A lack of concern with systematization, however, does not mean a lack of interest in the true content of the faith or an inability to create precise theological definitions. Quite the opposite. There has been no other civilization that has experienced more discussions about the adequacy or inadequacy of words expressing religious truths. The difference between homoousion and homoiousion is "of two natures" or "of two natures"; two wills or one will; latreia icons or proskynesis images; the creation or uncreated nature of divine "energies", the procession "from the Son" or "through the Son" – these topics were discussed by Byzantine Christians for many centuries. It may seem that the spirit of Greek Christianity consisted precisely in the optimistic belief that human language is essentially capable of expressing religious truth, and that salvation depends on the accuracy of expression used to convey the meaning of the gospel. However, these same Greek Christians firmly confessed the impossibility of expressing in the language of concepts the fullness of truth and the inability of the human mind to comprehend the essence of God. In Byzantium, therefore, there was an antinomy in the very approach to theology: God did reveal Himself in Christ Jesus, and the knowledge of His Truth is essential for salvation, but at the same time God is above human reason and cannot be fully expressed in human words.

In Byzantium, theology was never the monopoly of professionals or the "teaching church." Throughout the Byzantine period, there was not a single church council whose decisions were not challenged, and the attempts of some emperors to regulate the freedom of conscience of their subjects by means of decrees were met not so much with resistance from a consistently independent hierarchy as with silent resistance to the fullness of the body of the Church. This lack of a clear and legally defined criterion for Orthodoxy implied that the responsibility for interpreting the truth was shared by all. Most of the laity, of course, followed the most prominent bishops, whose teachings were never questioned, or prominent monks, who often played a major role in doctrinal discussions. But ordinary believers also knew how to resolve theological questions, especially when there was no unity of views in the episcopate. Suffice it to recall the testimony of Gregory of Nazianzus, who complained about merchants who argued in the market about the concept of "consubstantial."

The intervention of emperors in theological disputes, which is now perceived as an intolerable encroachment of secular power on the sacred domains of the Church, was considered something common in an era when the law required the emperor to be "glorious in his divine zeal and instructed in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity." Although no one was prepared to grant the emperor the privilege of infallibility, yet no one opposed him to expressing theological views, which de facto acquired greater, and sometimes decisive, weight because they were voiced by the autocrat.

Caesaropapism, however, never became the accepted beginning of Byzantine life. Innumerable ascetics of the faith were constantly extolled precisely for their opposition to the heretical emperors; the hymns sung in the churches glorified Basil for his disobedience to Valens, Maximus for his martyrdom under Constantius, and the innumerable multitudes of monks who resisted the iconoclastic emperors in the eighth century.

Throughout Byzantine history, it was the monks who truly bore witness to the internal independence of the Church. And the fact that the Byzantine Church was primarily the Church of monastics was reflected in the character of Greek theology. It is not surprising, therefore, that those emperors who decided to strengthen iconoclasm had to support the anti-monastic movement in the Church first, since monasticism was necessarily hostile to the Caesaropapist system, to which individual emperors showed a predisposition.

The monks, who numbered in the thousands in Constantinople itself, in all the principal cities, and in practically all parts and corners of the Byzantine world, were firmly opposed to compromise in matters of doctrine; The monks, as a rule, defended the strictest orthodoxy, but it happened that some of them put their zeal in the service of Monophysitism or Origenism. From the sixth century onwards, almost exclusively monastics were elected as candidates for bishops, so that Byzantine spirituality and most of the Byzantine liturgy were formed under the influence of monks. Byzantine Christianity lacked what is today called the "theology of the worldly," and for this the predominant position of monasticism is responsible. However, the same predominance of monasticism did not allow the Christian Church to be fully identified with the empire, and the latter was tirelessly inclined to try to give itself a sacramental character and to adapt the Divine plan of salvation to its transitory needs. It was precisely the quantitative, spiritual and intellectual power of Byzantine monasticism that was the decisive factor in the preservation in the Church of the fundamental eschatological dimension of the Christian faith.

As the last of the main introductory remarks on the specific features of Byzantine theology, attention should be paid to the importance of the Liturgy for Byzantine religious views. In the Eastern Christian world, the Eucharistic Liturgy, more than anything else, was identified with the reality of the Church herself, for the Liturgy revealed both the humiliation of God in His mortal flesh and the mysterious Presence among men of the eschatological Kingdom. The liturgy points to such basic realities of faith not through concepts, but through symbols and signs that are intelligible to the entire assembly of believers. This central position of the Eucharist is the true key to the Byzantine understanding of the Church both as a hierarchy and as a community; The Church is universal, but it is truly realized only in the local assembly of communicants, when sinful men and women truly become "the people of God." This Eucharist-centered view of the Church led the Byzantines to adorn and color the sacrament with elaborate and sometimes burdensome ceremonies and an extremely rich hymnography subordinated to everyday, weekly, Pascha, and annual cycles. These cycles are another true source of theology, along with that sacramental ecclesiology implied by the Eucharist itself. For many centuries the Byzantines not only listened to theological lectures and composed and read theological treatises; they also sang and contemplated the Christian Sacrament daily in the Liturgy, and the richness of expression in the Byzantine Liturgy is incomparable to anything that can be found in the rest of the Christian world. Even after the fall of Byzantium, when Eastern Christians lost schools, books, and all intellectual guidance, it was the Liturgy that remained the main teacher and guide of Orthodoxy. Liturgical texts were translated into various spoken languages of the Byzantine world – Slavonic, Georgian, Arabic and a dozen others – and this was also a powerful expression of unity in faith and sacramental life.

3. Scripture, Exegesis, Criteria

It took longer for the Christian East than for the West to develop a coherent canon of Scripture. Basically, doubts were caused by the books of the Old Testament, which were not included in the Jewish ("short") canon, as well as the book of Revelation of the New Testament. The authorities of the councils of the fourth century and of the patristic era in the East differed in their approach to the accurate assessment of the canonicity of the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Judith, and Tobit. Athanasius, in his famous "39th Paschal Epistle," excludes all these texts from the Scriptures proper, but recognizes their usefulness for new converts, the same opinion was held by Cyril of Jerusalem. Canon 60 of the Council of Laodicea, whether true or not, also reflects the tradition of the "short" canon. However, the Fifth and Sixth Council (692) confirms the authority of the Apostolic Canon,85 which recognized a number of books of the "extensive" canon, including even the 3rd Book of Maccabees, but did not mention the books of Wisdom, Tobit, and Judith. John of Damascus († c. 753) calls the books of Wisdom and Ecclesiastes "worthy of veneration," but does not include them in canon 3. Consequently, despite the fact that Byzantine patristic and ecclesiastical tradition almost exclusively uses the Septuagint as the standard biblical text, and that some parts of the "extensive" canon—especially the Book of Wisdom—are often used in the Liturgy, Byzantine theologians remain faithful to the "Jewish" criterion for Old Testament literature, in other words, texts originally written in Greek were excluded from the canon. Modern Orthodox theology has traditionally preserved this unresolved polarity, distinguishing between the "canonical" and "deuterocanonical" books of the Old Testament, using the former term only in reference to the books of the "short" canon.

As for the writings of the New Testament, the book of Revelation was accepted into the canon very reluctantly. It is absent from the list of canonical books compiled at the Council of Laodicea (canon 60), it is not in the Apostolic Canon 85, nor is it in the list of Cyril of Jerusalem. Commentators of the Antiochian school also do not mention Revelation, reflecting the views prevailing in the Syrian Church. In the Byzantine liturgical rite, based on the practice of Syria and Palestine, Revelation remained the only book of the New Testament that was never read during a liturgical reading. Nevertheless, the position of the Alexandrian school, expressed by Athanasius and supported in the eighth century by John of Damascus, eventually prevailed and found support in the Byzantine Church. After the sixth century, no one doubted the canonicity of Revelation.

The Apostolic Epistle in written form was always understood by the Byzantines within the framework of the "apostolic tradition" – the broader, living and uninterrupted succession of the Apostolic Church. Basil of Caesarea († 379) famously said about Scripture and Tradition can be seen as an expression of the unanimity that united the later Byzantine theologians: "We do not confine ourselves to what has been reported in the Acts and Epistles [the term ho apostolos is here translated as 'Acts and Epistles' to designate the liturgical book containing all the writings of the New Testament except the Gospels and Revelation] and in the Gospels; but, both before and after reading them, we add to them other teachings, drawn from oral instruction and burdened with much weight in the mystery (of the faith)" 5. The "other teachings" mentioned by Basil are essentially liturgical and sacramental traditions, which, along with the more conceptual consensus found in the continuity of the theology of the Greek Fathers, always served as a living framework for the understanding of Scripture in Byzantium.

In their exegetical methods, as well as in their theory of knowledge, the Byzantines accepted the patriotic criterion given by the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. Other writers, not so gifted with imaginative thinking, composed simpler anthologies of quotations from the Holy Fathers or "panoplia" (literally, armor), taking up arms against all heresies. A significant proportion of Byzantine theological literature is strictly anthological in nature. And yet living theology also continued to develop, especially in monastic circles.