Moderation and the Royal Path

The other night I googled "royal path" just to see what is out there. What I found is that a lot of Orthodox use that term without knowing what it means. And a lot of Orthodox imagine themselves to be on the royal path when they are not.

Much of the confusion seems to come from confusing the Holy Fathers' teaching of moderation in all things to be synonymous with 'royal path'. So somebody who is not overly strict with themselves, but not overly lax either, might consider themselves to be on the royal path. They stress moderation in all things, whether it be fasting, prayer, church attendance, almsgiving, entertainments, socializing, shopping, exercise, etc.

This is a pitfall. Using moderation does not cause us to be on the royal path. Moderation is a characteristic of the royal path. And using moderation is first a result of being on the royal path.

This pitfall can lead to an Orthodox person deciding for himself what is moderate. On the royal path we submit to what the Holy Church teaches. Our Church has already defined what is moderate. In fasting, for example, the Church has already defined the rules of how to fast moderately. If there is a desire to fast more strictly, or if there is a medical need to relax the rules, we need a blessing from the Church [through our spiritual father] to do this.

While the Church may modify the rules of fasting for an individual in certain circumstances, a jurisdicition [church] is not permitted to change the rules of the Church for itself or its flock. The rule of the Church is the consensus of the Holy Church Fathers of all generations including today's generation. It does not change using the excuse that "today" things are different. There is nothing new about "today".  Any jurisdicition that deviates from this consensus is not on the royal path, no matter what they claim.

The Holy Fathers have defined every aspect of Church life including how a jurisdiction is to be formed.  Many of the jurisdicitions in the political extremes [left wing and right wing] were formed improperly, so their very canonicity is imaginary.  The results are tragic worldliness, cancerous fragmentation, and spiritual starvation.

If a newcomer finds himself in one of these extremes, he can know this: it is the royal path that produces saints. But the saints [Holy Fathers] are accessible to all Orthodox, including our brothers in the extremes. The right wing says that the left wing is heretical and therefore outside the church and graceless. The left wing says that the right wing is uncanonical, schismatic and outside the church. The royal path sees the extemes are in the Church, but suffering from grievous spiritual disease. For this we recognize they need our prayers all the more and not our condemnation . This is the royal path, the way of the saints.