The Laity and the Reading of Scripture (Eastern Orthodoxy)

The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672 A.D.):
QUESTION I.
     Ought the Divine Scriptures to be read in the vulgar tongue by all Christians ?
     No. For that all Scripture is divinely-inspired and profitable we know, and is of such necessity, that without the same it is impossible to be Orthodox at all. Nevertheless they should not be read by all, but only by those who with fitting research have inquired into the deep things of the Spirit, and who know in what manner the Divine Scriptures ought to be searched, and taught, and in fine read. But to such as are not so exercised, or who cannot distinguish, or who understand only literally, or in any other way contrary to Orthodoxy what is contained in the Scriptures, the Catholic Church, as knowing by experience the mischief arising therefrom, forbiddeth the reading of the same. So that it is permitted to every Orthodox to hear indeed the Scriptures, that he may believe with the heart unto righteousness, and confess with the mouth unto salvation; but to read some parts of the Scriptures, and especially of the Old [Testament], is forbidden for the aforesaid reasons and others of the like sort. For it is the same thing thus to prohibit persons not exercised thereto reading all the Sacred Scriptures, as to require infants to abstain from strong meats.
(The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672 A.D.), Question I; In: The Acts and Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem: Sometimes Called the Council of Bethlehem, Holden Under Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1672, trans. J. N. W. B. Robertson, [London: Thomas Baker, 1899], pp. 152-153.)

Background Information.

The Encyclopædia Britannica:

By far the most important of the many synods held at Jerusalem (see Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., vi. 1357 sqq.) is that of 1672; and its confession is the most vital statement of faith made in the Greek Church during the past thousand years.

(William Walker Rockwell, “Jerusalem, Synod Of;” In: The Encyclopædia Britannica: Eveleth Edition: Volume XV: Italy-Kyshtym, [Cambridge: At the University Press, 1911], p. 335.)

The Catholic Encyclopedia:

It is all the more remarkable that its decrees have been accepted unreservedly by the whole Orthodox Church. They were at once approved by the other patriarchs, the Church of Russia, etc.; they are always printed in full among the symbolic books of the Orthodox Church, and form an official creed or declaration in the strictest sense, which every Orthodox Christian is bound to accept. Since this synod the Orthodox Church has not spoken again officially.

(Adrian Fortescue, S.T.D., “Jerusalem;” In: The Catholic Encyclopedia: Volume VIII: Special Edition, [New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., 1913], p. 367.)

Philip Schaff:

This Synod is the most important in the modern history of the Eastern Church, and may be compared to the Council of Trent. Both fixed the doctrinal status of the Churches they represent, and both condemned the evangelical doctrines of Protestantism. Both were equally hierarchical and intolerant, and present a strange contrast to the first Synod held in Jerusalem, when ‘the apostles and elders,’ in the presence of ‘the brethren,’ freely discussed and adjusted, in a spirit of love, without anathemas, the great controversy between the Gentile and the Jewish Christians.

(Philip Schaff, Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis: The Creeds of Christendom, With a History and Critical Notes: In Three Volumes: Fourth Edition—Revised and Enlarged: Volume I, [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1905], p. 61.) See also: ccel.org.

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