Orthodox Christians understand Holy Tradition as the total experience of the Church as it has been passed on to us by Christ and His Apostles. It is the Church – within the context of Holy Tradition and guided by the Holy Spirit – who wrote the New Testament.

 

The early Church recognized the need for clarity and uniformity in order to maintain its orthodoxy, or “correctness of belief.” In 325, the first of seven Ecumenical Councils was convened. Guided by Grace and the Holy Spirit, leaders of the entire Christian world assembled over the next five centuries to hammer out fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, as distilled in the words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.