When the successors to the apostles forget their dependence upon “Christ the cornerstone” and cease to represent Him and His truth, they are not the possessors of a supranatural power which enables them to frustrate all possibility of other men’s salvation and illumination; they are simply shutting themselves out of the Church of Christ.

Georgios I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man: St Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition, ed. Christos Yannaras and Costa Carras, trans. Liadain Sherrard, vol. Two, Contemporary Greek Theologians (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 58.