III. Theology
Revelation is preserved in the Church. It was given by God to the Church, not to separate individuals. Just as in the Old Testament "the words of God" ("τα λογια του Θεου,” ta logia tu Theu — Romans 3:2) were entrusted not to individuals but to the People of God. Revelation is given, and is accessible, only in the Church; that is, only through life in the Church, through a living and actual belonging to the mystical organism of the Body of Christ. This means that genuine knowledge is only possible in the element of Tradition.
Tradition is a very important concept, one which is usually understood too narrowly: as oral Tradition in contrast to Scripture. This understanding not only narrows but also distorts the meaning of Tradition. Sacred Tradition as the "tradition of truth," — traditio veritatis, as St. Irenaeus stated — is not only historical memory, not simply an appeal to antiquity and to empirical unchangingness. Tradition is the inner, mystical memory of the Church. It is, above all, the "unity of the Spirit," the unity and continuity of the spiritual experience and the life of grace. It is the living connection with the day of Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit descended into the world as the "Spirit of Truth." The faithfulness to Tradition is not a loyalty to antiquity but rather the living relationship with the fulness of the Christian life.
The appeal to Tradition is not so much the appeal to earlier patterns as it is an appeal to the "catholic" experience of the Church, to the fulness of her knowledge. As the well-known formula of St. Vincent of Lerins states: quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est — in this formula, to which one so often appeals, there is an essential ambiguity. "Semper" and "ubique" must not be understood literally and empirically. And "omnes" does not include all who claim to be Christian but only the "true" Christians who preserve the right doctrine and interpret it correctly. Those, however, who are "heretics," who are misled, and those who are weak in faith are not included in the concept of "all." The formula of St. Vincent is based on a tautology. The scope of Tradition cannot be established simply by historical research. That would be a very dangerous path. That would mean a complete disregard for the spiritual nature of the Church. Tradition is known and understood only by belonging to the Church, through participation in her common or "catholic" life.
The term "catholic" is often understood wrongly and imprecisely. The katholikos (καθολικος) of kath olu (καθ ολου) does not at all mean an external universality — it is not a quantative but rather a qualitative criterion. “Catholic” does not mean “universal;" katholikos is not identical with ikumenikos (οικουμενικος). The "Catholic Church" can also historically turn out to be the "small flock." There are probably more "heretics" than "Orthodox believers" in the actual world and it can turn out that "heretics" are "everywhere" — ubique — and the true Church is pushed into the background of history, into the "desert." This was often the case and it may happen again. But this empirical limitation and situation does not in any way destroy the "catholic" nature of the Church. The Church is catholic because she is the Body of Christ, and in the unity of this Body the reciprocal co-growth of individual members takes place; mutual seclusion and isolation is overcome, and the true "community" or the "common life" — kinonia or kinovia — is realized. And that concerns thought also. In the unity of the Church the catholicity of consciousness is realized. In this the true mystery of the Church is contained: "that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us...so that they may become perfectly one..." ("ινα παντες εν ωσιν—ινα ωσιν τετελειωμενοι εις εν” John 17:21, 23).
This "fulness of unity" in the image of the Trinity is precisely the catholicity of the Church. In explaining the High Priestly prayer of our Lord, the late Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev stated: "This prayer concerns nothing else other than the establishment of a new, united existence of the Church on earth. This reality has its image not on earth, where there is no unity but only division, but rather its image is in heaven where the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit unites Three Persons in one Being. Thus there are not three Gods but One God who lives One life. The Church is the completely new, particular, unique existence on earth, a unique existence which one cannot define clearly by certain concepts taken from profane life. The Church is an image of Trinitarian existence, an image in which many persons become one being. Why is such an existence, as also the existence of the Holy Trinity, new and, for ancient man, inaccessible? For this reason; because in the natural self-consciousness a person is enclosed within himself and is radically opposed to every other person" (Archbishop Anthony Khrapovitskti, Collected, Works, II, 2; St. Petersburg, 1911, — "The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Church," pp. 17 and 18; in Russian). Elsewhere Metropolitan Anthony states: "The Christian therefore must free himself, in the measure of his spiritual perfection, from the direct opposition of "I" and "non-I" — to transform from its very foundation the structure of human self-consciousness" (Ibid., p. 65).
Such a transformation of "human self-consciousness" also takes place in the Church, in the "catholic" or "communal" consciousness of the Church. "Catholic" consciousness is not a collective-consciousness, not a universal or profane community-consciousness — neither is it a conglomerate of single conscious individuals; it is not an impersonal "consciousness-in-general." "Catholicity" is the concrete "unity of thoughts" and "community of persons." "Catholicity" is structure and style, "the determination of personal consciousness," which overcomes its limitation and isolation and matures to a "catholic" height — "catholicity" is the ideal standard or boundary-point, the "telos," (τελος) of personal consciousness which is realized in the affirmation, not in the abolition, of personality. And the measure of "catholicity" can only be fulfilled through life in Christ. And not because we realize in our consciousness an abstract "consciousness-in-general" or an impersonal nature of logical thought, but rather "catholicity" is realized by concrete experience or by the Vision of the Truth. Unity is realized through participation in the one truth; it realized itself in the truth, in Christ. And therefore consciousness transforms itself. As the clearest expression of this transformation one must recognize that mysterious overcoming of time which takes place in the Church.
In Christ the believers of all eras and generations unify and unite themselves — meeting each other, as it were, as mystically united contemporaries. In this consists precisely the religious and ****physical meaning of "the communion of the saints" — communio sanctorum. And therefore the memory of the Church is oriented not to the past which has passed away but rather to what has been achieved or "completed" — the memory of the Church is turned toward those of the past as contemporaries in the fulness of the Church of the Body of Christ, which embraces all times. Tradition is the symbol of this "all-time-ness."
To know or perceive through Tradition means to know or perceive from the fulness of this experience of "all-time-ness." And this can be known within the Church by each person in his personal experience, according to the measure of his spiritual maturity. To turn oneself toward Tradition means to turn oneself toward this fulness. The "Catholic transformation" of consciousness makes it possible for each person to know — not in fact for himself only but for all; it makes the fulness of experience possible. And this knowledge is free from every restriction. In the catholic nature of the Church there is the possibility of theological knowledge and not just something founded upon theological "opinions." I maintain that each person can realize the catholic standard in himself. I do not say that each person does realize it. That depends upon the measure of one's spiritual maturity. Each person is, however, called. And those who realize it we call Fathers and Teachers of the Church, for we hear from them not simply their personal opinions but the very witness of the Church — because they speak out of the Catholic fulness. This fulness is unexhausted and inexhaustible. And we are summoned to testify about this and in this the vocation of man is fulfilled. God revealed and reveals himself to man. And we are called to testify to that which we have seen and see.

Translated from the German by
RICHARD HAUGH