By Blessed Seraphim (Rose)
Orthodoxy is not merely a “tradition” like any other, a “handing down” of spiritual wisdom from the past; it is God’s Truth here and now — it gives us immediate contact with God such as no other tradition can do. There are many truths in other traditions, both those handed down from a past when people were closer to God, and those discovered by gifted persons in the reaches of the mind; but the full Truth is only in Christianity, God’s revelation to mankind. I will take only one example: there are teachings on spiritual deception in other traditions, but none so thoroughly refined as those taught by the Orthodox; and more importantly, these deceptions of the evil one and our fallen nature are so omnipresent and so thorough that no one could escape them unless the loving God revealed by Christianity were close at hand to deliver us from them. Similarly: Hindu tradition teaches many true things about the end of the Kali Yuga; but one who merely knows these truths in the mind will be helpless to resist the temptations of those times, and many who recognize the Antichrist (Chakravarti) will nonetheless be deceived — only the power of Christ given to the heart will have the strength to resist the antichrist. (Christ the Eternal Tao, p. 448)*
*Edited with use of inclusive language by Father Vladimir Vandalov
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