Credinţa ortodoxă şi viaţa bisericească
Orthodox Faith and Church Life

Summary/Abstract: Orthodox faith and church life stand in indissoluble unity. Orthodox faith, seen as dogmatic truth, demarcates the content of the Church life and guarantees Its authenticity. At the same time, Church life is the living mirror of the content of Orthodox faith. When Orthodox faith breaks apart and becomes autonomous in relation to the life of the believer, it no longer has redemption value. Orthodox faith has redemption value only when it relates indissolubly and functionally to the everyday life of the believer. Truth in Church is not theoretical, which means that it is not the intellectual apprehension by means of listening to and studying the knowledge regarding the content of faith, but mainly the mystery experienced by the work of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual perfection, when it defi nes the Orthodox believer, is intertwined with the Orthodox conscience and with dogmatic accuracy. Just as Orthodoxy experienced coexists with ortopraxy (acting right), heresy is incompatible with piety; it can’t coexist with it. The Orthodox Church has never set a line between the truth of its dogmas and Its life and piety. Heresy is intimately related to the act of deceiving, being a deviation from truth, as well as a deviation from what full, authentic life means.

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