One of the key areas of disagreement and misunderstanding between evangelicals and the Eastern Orthodox is in relation to the Bible.
For evangelicals, the Bible is at the heart of their understanding of the church and what it means to be a Christian. The Bible was of central importance to the Reformation, with “sola Scriptura” – Scripture alone – as one of the famous solas that have come to define classic Protestantism. Not surprisingly, the Bible is at the heart of Protestant worship, with the central place given to the sermon, as well as in spiritual formation, pastoral care and evangelism. Particularly in Reformed or Calvinistic Protestantism, there is an emphasis on always reforming the church according to the Word of God.
It is very different with the Orthodox. Even so, contrary to what some evangelicals may think, they highly value the Bible. The Orthodox liturgy is full of Scripture to an extent that puts much Protestant worship to shame. They have also been historically very active in translating the Bible into the vernacular languages in the countries which they have evangelised. So, for example, in the ninth century the brother missionaries Methodius and Cyril developed an alphabet (the Cyrillic script used in Russian and Bulgarian) to translate the Bible into what is today called Old Church Slavonic as they brought the gospel to the Slavs. There is also a long tradition of preaching from the Bible. Nevertheless, there are great differences with evangelicalism.
