Priesthood was not meant to serve as the middleman between you and God. Priests are servants of Christ that help people receive sacraments such as communion and confession akin to how to Apostles were given the duty to withhold sin and teach the word of God. John 20:21–23
Which is fine, but if that is true, then how can the catholic or orthodoxy church claim to not hold to sola scriptora. If their only job is to be a servant who help with the daily tasks of running a church and aid in the worship of followers, where does the dictation of new scripture, new practices, new laws and by-laws come into place?
The Orthodox Church does not create new dogmas and practices like the Roman Catholic Church does, it instead aims to preserve the holy practices and traditions of the Early Church (pre-schism), of which the Bible is a product of.
Which were practices which are largely introduced and refined during the post split era of Rome. Those practices have lineages which can be traced back to pagan practices of the region and do not hold biblical justification outside of the apochripha (in most cases). I hold way less animosity towards eastern Orthodox than I do Catholic, but based on everything I've researched I can't find a convincing case for Orthodox outside of "tradition" which, as I said, cannot be found in Scripture and is largely just assumed based on "preservation of historical practices" which is a muddy subject at best.
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