The Orthodox Church rejects penal substitutionary atonement full stop. The reasons are manifold but boil down to their view of salvation as participation in theosis and their denial of the wrath of God. The Bible is very clear about the wrath of God and how God executes that wrath on sinners. Christians are even referred to as once being the children of wrath in Ephesians. Jesus says the wrath of God abides upon him who believes not.
The Orthodox redefine wrath and being a sinner's experience of God's love thereby making God's love subjective and not objective. In this view God loves everyone which is a teaching the Bible does not endorse.
Furthermore the Orthodox make a caricature of PSA saying it means God damns the son, causes a split in the Trinity, and is a nominalistic legal fiction. None of that is true and they never cite Protestant Confessions to make their case.
I had a conversation with ChatGPT about this matter after listening to an episode of The Lord of Spirits titled Every Stick of Wood in the Old Testament. The hosts of this show, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen de Young, constantly make absurd remarks when referring to penal substitution. Every time they bring up Protestant doctrine it is clear they are darkening counsel by words without wisdom. They also make incessant pop culture references to the nerdiest topics in an attempt to be hip which is funny sometimes but mostly a big eye roll. I get it. They know all about comic books and Star Trek. Now try learning something about what Protestants, the Reformed especially, teach.
The chat is posted below. Here is a link to the conversation.
