The Orthodox Church prides itself on faithfulness to Tradition. We often boast about how old some of our liturgical practices are. Yet, even in the ancient Church they recognized that the age of a practice does not guarantee its correctness. St. Vincent of Lerins (d. 445AD) famously defined Tradition as “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.” But he already in the 5th Century said that just because practices come down to us from antiquity doesn’t prove they were right in the first place. There are ancient sins which continue to be commonly practiced and there are ancient heresies which people tenaciously hang on to. Georges Florovsky writes:
However, “antiquity” by itself is not yet an adequate proof of the true faith. Archaic formulas can be utterly misleading. Vincent himself was well aware of that. Old customs as such do not guarantee the truth…
Thus, “tradition” in the Church is not merely the continuity of human memory, or the permanence of rites and habits. Ultimately, “tradition” is the continuity of divine assistance, the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. The Church is not bound by “the letter.” She is constantly moved forth by “the spirit.” The same Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, which “spake through the Prophets,” which guided the Apostles, which illumined the Evangelists, is still abiding in the Church, and guides her into the fuller understanding of the divine truth, from glory to glory. (Aspects of Church History, pp. 15-16
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