It's not the same at all. And Jay is overly dramatic about queers at Fordham University who write about Orthodoxy and barely represent anyone. Either that or he makes a big deal about an occasional masonic member. When those are low level guys who don't engage in any of the weirder stuff. It's basically just an employment networking group on that level, which especially had some appeal for immigrant communities who didn't want to feel left out when they moved to America. It's a mistake to join them, of course, but Jay is too focused on the higher level stuff.. and then projects that on to some geriatric shriners, like they're all Luciferians or something. I appreciate some of the things he points out about the "cabal", but he's still a kook when it comes down to it.
The Orthodox church is virtually written in stone in more ways than Protestants could even dream of having. They don't lose their minds over hundreds of bible translations, for example. They only have one authoritative one, and it's the very one quoted in the NT (along with the Greek NT itself). Not even Catholics have managed to keep their old tradition of Latin without ruining it - the Vatican now just uses the "Nova Vulgata" which is based on all of the same false critical texts as a modern NIV. It's not Jerome's Vulgate. But the Septuagint and Greek NT can never be assailed like this, no matter how hard anyone tries. The LXX is basically treated as a SOURCE text, and the NT IS the source text.
On the same note, the academic trend of "innovation" and researchers trying to outdo each other with "new theories" simply doesn't exist in the Orthodox world. There will never be any new interpretations or "insights" or new models of belief, like what often happens in the Protestant and Catholic world (and also happens in the secular world, like in all the sciences and social sciences). Just glance at Amazon or another bookstore and you're flooded with every theologian and knucklehead giving their own spin on Christianity and pitching something new. Then look at the Orthodox section - it's all books celebrating patristics, prayer, and tradition. Innovation is how the faggotry really starts - by convincing people that it's backed by new scholarly "insights" first.
Third, Orthodox pride themselves on being the Church of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. That title is practically synonymous with "Orthodox". The only way it would possibly change and make more Councils is if Rome is ever brought into the fold again and the schism finally ends. But that's likely not going to happen either. And if it did, it'd only be on Orthodox terms and a good thing. And just the workload and logistics of this even happening is absolutely COLOSSAL and done on a global scale. While changes that happen in the Methodist church, for example, are done in little councils with a few hundred at best, and which no one cares about outside themselves.
Finally, Orthodox celebrate liturgies and other traditions that are over a thousand years old. They are not susceptible to trends and innovation. If you can point to some newfangled Divine Liturgy of the Clown World, I'll apologize.. but it hasn't happened. They are the equivalent to what Jesus said of John the Baptist:
"And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?"
Indeed, the Orthodox are not shaken by the wind. It's stubborn enough to gladly be beheaded like John (and has been) than letting any of this other stuff changing anything.
