously and continuously in the Undivided Church, and are taught by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The 1956 Joint Anglican-Orthodox Doctrinal Commission, Moscow:

Holy Scripture is explained and completed in the light of Tradition.

Tradition means the divinely revealed truths transmitted from the Apostles through the Fathers.

The 1976 Anglican-Orthodox Agreed Statement, Moscow:

The Inspiration and Authority of Holy Scripture

The Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. They are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They bear authoritative witness to God's revelation of himself in creation, in the Incarna­tion of the Word and in the whole history of salvation, and as such express the Word of God in human language.

We know, receive, and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. Our approach to the Bible is one of obedience so that we may hear the revelation of himself that God gives through it.

The books of Scripture contained in the Canon are authorita­tive because they truly convey the authentic revelation of God, which the Church recognizes in them. Their authority is not determined by any particular theories concerning the authorship of these books or the historical circumstances in which they were written. The Church gives attention to the results of scholarly research concerning the Bible from whatever quarter they come, but it tests them in the light of its experience and understanding of the faith as a whole.

The Church believes in the apostolic origin of the New Testa­ment, as containing the witness of those who had seen the Lord.

Both the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches make a dis­tinction between the canonical books of the Old Testament and the deutero-canonical books (otherwise called the Anaginoskomena) although the Orthodox Churches have not pronounced officially on the nature of the distinction, as is done in the Anglican Articles. Both Communions are agreed in regarding the deutero-canonical books as edifying and both, and in particular the Orthodox Church, make liturgical use of them.

Scripture and Tradition

Any disjunction between Scripture and Tradition such as would treat them as two separate 'sources of revelation' must be rejected. The two are correlative. We affirm (i) that Scripture is the main criterion whereby the Church tests traditions to deter­mine whether they are truly part of Holy Tradition or not; (ii) that Holy Tradition completes Holy Scripture in the sense that it safeguards the integrity of the biblical message.

(i) By the term Holy Tradition we understand the entire life of the Church in the Holy Spirit. This tradition expresses itself in dogmatic teaching, in liturgical worship, in canonical discipline, and in spiritual life. These elements together manifest the single and indivisible life of the Church.
(ii) Of supreme importance is the dogmatic tradition, which in substance is unchangeable. In seeking to communicate the saving truth to mankind, the Church in every generation makes use of contemporary language and therefore of contemporary modes of thought; but this usage must always be tested by the standard of Scripture and of the dogmatic definitions of the Ecumenical Councils. The mind (phronema) of the Fathers, their theological method, their terminology and modes of expression have a lasting importance in both the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches.
(iii) The liturgical and canonical expressions of Tradition can differ, in that they are concerned with varying situations of the people of God in different historical periods and in different places. The liturgical and canonical traditions remain unchange­able to the extent that they embody the unchangeable truth of divine revelation and respond to the unchanging needs of man­kind.

The Church cannot define dogmas which are not grounded both in Holy Scripture and in Holy Tradition, but has the power, particularly in Ecumenical Councils, to formulate the truths of the faith more exactly and precisely when the needs of the Church require it.

The 1984 Anglican-Orthodox Agreed Statement, Dublin:

Paradosis - Tradition

Looked at from outside, the two Churches appear to be very different in their attitude to tradition, the Anglicans allowing a great variety of attitude and teach­ing, the Orthodox being strongly attached to the defini­tions and the structures of the tradition, especially to those established in the Ecumenical Councils and by the Church Fathers.

Nevertheless within the freedom existing in the Anglican Communion there is a commitment and re­sponsibility to the tradition, and a conviction that there are elements in the tradition, for instance the historic Creeds and the Chalcedonian definition, of permanent validity. On the Orthodox side, there exists freedom and understanding of tradition as the constant action of the Holy Spirit in the Church, an unceasing presence of the revelation of the Word of God through the Holy Spirit, ever present, here and now. Tradition is always open, ready to embrace the present and accept the future.

The Anglicans share this understanding of tradi­tion. Tradition, with Scripture as the normative factor within it, is that which maintains our Christian identity, which develops and nurtures our Christian obedience, and makes our Christian witness effective in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The tradition of the Church flows from the Father's gift of his Son 'for the life of the world', through the sojourning of the Holy Spirit in the world to be a con­stant witness to the truth (John 15.26). The Church draws its life and being from this same movement of the Father's love; that is to say, the Church too lives 'for the life of the world'. Its tradition is the living force and inexhaustible source of its mission to the world.

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church enables the whole body of the faithful, the pleroma of the Church, to be enriched and strengthened in facing the problems of our time, both within the Church and outside it. There is a variety of gifts of the Spirit which work together for the building up of the Christian people for their work of witness and service in the world for the common good. Both Anglicans and Orthodox see in their fidelity to tradition a mutual bond, and a strong incentive to closer co-operation in witness and service to the world.

One aspect of the dynamic nature of tradition is to be seen in the way in which the Church assimilates and sanctifies certain elements of the cultures of the various societies in which the Church lives. The Fathers of the Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, exercised a careful discrimination in their use of mater­ial from the society around them. The Church at the present time needs to exercise a similar discrimination, remaining true to the mind (phronema) of the Fathers and facing the new questions with which our century confronts us.