Holy Tradition

What has been handed on: the faith received from the Apostles and kept alive in the Church by the Holy Spirit. St Paul tells the Thessalonians to hold the traditions they were taught, whether by word or by letter, and the Orthodox Church has never set Scripture against Tradition: Scripture is the heart of Tradition, written down within it, and read rightly within it. Around it stand the Creed, the definitions of the councils, the writings of the Fathers, the liturgy, the icons, the canons and the lives of the saints. St Basil lists things nobody doubts that are written nowhere: the sign of the cross, facing east to pray, the words of the epiclesis. Tradition is not the same as custom. A custom can be old and wrong; Tradition is the life of the Spirit in the Church, and the test of it is the Church’s common mind over time, not antiquity alone.