The discourse of catechesis is necessary for those who preside over “the mystery of piety” [(1 Timothy 3:16)], so that the Church may be increased by the “addition of those being saved” [(Acts 2:47)], while “the word of faith in accordance with teaching” [(Titus 1:9)] is brought to the hearing of unbelievers. Indeed the same manner of teaching will not be suitable for all who approach the word, but the catechesis must also be made to suit the differences of religions, looking to the same aim of the discourse, but not using proofs in the same manner for each. For the Judaizer has presupposed one set of suppositions and the one living in Hellenism different ones..., and the remaining catalogue of those erring in heresies, each presupposing their own suppositions, make it necessary to do battle with their conjectures. For the manner of healing must be suited to the form of the illness. You will not heal the Greek’s polytheism and the Jew’s unbelief regarding “the only-begotten God” [(John 1:18)] with the same [arguments], nor for those who have erred in heresies will you overthrow the delusions about [their] teachings’ made-up myths from the same [arguments].... But it is necessary, as has been said, to look to men’s presuppositions, and for the discussion to be made according to the error in which each is involved, putting forward certain principles and reasonable propositions for each dialogue, so that through the things admitted by both sides the truth may be unveiled in order.

Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists, ed. John Behr, trans. Ignatius Green, vol. 60, Popular Patristics Series (Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2019), 60–61.

... [T]here was an internal necessity for Christ’s work in His in-humanization to be completed. The Lord could not remain on earth longer than that period of forty days during which were accomplished the mystically definitive glorification of His resurrected Body and the preparation of this Body for Ascension. Just as He had prepared Himself for forty days in the desert for His earthly ministry, so forty days also passed before His Ascension. As long as the Lord remained on earth, the work of salvation and the deification of the human essence were not yet complete.

The Lord came “in order to unite earth with heaven” (according to the kontakion). That is why He came down from heaven and became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, while being true God, “one of the Holy Trinity.” He was also to follow the reverse path, this time not of descent, but of Ascension. The heavens, which opened for His descent down to creatures, also had to open for the Ascension of the Incarnate One. If the Lord had remained on earth and had not returned to heaven, that would have signified that there is no road for the human essence to heaven, and that the One who assumed this essence would have been separated from the Holy Trinity, would have remained powerless, as it were, to deify and glorify the human essence....

The Ascension to heaven and the sitting at the right hand of the Father signify the total and definitive salvation and deification of the human essence: There is no separation between the heavenly and the earthly, for, in heaven, God who bears human flesh sits on the throne.... Christ’s Ascension not only completes His redemptive work; it also opens the way for the descent of the Comforter Spirit into the world, for the establishment of Christ’s Church on earth. The Ascension is the foundation and preparation for Pentecost: “The Lord ascended to heaven in order to send the Comforter to the world” (according to the sticheron).

Sergius Bulgakov, Churchly Joy: Orthodox Devotions for the Church Year, trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008), 122–123.

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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