"The main issue i see in all this is whether a class of men by whom Scripture was discerned assuredly pass on the same discernment via formal ecclesiastical lineage, so that those in one church can teach extra-scriptural and counter-scriptural traditions as being from God, based upon their authority, or whether all must be subject to writings which have been established as from God essentially due to their inherent qualities."
This is NOT what Orthodoxy teaches. In fact, it is far from it. Ultimately, the only "infallible" group in The Church is the Laos tou Theou, the People of God, or otherwise the Laity, because without the Great AXIOS of the people, exemplified by the living out of dogma and doctrine in their lives within the liturgical community of The Church, all the dogmatic proclamations and doctrinal pronouncements of hierarchs are nothing. Hierarchs who teach otherwise are sidelined or even removed. The Laos tou Theou are the guardians of Orthodoxy, not the hierarchs.
"The Orthodox say...."
You want to be cautious about your sources, d. The author of the quoted piece is part of a movement, thankfully very small, in the Antiochian Church which has attempted to attract Western converts by dressing Orthodoxy up in Western liturgical forms. It is aggressively "evangelical" and tends towards polemics. To the best of my knowledge it has not been formally condemned as heretical. It should be in my opinion. That said, the article itself, while both prideful and distinctly Western, is generally accurate in its comments about the theology of The Church vis a vis the scriptures.
"When the Orthodox disagree with the RC's then who/what decides the truth???"
The linked article is absolute nonsense. Like I said, be careful of your sources. Quoting drivel hurts your credibility.
"When the Orthodox disagree with the RC's then who/what decides the truth???"
An interesting article which points out the very issue which the theologians from the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Churches are working on right now in the dialogs on the reestablishment of communion between the Church of Rome and the other Patriarchates and particular churches within The Church; I am not sure why you cited it, however.
Your quote from Fr. Florovsky is a good catch. Phronema is a marvelous word which really doesn't have an English equivalent. Fr. Florovsky's use of the word "mind" is good. "Worldview" is another. We can say that it is the Orthodox Christian way of relating to everything and everyone in this life. It is almost always acquired by living within the liturgical community of The Church because lex orandi, lex credendi. Unless one is raised within that community, it takes years to develop and either way it is always a gift of the Holy Spirit. But when it does, that phronema, which is the same today was it was for, say, +Basil the Great or +Isaac the Syrian, becomes definitional of who and what the Orthodox Christian is because it is as much part of us as the molecules of our skin. And it means that we really do not approach or practice Christianity the way the heterodox do.
I think I have affirmed a type of infallibility by universal Church consent. It’s real basis, however, and the supreme source of authority is the issue.
I would have to get back to this later, and am actually typing this using speech to text software due to the cold. It will not get the next word though.
“PhronemaI:” Tell me the truth, you looked it up also.