My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
THE CHURCH: BRIDE OF THE LAMB (CHRIST)
Although we live in a world where the very concept and term 'Church' has become bureaucratized and formalized, so that most people would immediately think of either a building or administrative society when they hear the word; the Orthodox have retained the older and infinitely more dynamic understanding of Church which is found in the Holy Scripture. These describe the church as a mystery of the 'life in Christ'; a society of believers, certainly, but more fundamentally, the extended power of Christ's saving work as manifested and concretized in the world, and in the next age. The Church, rooted as it is in this age, yet moving already out of it to its transcendent destiny with the glorified Christ, is at heart and eschatological mystery that cannot entirely be at home in the present world order, and cannot fully be glimpsed within it. The Holy Scripture prefer to come at this mystery of renovation (what we might call the full depth of the experience of Christ's salvation and the Spirit's communion of grace) through a whole variety of metaphors and similes. Taken together a rich and deeply suggestive understanding of the Church emerges from them. Accordingly the Church of Christ can be understood as organic and extended body, a vineyard where the vinedresser keeps the stock nurtured and productive, a flock of sheep under the care of a good shepherd, a household, the energy of spousal love and even a project under construction with foundations and cornerstone.
The Holy Scripture provide the fundamental material for Orthodox ecclesiology (the doctrine of the Church) but that dogmatic and central phrase of the Nicene Creed is also very important, where the Church is defined as a central mystery of the Christian Faith (whose acceptance is necessary for salvation in so far as the Church is the experience of 'belonging' to Christ). The Orthodox Christian Church describes itself: 'one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church'. The Orthodox Church describes itself, from its inner consciousness, as being that one, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church one earth. It knows, and teaches, that it is the self-same communion of Saints founded by the Lord in the course of several mysteries in His earthly economy, and empowered for its historical and saving mission in world at Pentecost. It has this self-awareness of its powerful spiritual and physical identity not least because of its awareness, embodied in time and space, of the transcendent Lord's resurrectional presence within its midst. This the Phronema Christou, that "mind of Christ" which it has as its own spiritual consciousness by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and into which it is constantly transfigured, both collectively, and in the personal lives of holiness of each of its members. This Lord remains the sole Head and Supreme High Priest of the Church of Christ, and directs its continuing pilgrimage through time and space.
Many Western Christians [Roman Catholic and Protestant] (perhaps used to the perception of the churches as denominations and communions scattered in organization and to a certain degree disunited in doctrine and polity) have found this to be a presumptuous idea, and an outrageous claim. But it is meant, simply enough, to say that Orthodoxy 'knows itself', through the paths of its own sacred history on earth. It is the Church of the Apostles and Holy Fathers, continuing on its journey; aware of its own times and conditions, and ready to respond to them, but always out of the continuously preserved heritage of its communion with the ancient Saints. This communion is something that is a spiritual bond, as well as a doctrinal harmony. The Saints of the past, and the Church of the present, have this harmony of love, and belief, and teaching precisely because they have, as their innermost inspiration and communion and communion, the self-same love of the Lord as inspired in them by the same grace of the Holy Spirit.
The Church knows itself because it knows its Lord Who called it into being as the Church, and knows Him as a living in the present moment by the gift of the Holy Spirit which is the soul of the Church. For the same reason, it knows the Truth of the Gospel Tradition, and defends it passionately, preferring the Truth to "negotiated harmony" and understandings of ecclesial unity which are bureaucratic, or chiefly political in character. In an age when some Western scholars would even laugh aloud at the very notion of someone being able to 'know' the Gospel Tradition (either claiming it was ungraspable, non-existent, or irreducibly multiform) the Orthodox Church affirms it knows exactly what that tradition is, since the Lord Who taught His Gospel remains the Teacher and Master of the community which continues to hear, ponder, live out, and proclaim that Gospel as a life-saving message, not a recondite archaeology.
(To be continued)
Please note: Unfortunately there are numerous Orthodox Christians today, who when referring to the church, they think of the local parish church, or church building. Because of this misunderstanding, they tend to believe that the church building belongs to them, and their relatives. Furthermore, that they have inherited the parish church from their parents, or grandparents, that they are obligated by circumstances to possess it, control it, govern it, and determine its course and destiny. Also, that they decide who can be accepted as a member of it, and who cannot. This prevailing wrong attitude creates confusion and a power-struggle within the local parish church. It introduces politics, it creates divisions, and factions, and instead of harmony, friction among its members. All of this because they are ignorant of the teachings of Orthodox Christianity and of what the true definition of the Church, is. The Church is Christ! The Church is the Bride of Christ! The Head of the Church is Christ! The Body of Christ is the Church! The Body of Christ is comprised of the baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians and the Clergy (bishops, priests, deacons) of the Church, He being the Head of the Church. The Church is a mystery of the "life in Christ."
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George