The Church: The Meaning of Her Being and the Necessity of Life within Her #
By Bishop Mikhail (Semenov)
It is impossible to be saved outside the Church (naturally, we mean the Orthodox and true Church). This truth is so firmly rooted in the Old Believer consciousness that we need not prove its validity. The “patristic” testimonies concerning the essential truth of the Church for salvation are known to all of us. Therefore, in this article, we shall not repeat what has already been carefully compiled by Zelenkov, Bishop Antony of Perm, and even in the “non-ours” book by Yezerovsky, as well as in every dogmatics course.
Our task is to clarify the spiritual and moral meaning of the concept of the Church, the inner necessity of her existence for our life, and the shortcomings of our own attitude toward the Church. What is the Church in her spiritual essence?
The Church is the Body of Christ. She is the great union of those who believe in Christ, truly united by the love of Christ and by the living person of Christ into a creative, mighty, divine organism of salvation.
The Church is the Body of Christ. The Lord Christ, having saved the human race by His death and reconciled mankind with God, united humanity to Himself—grafted it onto Himself, as branches are grafted onto a fruitful vine.
To live in Christ means to live in the Church. Only Protestant falsehood can claim that one may have a personal relationship with Christ without being united within the unity of the Church. Having shed His Blood for mankind—for its union in love—the Lord grants His mercy and salvation to those united by love, who pray for one another and, hand in hand, follow Christ to salvation.
In the Church, together with the Holy Spirit, He grants the revelation of truth—the power to preserve the mysteries of the faith; He grants the mutual love of Christians. This truth is given especially and fully in the Ecumenical Council, but the Church is constantly nourished by the gifts of the Spirit.
In the Church, the Christian who is conscious of his falls and sinfulness repents during the prayer of the whole Church and receives the renewal of his strength.
In the Church, as the “union of the faithful,” he approaches the Eucharist, which is the center and ultimate anchor of salvation.
The Eucharist and the Liturgy themselves are the manifestation and place of “communion” (leitourgia—the common service). They are at the same time the perfect union with Christ, the heavenly Vine, and with the Church—in the image of the parish and the entire Christian people who partake “of one bread,” as the Apostle says (1 Corinthians 10:17–18). Just as bread, being composed of many grains, becomes one—so that though the grains are present, they are no longer visible, and their distinctions disappear due to their union—so too we are not merely said to be or imagined to be the Body of Christ, but are the Body of Christ, says John Chrysostom. Thus, through the Eucharist especially, which unites believers into one Body of Christ, the Church becomes the Body of Christ—so much so that without the Eucharist, there would be no Church. Through the Holy Eucharist is established the true, real union of mankind with God in Christ; through it the Church is formed and sustained—the holy organism of humanity redeemed by the Blood of Christ. The final union of believers into a complete organism of holiness and love toward one another and toward God (= the Church) is realized only in the Eucharist:
a) through the morally living remembrance, with love, of the central event of Christ’s work—the Cross and Him who was crucified upon it, of the love of God;
b) through the real assimilation of the fullness of the blessings of redemption and the Incarnation of the Son of God, through union with Him, through communion in the one Divine life and the Divine nature.
He who stands outside the Church stands outside salvation—not only as a schismatic, tearing apart the Body of Christ, but as one deprived of the mystical union with Christ in the sacred action wherein the Church is truly and materially united to the Body of Christ.
At the same time, the Church is God’s institution for the good earthly ordering of the Kingdom of God on earth.
The white tower of the Apostle Hermas, one of the Seventy, was being built toward heaven, but stood upon the earth; the Jerusalem community was a corner of the Kingdom of God, a model of what Christian life should be in general: the mystery of true earthly life is revealed in the mystery of the Church. The idea of authority is embodied in the idea of hierarchy—authority united with the people into one spirit and will (in the ideal and concept).
The Church is the living Kingdom of God, an oasis of new life in the vale of sin. Schopenhauer compared people to hedgehogs: when they were spread far from one another, they were cold; when they tried to press close together, they pricked one another.
There are communities and individuals from whom one must withdraw. With many, one should enter into relations only when necessary. Thus, in order to attain the purpose of his being—blessed union with God—man must seek help not through union with every passerby, but by turning to such a chosen community that lives in service to the highest goal of humanity, that knows and possesses the means to attain this goal. This community must be one and holy.
All of humanity can be viewed as a kind of wandering tribe, for whom the earth serves merely as a temporary road. The true goal of mankind is a new and blessed life. But not all of humanity moves toward this goal, and not all with equal zeal. The movement of nations is complex, variegated, and diverse; people move not only toward the goal, but also in the opposite direction—they stop, hesitate, wander by side paths and winding ways. Yet in this diverse encampment, there is a kind of vanguard—the best part of humanity. This part proceeds directly toward the very goal for which mankind was called into being by God.
This community is united first of all in knowledge of the goal and the means. The goal for its members is God; the means are those given by God for entering into communion with Him. Man cannot determine for himself the conditions under which he may commune with God—not because it would be unworthy of God, but because it lies wholly beyond man’s power. Truth, proclaimed through certain chosen ones of God and preserved by divinely established institutions (for what human institutions could guard truth from distortion?), is held by the community. Since such truth can only be one, the community that holds it on earth can also be only one.
Some might say that truth can be revealed to people in varying degrees according to their spiritual understanding, and that thus revelation may be granted in various forms and to various extents, and therefore that many divinely established communities might exist which guard the truth and lead to salvation. But even if this were so, then among these communities there would still be one that possessed, comparatively speaking, a greater fullness of divine knowledge and more complete external means for communion with God—and so even in such a case, the ideal aim of each person would be to join this most perfect community. But in fact, this is not so. The difference in degrees of spiritual understanding—determined, for example, by age—means that the same truth taught by the community is assimilated by different individuals to different extents. The diversity of individual traits means that some will employ one set of means for salvation, and others another. But geographical distance and ethnographic characteristics cannot justify the situation where, under the name of truth, one teaching is offered in one place and another in a different place. If such diverse teachings, offered under the name of truth, are compared in content, then those who confess them must inevitably regard each other as living in falsehood—for truth can only be one.
Thus, the community that contains true knowledge and worship of God on earth can only be one, and its unity must be determined not only by an internal, invisible unity in the views of its members, but also by their external unity. Abiding in religious truth is determined by abiding in the community that holds it. (Prof. Glagolev)
A person cannot fully rely on his own competence in understanding the revealed doctrine, nor even in defining what he understands by revelation; therefore, for him, abiding in the community becomes a necessary condition for abiding in the truth. And since such a community is only one, it follows that all who remain within it are one. Otherwise, even if individuals who rightly honor God were spiritually united invisibly, they could end up being enemies of each other, diverging on the most crucial questions of truth, raising disputes and strife among themselves in discussing these matters—and then the kingdom would be divided against itself, and such a kingdom cannot stand.
“Therefore, the community that contains religious truth must exist on earth as a single spiritual organism. Being one, it must be holy.”
The term holy, when applied to created beings, denotes that which is consecrated to God (Hebrew kodesh or kadosh, Greek hagios, Latin sanctus). A community whose direct and, in essence, sole goal is union with God is, of course, holy—if in its activity it draws near to this goal. Its general disposition must be morally pure. Let individual members of the community fall on the difficult path of moral perfection, rise again, or pause—but if the community as a whole steadily moves forward, then it is holy, for it remains consecrated to God in its entirety. It is holy by its teaching, by its faith, by its ideals—and one may say, even by their fulfillment.
Such a one and holy community must necessarily exist on earth; for if it did not, then it would mean that all humanity had renounced the attainment of the goal for which it was appointed, and the very meaning of humanity’s existence on earth would be nullified. But on the other hand, the existence of such a community necessarily presupposes a continual supernatural influence within it, establishing and spreading the community.
In man’s present state, evil is inherent in his nature—what Kant called radical evil (Prof. Glagolev). But from evil, neither faith nor love can grow. A human community cannot preserve itself, as a whole, from intellectual error and moral fall. And if it constantly moves along the path of truth, then it is constantly preserved by a higher power; and if truth grows within it, this means that the holy influence within it is growing ever stronger and broader.
This community is the Church, made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, in order to wisely govern material nature—transforming it into a living vessel and medium for higher spiritual and divine powers, into the Body of God—man must possess within himself the beginning of this Body of God, the seed, the leaven of a new higher nature and life (a spiritual body). And this seed of purity and illumination exists only in the Body of Christ; only by partaking of it may we receive within ourselves the germ of that new life, by which Christ’s authority over all powers is also passed on to us. Without this, we shall always remain slaves to matter, to the material world.
Christ said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And if Christ is constantly and entirely present in His Church, then He is present as the way, the truth, and the life. Hierarchical succession, proceeding from Christ, is the way through which the grace of Christ flows throughout His Body, that is, the Church; the confession of Christ as the perfect God-man is the witness of Christ’s truth; the holy mysteries are the foundation of Christ’s life in us. In the hierarchy, Christ is present as the Way; in the confession of faith — as the Truth; in the sacraments — as the Life. The indivisible union of these three elements of church life determines the very essence of the Church as the Kingdom of God, and the divinely instituted forms of ecclesiastical and religious life (the sacraments and the doctrine of faith and morals) are the means by which the Holy Spirit acts within people, building their saving union with God. (Priest Popov)
Christianity is love and life within the Church—it gives truth and freedom. People often say that there is no freedom in the Church because, firstly, the hierarchy governs the souls and wills of Christians, and secondly, because it is bound by its past: its decisions, its councils, the meaning of its rites.
But neither of these claims is correct. The hierarchy, as we noted in passing, is not a dominating power, but a body elected by the will of the Church, linking the Church to the Church of the Apostolic and Patristic times, mediating by its service between the members of the Church and the Lord—but in its actions, it is guided by the will of the entire ecclesiastical people, the prayer of the whole Church, and by conciliar counsel.
The second point is a clear misunderstanding.
“For if the Church were to change its past, it would be denying itself,” writes Khomyakov. “The Church cannot at one time be true and yet contradict the Holy Scriptures and the realm of Divine revelation. Human freedom of reason consists not in creating the universe according to one’s own vision, but in freely comprehending it through the exercise of one’s cognitive faculties, independently of any external authority. Holy Scripture is God’s revelation, freely understood by the mind of the Church; the definitions of the councils, the meaning of the rites—in short, all dogmatic tradition—is an expression of that same revelation, understood equally freely, only under different forms. Inconsistency and contradiction would not indicate freedom, but delusion, for that which is true today must have been true in past centuries as well. The mind of the contemporary Church (and the Church’s mind means nothing other than the grace-illumined reason of her members, united by the moral law of mutual love) is the very same mind that once inscribed the Scriptures, the very same that later recognized them and declared them sacred, the very same that still later formulated their meaning in councils and symbolized it in rite; the mind of the Church at this very moment and her mind in ages past is one continuous revelation, is the inspiration of the Spirit of God…” (Khomyakov)
The Church is free and may shape new forms of her life, but she cannot be in contradiction with herself, nor in disagreement with her past. Such, in general terms, is the image of the Church.
I am not writing, I repeat, a dogmatic treatise. My aim, among other things, is to show how disastrous it is to separate oneself from the Church, to seek isolation from her life. As sorrowful as it is to admit, this neglect of the Church exists even within the Old Belief.
The writer Korolenko gives a scene—a story told by a Siberian man. “I came into a hut,” the Siberian recounts (looking for a place to stay the night), “spent the night on the stove-bed. In the morning I awoke and saw: some old men had entered the hut, set up an icon, and began to pray… So I said to myself, I’ll go ahead and pray along with them.”
I prepared to cross myself, but an old woman grabbed my hand.
— What are you doing?
— I want to pray.
— You can’t pray with us. You’ll pray later.
I climbed back up onto the stove. Then an old man came out, set up his own icon, and began to pray.
Again I rose to pray, and the old man drove me off: “Later,” he said.
Afterward, they took away the icons. The younger hosts arrived, and they had only a Crucifix.
“Well,” I thought, “at least I’ll pray before the Crucifix.”
But even they would not allow it.
So I went to pray facing the sun.
How sorrowful is this division in prayer!
Once, even our forefathers had their own icons in the churches. It was a result of religious ignorance—it did not express separation—but even so, it was not good. In the established church, despite outward formal unity, there is no communal life, no true union, not even at the level of a parish; the church, having become a state department, ceased to be the Church.
Among Protestants and the sects that proceed from Protestantism, due to the very nature of their doctrine, there is no Church at all: communion with Christ (as we have already said) is viewed as purely personal. The “Our Father” prayer on their lips is a lie, because they possess no religious prayerful communion with their fellow believers; nor do they have any connection with the universal Church, having rejected communion with the departed and with the Church of Zion in heaven!
Roman Catholicism recognizes only an external unity (not administrative, as in the established church, but external in the very way it understands the relationship between the hierarchy and the people): the hierarchy and the people are two parts, not spiritually united into one. One part commands and bestows grace; the other only obeys and receives this grace, given in a mechanical act (opus operatum) without the participation of the recipient’s soul in the divine power.
Old Belief, more than any other confession, understands the truth of the Church—the truth of unity that lies at the heart of the Church’s very idea. Their church order, their communal and conciliar structure based upon the foundation of true canon law—this alone is enough to testify that here is the true Church.
Yet even here there is room for reproach.
Not to speak of the priestless (беспоповцы), who have deprived themselves of salvation by their distrust of the Lord Christ, having rejected the “soul” of the Church—namely the Liturgy and the Eucharist—and having cut themselves off from the universal Church, even within the true Church there are signs of a tendency toward both Catholic and Protestant mindsets.
In the hierarchy (at least in part), there is a striving for Catholic-style domination—a desire to diminish or belittle the role of the people, and their voice in church affairs. Among the people, one senses a kind of forgetfulness or unfamiliarity with the full cycle of church services—an inheritance of the long years of persecution.
In one diocese (Kharkov), the question arises: does it need its own bishop? And the majority seem to answer: “No, we don’t need one.”
Clearly, the spiritual understanding of the episcopacy, and of the connection with it, of the bishop’s teaching role, has grown dull. The local church does not see the bishop as an essential part of the diocese—not for administration, or the ordaining of priests—but for the spiritual pastoring of the local flock.
Likewise, parishes, when deprived of a priest, do not always hasten to find one, saying, “We can manage for now the old way.”
It is evident that they do not fully experience the joy of the Eucharist, and do not understand that it is the life-giving power of the Church, and that without it, the Christian life is incomplete. Church services without the Liturgy do not possess that unifying, binding power which belongs to the foremost of all church services.
Finally, the principle of conciliarity—so firm in theory—is not fully practiced, even at general councils, and often finds no expression at all in the dioceses. Even village and city communities, when gathering around the church for the affairs of the community, have a very narrow understanding of their churchly duty. Parish councils concern themselves with the interests of the church building and its material upkeep—and almost nothing more. But where is the communal teaching of the Church? Where is charitable work? Where is enlightenment through schools and books? These are absent! And this means that, in regard to earthly matters, we Old Believers understand the earthly idea of the Church less than even the Greeks or the Serbs, among whom wide and holy labors of charity and education are centered around the church.
May the Great Head of the Church grant us the strength to lead the life of the Church without the least deviation from His will, according to His commandments.
Our sins against the Church are not such as to deprive us of the grace of Christ, but every small disorder within the Church is nonetheless dangerous and harmful.
— Journal “Old Believer Thought” (Starooobryadcheskaya Mysl’), Moscow, 1916, No. 1, pp. 13–20