the good old spaciousness of Orthodoxy

I rather like the remarks of a well-known English Dominican when asked a question following a retreat at St John's Abbey in Minnesota concerning the Roman Catholic Church in America.  Changing the changeable they would amount to this, in Orthodox terms:

The Enlightenment insisted on a fundamental dichotomy between tradition and progress. Freedom lay in our liberation from tradition - which as we all know is represented above all by the Orthodox Church, its dogma and liturgy.  But this dichotomy is essentially alien to Orthodoxy. For us, authentic progress always implies a return to tradition, and authentic tradition pushes us forwards towards the Kingdom of God. America is *the* country of the Enlightenment and I suspect that some Orthodox have bought into a way of thinking that is alien to our tradition, and so identify themselves as traditional or progressive. I refuse to accept to be placed in either box. I am just an Orthodox Christian, which means that I am both deeply conservative and utterly progressive! A wise commentator said that he feared that American Orthodox were becoming Puritans, sectarians. They were losing the good old spaciousness of Orthodoxy.