Orthodox Priest Uses "Tradition" To INSULT Protestant Interviewers

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]An Orthodox priest patronizes two Protestant women. Like for me, scripture is everything. The Bible is absolutely everything to me. It's what my life is is, you know, built on after getting saved.

[00:00:15]>> Yeah. In the Greek >> Because your girls gone Bible thumping.

[00:00:17]Yeah. Yeah, we are. So, in the Greek word What they don't realize is that unless they are Greek Orthodox or Roman Catholic such a statement is null and void from the standpoint of both churches. But for the sake of ecumenism, the priest won't make that clear to such uh women during this podcast. George, what is valued more, tradition or scripture?

[00:00:44]The question as you put it is an expression of your Protestant commitments.

[00:00:50]And what they're really saying is, without realizing it what is your final authority?

[00:00:57]And of course, for the Catholic, it is the magisterium of the church.

[00:01:03]And here, this Orthodox priest somewhat of an internet celebrity is going to school these glamorous girls on the subject of tradition versus the scripture. Because in your mind, those are two different things. Which is it, scripture or tradition?

[00:01:23]>> [gasps] >> Well, it goes back to what I said last night during my live seminar, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Or what came first, the scripture or the church?

[00:01:36]And I made the case last night that scripture came first, then the church. And I'll leave a link in the description if you want to watch that two and a half hour live seminar. I would say to you, with all respect, is you need to read your Bible more closely. And that is patronizing.

[00:01:59]He's saying, "Listen to me. I'm a priest.

[00:02:02]You Protestants are ignorant.

[00:02:06]I've been to seminary, you haven't. I wear the vestments, you don't."

[00:02:10]Very condescending.

[00:02:12]And this is part of the weakness of evangelicalism.

[00:02:17]They don't know enough Bible, first and foremost. Tradition, yes, and also church history.

[00:02:23]If the scripture says one thing and tradition says something else, what do you do?

[00:02:29]That's the question really behind this particular question.

[00:02:33]In the next few minutes, the Orthodox priest just bamboozles these two women.

[00:02:40]St. Paul says this. He He said this to the Thessalonians.

[00:02:44]This is 1 Thessalonians 2. Stand fast and hold to the tradition which I imparted to you either through word of mouth or writing.

[00:02:55]So, tradition is not in antithesis to scripture.

[00:02:59]Scripture is the chief part of tradition. Right.

[00:03:02]>> [sighs] >> There's also oral instruction. If you were in that church, you would By the way, that church, the Thessalonians, that town is still actively Christian. I actually went there first in 1996. It's called Thessalonica.

[00:03:15]>> [clears throat] >> It's a famous town in Greece.

[00:03:18]Paul was the pastor there. When I went to my first liturgy there, Pastor?

[00:03:22]Question mark.

[00:03:24]Paul wasn't an apostle. He was an evangelist.

[00:03:28]An itinerant preacher.

[00:03:30]He was there for around three Sabbaths.

[00:03:34]He got people saved, baptized, converts, and then appointed elders to govern local assemblies.

[00:03:43]The term pastor isn't the best term to use because of course the average pastor is in post three to five years.

[00:03:52]Paul was always traveling, so it's not the best usage of such a term for the Apostle Paul. 1996, I stood in the altar with the priest and behind the altar was this old old stone chair. And it was roped off. It's usually where the bishop sits and it had an icon of St. Paul in it. And I asked the priest after the liturgy, I said, "Why is it roped off?"

[00:04:11]I said, "Doesn't your bishop sit there?"

[00:04:12]And he goes, "Oh, he would never sit there." I said, "Why?" He goes, "That's Paul's seat that he Now, there's no scripture for this. This is tradition going back to the 4th century until much later and it's not just in orthodoxy you have such relics. In Geneva, there's Calvin's seat, an old wooden seat. I've seen it with my own eyes. And if you go to Spurgeon's Tabernacle in London, there's a statue put up in honor of Charles Spurgeon.

[00:04:45]That was put up after he died.

[00:04:48]And Spurgeon's chair, who knows the exact dating for that. This of course is great theater. The tourists love this.

[00:04:55]But there's no scripture or even justification for using such relics.

[00:05:00]>> used to sit in when he was teaching the church in Thessalonica. I said, "What?"

[00:05:05]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, I mean, that's how Paul started that church. And he wrote [snorts] these two letters, first and second Thessalonians to them. And he told them, I mean, if you were a parishioner there, he he he was there 18 months.

[00:05:15]We don't know that.

[00:05:17]That's not found in scripture.

[00:05:19]The way the word says he was in Thessalonica for around three Sabbaths. And yes, he wrote two epistles to them.

[00:05:27]And of course, he would have preached many a time from the Old Testament.

[00:05:31]But also, the Lord showed him.

[00:05:33]He would see the third heaven.

[00:05:35]He spent three years in Arabia.

[00:05:37]Paul was a scholar when it came to the Old Testament. Scripture alone is all you need to be infallible. Tradition can be helpful but at the same time, it's also questionable.

[00:05:50]Can you really rely on it?

[00:05:52]And of course, you can't really rely on it completely, unequivocally, all of the time.

[00:05:57]Because the victors write the history.

[00:05:59]But the scripture is inspired of God.

[00:06:02]teaching every day. Right.

[00:06:03]>> Can you imagine being his students, his disciples, listen to St. Paul tell stories of his conversion and how to become a Christian?

[00:06:10]And then he left you two letters, one with five chapters, one with three chapters.

[00:06:15]Do you think those two letters contain everything St. Paul told you?

[00:06:18]>> Yeah. No, but they contain what the Thessalonians needed to know. I mean, Jonah was a prophet for some 40 years.

[00:06:27]And all we have is a four-chapter book.

[00:06:29]He preached for many years, as with the Apostle Paul.

[00:06:33]You got Romans, you got Galatians, Colossians.

[00:06:39]The early churches had access to the epistles.

[00:06:43]But before the epistles were penned, they had the oral teachings from the apostles, which later on became the epistles.

[00:06:53]You haven't got this dual authority, the written word of God and this oral tradition running parallel.

[00:07:00]And in the Church of Rome, that's what they claim to have. And in Orthodoxy, put them both side by side, you've got contradictions, major contradictions, which these two women are not aware of.

[00:07:13]You he was your pastor for 18 months. He taught you tons of these. He taught you how to love God and how to serve God in great detail. If you if if when he died, if when he was martyred in Rome, you you forgot everything he had taught you over 18 months and only followed his two letters, Bible only, you Bible only.

[00:07:32]There's your dig.

[00:07:34]Dropped in by subtly.

[00:07:36]And these women probably didn't even notice it until they watched the video back. These priests are not only condescending, not only Judaizers also when it comes to their so-called gospel, but uh once you follow their logic, as it were, or their paradigm, and get into tradition, they become very mystical.

[00:08:07]You get into prayers for the dead, infant baptisms, priestly rights, rules, regulations, no assurance of salvation.

[00:08:19]And the list goes on and on and on.

[00:08:22]He would have greatly reduced the amount of apostolic instruction that he gave you. Right. Nobody did that. So, for for the Orthodox, we love the scripture.

[00:08:30]Hand on his heart, listen to me, emphasizing her points, I'm sincerely speaking the truth to you, you Protestant women.

[00:08:39]You only have some of the truth, we have all of the truth. It's very pharisaical as well. We have holy tradition. Just are you kidding me? We love the scriptures. The greatest Bible teachers in the history of the church are our saints. Then you submit to the scripture. I spent 2 and 1/2 hours last night going through five major issues which delineate Bible believing Christians uh from those in organized religion.

[00:09:01]This isn't a trivial issue. This is a major issue.

[00:09:05]What is your final authority? I quoted St. John Chrysostom Chrysostom to you earlier. He's the greatest preacher in the world.

[00:09:11]>> Yeah.

[00:09:11]His sermons are collected and read for this and he died in 407. For the last 1,600 plus years, we've been reading his sermons east and west. They're translated into every language.

[00:09:20]Comparable in the Greek language only to St. Augustine's writings in the Latin west as far as size.

[00:09:26]He knew the Bible. He literally memorized the entire Bible while living in a cave for 6 years in which all he did is read the scriptures and memorize them during the day and at night pray.

[00:09:36]He never even laid down in six years. He tied himself to a wall. To sleep? To stay awake. To to read to study it? For six years? Six years.

[00:09:45]>> he sleep? He slept like for an hour, but only upright. Please read the Bibles for yourselves.

[00:09:51]Check everything in light of scripture.

[00:09:55]We are living in an era now where evangelicalism and Protestantism is basically throwing in the towel and saying Christ isn't sufficient. The scripture isn't one's final authority.

[00:10:11]You need church and scripture or scripture and tradition.

[00:10:16]And I hope people realize that once you lose the simplicity of Christ you've fallen from grace, quite simply put.