Let us fast, my children, do not listen to those who say that fasting is nothing, and that this is something from monks. This is not from monks, my children, forgive me, God says this. The first commandment of God [in the Garden of Eden] is fasting, and our Christ fasted.
St. Elder Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia, "On Prayer and Fasting," retrieved from Orthodox Path blog, posted February 25, 2025.
As an Orthodox Christian though, I regret that the reform did not happen within the Western Christian community without there being a schism, and I’m especially sad for the multiple fissures that have occurred since that first reaction. These divisions and the multiple communities with their various doctrines are, most Orthodox would say, the inevitable result of individualistic readings of the Scripture that results from a hermeneutic based on sola Scriptura. Instead, we Orthodox hold to a position of prima Scriptura, and that means reading the Scriptures from within church tradition rather than thinking that we can pole jump from our current day back to an original, pristine, unspoiled early era of the church. The Scriptures themselves bear witness to the importance of a holy tradition that has been passed down by Christ and the apostles, a tradition that includes reading the Old Testament in the light of Christ—think of the road to Emmaus.
Edith M. Humphrey et al., TH351 Perspectives on Justification by Faith: Five Views on Its Meaning and Significance, Logos Mobile Education (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).
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[St. Anthony said] that it was more fitting for young men to hold to the ascetic life with zeal and not to seek things that enervate the body, but rather to accustom it to labors, bearing in mind the apostle's words, "When I am weak, then I am strong." For he used to say that the nous of the soul is strong when the pleasures of the body are weak....
For a man's whole life is very short when measured by the ages to come; all our time is nothing compared to eternal life. In the world everything is sold at its value and an item is exchanged for its equivalent, but the promise of eternal life is bought for a trifle....
St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, Saint Anthony the Great, trans. Saint Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery (Florence, AZ: Saint Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery Press, 2019), 12, 21.
Be it an infallible church, Book or Doctrine, all these assume that there is a spot in the world which is not fallen and thus exempt from sinfulness. But the only part of the world free from Sin and its positive correlative is Christ Jesus… and He alone is the ultimate authority....
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. London, 1933-1935. Translated by Keith W. Clements. Vol. 13, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007.
The quote is from student notes on a lecture Bonhoeffer gave on Karl Barth’s theology. I encountered it in Wartick, J.W. "Bonhoeffer on an infallible (or inerrant) church, book, or doctrine." Reconstructing Faith blog. July 29, 2024. Retrieved from https://jwwartick.com/2024/07/29/bonhoeffer-infallible/.