Tradition and Change
-- by Tolly Kizilos
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The Orthodox Church was once the force that transformed the world, attracing people from all walks of life to form a community of brothers and sisters in Christ. Today, one perceives the Church as an aging institution set in its ways, with an uninviting attitude, disdain for solving new problems and fearful of change. Here in America, our situation is even more distressing, because our children are leaving the Church, feeling alienated. Without their participation and commitment and with only a trickle of immigration, the Orthodox Church faces a difficult future. The Church needs to change. The focus should be on all the do's and don'ts of religious practice, and all the rituals of worship. We need to work toward Orthodox unity, autocephaly, participation, gnder equality, and move away from nominalism, traditionalism and other limiting practices while upholding the essence of the Holy Tradition. We must become known for what we truly should be: the Church of the Holy Trinity; the Church based on the Cross and the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, a person truly human and truly God, in whose likeness wwe want to mature; the Church of Love, Grace and Free Will; the Church of the Bible, the Ecumenical Councils and the Fathers. When we see the Church falling short of these goals, we have an obligation to criticize it, and offer solutions to restore it to the vitality of its early life. This book is an attempt to do just that.
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Apostolos P. (Tolly) Kizilos holds advanced degrees from M.I.T. and the University of Iowa. Before he retired, he was director of Organization Development for a large corporation. Tolly Kizilos is now an adjunct professor of management at the University of St. Thomas, in Minneapolis, and devotes his energies to teaching, consulting, writing on religious themes and the explication of Orthodoxy to non-Orthodox Christians.
Viewers interested in obtaining copies of this book may contact the publishing company: Light and Life Publishing Company, PO Box 2641, Minneapolis, MN 55426-0421, Tel. 1-952-925-3888, web: www.light-n-life.com. (ISBN: 1-880971-59-3, Library of Congress Control No. 00-131164)
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