In studying the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, it is easy to talk about the points of disagreement between them. As for studying the differences between Orthodoxy and Protestantism, the easiest thing is to talk about the few points of agreement between them. First of all, it must be said that Protestantism represents a group of ecclesiastical sects that broke away from the apostolic churches (Orthodox and Catholic), which combine a different, heterogeneous hybrid of doctrinal teachings that differ from one sect to another. Therefore, we will focus the discussion here briefly on the main issues. Thus, defining Protestant theology and Protestant doctrines is difficult and impossible. But it is possible to talk about the general features that unite the Protestant groups, knowing that some Protestants do not welcome being called by this name and now prefer the title “evangelicals.” But since the title “evangelicals” is the title of the Orthodox and Catholic churches alike, therefore, the name “oppositional” Protestants is more correct and includes all those who split from the Catholic Church and opposed it, and all those who branched out and split from the first and subsequent Protestant groups, as long as God wills.

The majority of Protestant sects (but not all, as we found in studying Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists, etc.) believe in one God in three persons; It believes in the incarnation of the Son of God (the Second Hypostasis), our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and in His suffering, crucifixion, death, and resurrection, and in redemption and salvation. But there are sometimes important differences in the terms of this faith. First, Protestantism separated itself (since its emergence after its separation from the Catholic Church) from the Apostolic Church, which appeared on the day of Pentecost and has continued without interruption until the present day and forever. This separation (premeditated and determined) led Protestantism to a comprehensive rejection of the life of the Apostolic Church, including the seven ecumenical councils, the local councils, and the teachings of the Fathers and Apostles, and to a rejection of the sacred church tradition, which is the life of the Holy Spirit residing in the hearts of Christians. And to a rejection of the life of prayer and asceticism that developed over the ages, and to the life of monasticism and asceticism, and to a rejection of church sacraments, and to a rejection of belief in the holiness of the saints and in communion with them and in intercession, and to a rejection of the Apostolic Church’s belief in the holiness of the Virgin Mary, her status (the Most Holy and Ever-Virgin Mother of God) and her intercession. (01).

Therefore, the most important thing that unites the Protestant groups is the rejection of the Apostolic Church (with its life and tradition) and the call for the doctrine of “the Bible exclusively” or Sola Scriptura, and the doctrine of “faith exclusively without works.”

That's it in a nutshell. However, some details must be mentioned below.

the church: Orthodoxy believes that the Church is the body of Christ and that Christians are the members of this body, with Christ as its head. We taste this body practically and in reality in the cup of the sacraments containing the body and blood of Christ, through which we are nourished by Jesus and settle in Him and He settles in us according to what He Himself said, to whom be glory (John 6). A Christian becomes a Christian, that is, a member of the Body of Christ, that is, the Church, through divine baptism. As for Protestantism, it believes that the church is the group of believers in Christ, and this includes both known and unknown believers. Membership in the church occurs once a person declares his personal faith in Christ and accepts him as his Savior. Baptism is merely a symbol of faith in Christ and becoming a member of the Church. Saints John the Ladder (Peace to God 1:1) and John Chrysostom are decisive: Through baptism, a person becomes a Christian.

Divine secrets: In Orthodoxy, the divine secrets are the merging with divine grace through which grace is poured upon a person, sanctifying him and achieving certain actions in him according to the secret. There is no church sacrament without an uncreated divine grace that descends upon the believer in an unseen and incomprehensible way, which is why these actions are called sacraments. Baptism is the new (second) birth, which is burial with Christ and resurrection with him. It renews the old human nature (the old Adam) and gives birth to man into the new Adam with a new human nature in which the divine image (which was torn and marginalized by sin and fall) becomes renewed, and thus the baptized person becomes a member of The Church (the body of Christ) and divine grace dwells in it and thus it becomes ready to receive the fullness of the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit that are poured into the baptized person after anointing him with the holy oil of chrism immediately after baptism. (02). After this, the baptized person also becomes eligible to receive the body and blood of Christ through the sacrament of divine thanksgiving (the Eucharist) under the forms of bread and wine. Also, the Church can forgive the sins of a Christian after sincere repentance by the power granted to her through the Sacrament of Repentance. There are also three other church sacraments (the sacrament of marriage, the sacrament of priesthood, and the sacrament of anointing the sick) through which uncreated divine grace completes certain divine works.

In Protestantism, there are no church secrets in the Orthodox sense. On the contrary, after its separation from Catholicism, Protestantism vehemently rejected all divine secrets and tried to practice some of them in a formal manner devoid of apostolic content. First, through its illegal split from Catholicism, Protestantism emerged as a church movement devoid of any apostolic lineage that linked it to the early church (the New Testament Church) throughout the ages. Therefore, in Protestantism there is no ecclesiastical priesthood that carries effective divine grace that can complete the ecclesiastical sacraments. Although evangelists, priests, and those assigned to serve the word appeared later, all of them lacked the grace of the priesthood, which was transmitted and is transmitted by the laying on of hands through legitimate priestly ordinations that began from the day of Pentecost until the present day. Any defection from or departure from these legitimate ordinations places the defector outside the body of the Church, which cannot be achieved and does not exist outside of the church sacraments. So there is no priesthood in Protestantism and no priestly ranks like the ones we see in the New Testament and the early church (the first 300 years). From here we understand why there are no church sacraments in Protestant sects, even if there are similar sacraments on the surface, but they are not similar to the Orthodox (or Catholic) church sacraments. For example: In Protestantism, baptism is merely a symbol of the believer’s joining the Church and accepting Christ as his personal Savior, and therefore it does not convey the effects of divine grace found in Orthodox (or Catholic) baptism. Baptism in Protestantism does not give birth to a person in Christ, nor does it forgive sins. Protestantism practices an extra-symbolic form of the sacrament of divine thanksgiving, as it offers its members bread and wine one or more times a year (not every Sunday) as a symbol of the body and blood of Christ and not as the actual body and blood of Christ. That is why what Protestants eat is just bread and wine, while what believers in the members of the apostolic churches eat is the actual body and blood of Christ. In Protestantism, there is no anointing of the Holy Spirit with Holy Chrism, nor the sacrament of repentance or anointing of the sick as known in Orthodoxy. Protestantism considers marriage a legal, legal contract between the groom and the bride that is concluded with the testimony of the church, and has no relation to the Holy Spirit or the sacrament of priesthood through which this sacrament is performed in the Orthodox Church.

Church tradition: Protestant sects in all their shapes and colors rejected the sacred church tradition, which is the life of the Holy Spirit in the members of the church and includes the church’s faith (represented, for example, but not limited to the seven ecumenical councils), the teachings of the church fathers and their experience, the life of the church in worship, prayer, the communion of saints, the life of consecrated virginity (represented by monasticism and asceticism), etc. Protestantism, after its separation from Catholicism, rejected everything that linked it to the Church as a divine human body in order to be completely liberated from Catholic clerical control and not to allow the Pope and his representative to touch it. That is why it was forced to reject everything that the Catholic Church called tradition, and only accepted the Bible as it is. Today, Protestant sects have become mere islands isolated from the historical, apostolic Christianity that appeared in the days of the holy apostles, and they no longer have any connection other than accepting belief in the Holy Trinity, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and redemption, albeit with certain differences. Thus, the Protestant sects created a new religion that had nothing to do with early Christianity except for some provisions of the Christian faith. As for the issue of ecumenical councils, the lives of the saints and the Fathers of the Church and their teachings throughout the ages, and how the life of common prayer (liturgy), ascetic prayer, monasticism, the life of the communion of saints, etc., etc., developed, Protestantism takes a position of rejection in general and leaves its believers personal freedom to choose what they like to accept and what they like to accept. They reject it from tradition, even if this rejection is at odds with Christian theology. For Protestants, the word “tradition” is synonymous with the word “heresy,” “sin,” or “falsehood.” Even the Protestant rejection of church tradition has evolved over the centuries. Martin Luther, for example, believed in the virginity of the Virgin and that she was the Mother of God, unlike most Protestant sects today. What is striking here is that Protestantism, which rejects the Holy Tradition and takes only what is stated in the Bible as its basis, as it claims, has developed over the ages a Protestant tradition of its own that did not come from the Bible and does not have biblical origins, even if some people think so. For example: Protestantism rejects the sacrament of divine thanksgiving and the church liturgy, which is more than 17 centuries old and to which the church’s great saints, hermits, and monks contributed, while it created prayer rituals based on hymns with weak language and meanings, accompanied by secular music taken from popular songs and melodies. Protestantism also rejects the Church Fathers’ interpretations of the Bible, claiming that every Protestant believer can read the Bible and interpret it with the Holy Spirit (as if it were the harp of the Holy Spirit). But at the same time, we find that Protestant religious libraries are stuffed and overflowing with hundreds of Protestant interpretations of the Bible, written by people who are at least as holy as the Fathers of the Church. Practically every Protestant pretends to be an interpreter. They are all inspired, but their dispersion is evidence of their lack of unity of spirit. How can Protestants reject the tradition of the Holy Church, which is as old as the Church? (03) And they create for themselves a weak and superficial tradition that has nothing to do with the Church of the Apostles or the Church of the New Testament?! Also, Protestantism refuses to abide by the decisions and articles of faith of the seven ecumenical councils, and gives itself and its believers absolute freedom to accept or reject what they like on the condition that it does not contradict the articles of the Protestant faith. You do not find in Protestantism a clear theological concept of the Trinity, incarnation, sanctification, redemption, holiness, deification, etc. All that can be summarized in the theology of Protestantism is by saying: Accepting Jesus Christ as personal Savior means salvation. As for how and why, who is Jesus, what is the church, what is our relationship today with the church of the apostles, how and why, and who are the apostolic fathers, etc., there is no answer to these questions except perhaps sometimes some shallow doctrinal hints. Protestantism fell under the prohibitions of ancient heresies that were forbidden by the Apostolic Church because of its teachings that differed from the theology of the Orthodox Church. Protestantism, for example, rejects the title “Mother of God” for the Virgin, like the Nestorian heresy.

Bible: Protestantism believes in the doctrine of “Sola Scriptura,” which can summarize Protestantism in one way or another. According to this doctrine, Protestant faith and practice depend on what is stated in the Bible, which anyone can read and understand because the Bible explains itself.

In addition to this, there are many other points that cannot be discussed here (the concept of salvation, the rapture, the judgment, the intercession of the saints, and faith in works exclusively) and the discussion of some of these points can be reviewed in other places in this book.

A final word in conclusion: What was said previously does not mean the judgment of Protestants or their fate, as this judgment belongs to God alone. Many Protestants outperform other Orthodox and Catholics in their zeal, piety, love, and faith. But the Christian faith is something given to the Church and she has a duty to maintain it without favoritism, judgment, or hatred of others. This is in addition to the fact that many Protestants have jealousy, even if it is not according to knowledge, and they do not realize the greatness of the enormous differences between their faith and the faith of the early Christian Church, which has continued to the present day in the Orthodox Church. We see this most clearly in the thousands of Protestants who converted to Orthodoxy since the seventies of the last century, in America first and Europe second. They are all active, zealous and educated, many of them are priests, and many of them have published books, articles and lectures on the reasons for their conversion to Orthodoxy.

About the book: You asked me and I answered you
S 160
Dr.. Adnan Trabelsi

(01) The most dangerous thing they ordered was amputation. They cut off our connection with Jesus thanks to the divine mysteries. Our life in Christ exists in baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist. Petroleum it. Focus on faith. This is a Jewish setback. And they completely annulled the entire history of the church, citing the history of the people of God in the Old Testament? This is the people of the law, the people of earthly Jerusalem, but we are the new people of God, the people of heavenly Jerusalem. These dismemberments are the most dangerous of dangers: they cut us off from Jesus by abrogating the sacraments. They cut us off from Jesus by copying our history, which is the history of “the one universal, holy and apostolic entity.” There is a huge gap between us. They stood at the door and did not enter. They advocated the free, individual interpretation of the Bible, and their sects multiplied. In the end, the church evaporated for them, while historical unity is one of the characteristics of the true church. They are never alone. (Espiro Jabbour).

(02) For accuracy, I return to Kapsilas: baptism is the nucleus of the second birth. Chrism gives us the developmental strength of this new body. The Eucharist is his food and drink to reach the full stature of Christ. Returning to the Apostle Paul: Baptism is a second birth (rebirth in John 3), crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating at the right hand of God in Jesus Christ. Palamas said that the grace of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit descends into the baptismal font and baptizes us. Chrysostom said that the Holy Spirit dwells in us through baptism. He also said that the divine light resides in our hearts constantly, while the glory was on the face of Moses in a fleeting manner. In Palamas's theology and all its patristic sources: This light deifies us. After death and in the afterlife, we will have the manifestation of divine light, that is, complete salvation in the Orthodox concept. Divine salvation is deification for us. See our book “Divine Apparition” (Espiro Djabour).

(03) They ignore that the apostles first taught people orally. Then the New Testament writers came in support of oral teaching. The Church accepted the canonical books of the New Testament and rejected the esoteric books (the Apocryphs) because the former agreed with oral teaching. Oral teaching and the iron covenant are one piece, not two pieces. This is the tradition of the Church. Why did the church reject Arius? Because he violated this tradition. Accordingly, we rejected Jehovah's Witnesses and all the heresies that appeared in the church from the time of the apostles until today. Our disagreement with the West is pagan Greek philosophy. Protestantism relies on the principle of individual free interpretation. That is, make the mind the judge. Everyone interprets according to his own whim. The Orthodox Church has two thousand years of unified communication with the Holy Spirit as its teacher. It did not appear in that year. The rest have dates of appearance: Arius, Nestorius... Luther... Russell... (Espiro Jabbour).