![]() ![]() Paul says that the end of all things is that they be “gathered together in one in Christ Jesus.” This is the Church, in the end. “Church”, in this usage, is “that which is reconciled.” St. There are boundaries which we describe as “the Church,” but this meaning is being used to specify that which is identified with the fullness of life in Christ. “The Holy Spirit completes that which is lacking,” it is said in our prayers. They become more fully human, more truly what they were created to be. But the person who is Baptized does not somehow become other than what they are. Baptism and Chrismation are indeed required of those coming to Holy Communion, for they are fundamental realities in the medicine of immortality and the path of life God has given us. The Church came into existence when God said, “Let there be light.” The sacraments do not make us to be what we are not, but reveal us to be what we truly are. ![]() I can say “there is no grace outside the Church” only if I also say that everything in all of creation is inside the Church. Only God has existence in and of Himself. If it were not so, they would cease to exist. For His own mysterious reasons, God even sustains the fallen angels by His grace. Since the entire universe is sustained by the grace of God, I can only assume a sort of heresy of secularism by such a statement – the notion that anything can exist apart from God’s grace. I’m always troubled to hear “there is no grace outside the Church.” I can’t fathom what such a statement means. The first is an error about God, the second an error about human beings. Second, there is an equally odious belief that human beings, in their observance of the commandments, are ever righteous enough to actually be compatible with true holiness. It is a scandal whose errors run in two directions.įirst, there is an assumption that God is so displeased with sin that He can have nothing to do with it, or that sin somehow nullifies the work of God. The scandal of the Incarnation, God-becoming-man, is the seeming contradiction of the utterly transcendent God and the particularity and limits of human existence. There are indeed consequences within the canons of the Church, but those consequences do not include an inefficacy of the sacraments. If we are commanded to be holy, surely there are consequences for failure to observe the commandment. It is an easy line of thought to maintain. The debate was largely about those who, under the pressure of persecution, had in any way denied their faith or yielded to the requirements of the pagan state. There was a heresy in the early Church that denied the efficacy of the sacraments if they were performed by sinners. Doubtless, he did (which makes his betrayal all the greater). We are nowhere told that Judas did none of those things. ![]() The 12 apostles cast out demons, healed the sick and cleansed lepers. It was a story about the glory of God and its place and work despite our faults and failures. Nor was it to exonerate the bishop involved and declare him holy. My bishop’s point in sharing the story was not to exonerate the Russian Church from any wrong-doing, or cooperation with wrong-doing. But the undeniable glory of God revealed what his hatred could not see. You might hate the man, and the Church as well. It was an experience that led him into the Orthodox faith. However, he saw the bishop surrounded by light. Nevertheless, he saw an Orthodox procession in the streets of his city one year, a procession that included the Russian bishop (whom he also hated and believed to be a KGB agent). He grew up in the Soviet era and had come to hate all things Russian, including the Orthodox Church. My Archbishop (Alexander Golitzin) shares the story of a young man whom he taught some years ago. ![]()
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