[biannaruh]

What the Orthodox Church teaches and proclaims is expressed in its liturgical services, and, in visual form, in its icons. Individual fathers may well contradict each other (even saints are not infallible), but the liturgical material is the distillation, the essence, the core of scripture, patristic writings, of Apostolic teachings, and other accepted sources such as the ecumenical councils. Even the prayers in an Orthodox prayer book are stuffed full of scripture, they are not merely "the words of men". Liturgics and iconography are the most accessible and clearest means what the whole Orthodox Church espouses and proclaims, irrespective of geographic location or jurisdiction. Lex orandi, lex credendi.

I find the statement "a new way to study Christian tradition that seeks to reconcile and unite, rather than to confute and dominate" quite meaningless. Any attempt to dilute or tamper with the integrity and content of Orthodox doctrine and theology, particularly that which is so clearly, and for so long in our history, expressed in our liturgical and iconographic tradition, must be resisted at all costs. What separates the church of Rome from Orthodoxy is not mere theologoumena (considered pious opinions), but doctrinal and dogmatic matters of fundamental importance.

The good Fr Taft means well, but has, sadly, misunderstood the situation.