Hi JudahBenHur; it's nice to meet you. I've read about the Orthodox church a long time ago, and the cause of the split between the church of the east and west. Where I live there are a lot more of the western church than the Othodox church. I know of the similarities which which there are many thing yours have in common such as Mariology, the use of the liturgy, the role of priests, etc, I'm not sure you believe in the Seven Sacraments, but correct me if I'm wrong, you also believe in Transubstantiation? As well as the differences. The chieftest being the disagreement with Papal authority (1054 the Great Schisim).
To answer your question, before the NT scriptures were written, the church had to depend on the Apostles for through them came the word of God for edification and godliness. They also have the OT scriptures (Romans 15:4) in which Paul praised the Bereans, because they searched the scriptures to see if what he had said were true (Acts 17:11).
The Apostles were a necessary fixture of the body of Christ for that reason, and they proved their Apostleship through signs and wonders [one in particular, only the Apostles can do (1 Corinthians 9:1-2, Mark 16:18, & Acts 28:3-6)]. What was also necessary were miraculous gifts such as speaking in tongues, interpretation, healing, and dreaming;l all these things were necessary not just for edification (1 Corinthians 14:1-6) but also to speak to the Jewish people that the message the church speaks is from God (Hebrews 2;3-4).
I wrote all of this because I believe that when the scripturesc were written, everything was done away, because with scripture came all the edification and godiness the church needed (1 Corinthians 13;8-10). .
But when the scriptures were written, I believe that the Apostles went away, because "the perfect", spoken of by Paul, has arrived.
