ABSTRACT
This chapter describes about the authoritative sources in the Orthodox tradition, as this in many respects is what sets the Orthodox apart from other churches and denominations in Christendom. It was only after the first millennium that the three major divisions of contemporary Christianity–Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy–came into existence. Individual or personal readings of Scripture can go wrong or mislead in innumerable ways, and for this reason the Orthodox turn to the guidance of the Church when something in Scripture is unclear or in dispute. For the Orthodox, 'Tradition' is the primary source of the knowledge and understanding of God. John Zizioulas argues that the personal or relational understanding of God as Trinity effected nothing less than an ontological revolution in Greek philosophy. Although the pinnacle of God's creation is man, Orthodox cosmology is more accurately viewed as 'theocentric' than 'anthropocentric'.
