Remember that each baptised Christian has been received into the community of the Holy Trinity. Each is guided by the Holy Spirit, sent by the Father through the Son, to the Church and to each member of it. So each shares in the spiritual experience of the Church and each is a guardian of the Church's teaching. That has always been the teaching of the Orthodox Church, although sometimes particular hierarchs, influenced by Roman Catholic teaching, have asserted otherwise, or at least behaved as if they believed otherwise. So the Orthodox layman or laywoman is faced with a huge responsibility.
Nobody is infallible.
As an Orthodox Christian I honour the bishop as representing Jesus Christ himself, but at the same time I realise that even nowadays some hierarchs make mistakes. He said it is a great thing to be an Orthodox layman, but in this country it is practically impossible. I don't know what made him come to that conclusion, but he was certainly right. It is impossible to achieve by human effort. But remember that for God all things are possible.