Eastern Orthodox theology is the theology particular to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is characterized by monotheistic Trinitarianism, belief in the Incarnation of the essentially divine Logos or only-begotten Son of God, a balancing of cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by a Sacred Tradition, a catholic ecclesiology, a robust of the person, and a principally recapitulative and therapeutic soteriology.
The Eastern Orthodox Church considers itself to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church established by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. The Eastern Orthodox Church asserts to have been very careful in preserving these traditions. Eastern Orthodox Christians regard the Christian Bible as a collection of inspired texts that sprang out of this tradition, not the other way around; and the choices made in the compilation of the New Testament as having come from comparison with already firmly established faith. The Bible has come to be a very important part of tradition, but not the only part.
Tradition also includes the Nicene Creed, the decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the writings of the Church Fathers, as well as Eastern Orthodox laws (canons), liturgical books, icons, etc.
Theoria and Hesychasm
Eastern Orthodoxy interprets truth based on three witnesses: the consensus of the Holy Fathers of the Church; the ongoing teaching of the Holy Spirit guiding the life of the Church through the nous, or mind of the Church (also called the "Universal Consciousness of the Church"), which is believed to be the Mind of Christ (); and the praxis of the church (including among other things asceticism, liturgy, hymnography, and iconography).
The consensus of the Church over time defines its catholicity—that which is believed at all times by the entire Church. St. Vincent of Lerins wrote in his Commonitoria (434 AD) that Church doctrine, like the human body, develops over time while still keeping its original identity: "[I]n the Orthodox Church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all.