[MichaelWitcoff]

(02-22-2018 11:17 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

I believe that had Protestants had known about the Orthodox church in the 15th-16th centuries, they would have simply converted instead of forming their own churches.

Oh they knew about it. Martin Luther once said "the truth is with the Greeks," though he ended up going off the rails instead. Various kinds of Protestants petitioned Orthodoxy for various reasons, whether simply dialogue or out of a desire to be accepted as part of the genuine Christian faith, during that period of time. Eventually, the Orthodox Patriarchs stopped returning their letters once it became clear that their demands for recognition did not come with the humility to accept the Church in its fullness.

Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem ended up writing "The Confession of Dositheus" specifically to refute Calvinism and the (unfounded) rumors that Cyril Lucaris, an Orthodox Patriarch, was secretly a Calvinist or had Calvinist leanings. There was interaction between Protestants and Orthodox from almost the very beginning, but Protestants only accept the Councils they like and almost universally (especially the modern low-church evangelicals) reject high tradition, liturgy, icons, veneration of Saints, etc.