Talk 24: Elders vs. Religious Intellectuals: Whom to Follow?

In the Orthodox Church today there is a growing trend towards using logic and reason to explain miracles, mysteries, Divine Providence and demonic phenomena. This school of thought has existed in the Western Church for centuries, and is known as rationalism. The disease of rationalism is now being spread in the Orthodox Church by some clergy and theologians, many of whom have studied in the West. But Orthodox Christianity cannot be comprehended solely through reason and logic.

In this talk, Father Kosmas uses the teachings of Elder Paisios of Mount Athos (†1994) to explain that rationalism comes from a partial or complete lack of faith, and has its roots in pride, ego and self-trust. Since the Great Schism, there has always been within the Orthodox Church a battle between those of the true Orthodox spirit and those of this Western spirit. F ...