By Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)
We feel especially glad to talk about the Church in the gathering meeting of our community, which, as far as some aspects of its life are concerned, looks like the bearer of life of ancient Christian communities in heathen towns. Really, let us recall the scene of life of those times and of nowadays. Let us suppose, that in front of us is a big heathen city, for example, Rome, with all its theatres, public baths, circuses, entertainment places, with all nesting there vices, loathsome service to heathen abomination, characterized by cruelty and crimes, which terrified the world. But then in that world of «sin and death» there appears another world of «peace and joy in the Holy Ghost»; and within ancient heathen Rome there is revived another, Christian Rome; different, once hostile people, «Greek… Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, … free» become the parts of one body, the body of Christ. In that time, when heathens with their wild feasts, inhuman depravity and arousing indignation murders, brought the universe into trepidation, in that very time the chant of the holy men of God, glorifying the resurrection of the Crucified, came out of burial caves. In the first case everybody is amazed by the subtleness of mind and will in serving passions, and in the second case the resigned slaves of the Lord of Hosts rise over the laws of nature, curing the sick with a prayer and resurrecting the dead.
Now there are no admirers of heathen gods in front of us, those terrible religious crimes disappeared; now the rulers, troops and nations worship the cross of the Savior. But the difference of the life of Christ and the life of the Church with secular life did not cease existing, and surely will remain forever, both in communities and in every single man. Within Christian communities, according to the predictions of the Gospel, love became so weak that long ago the non-religious ideals started to attract people’s attention in the places with great population. Already John the Chrysostom, the teacher of the Church, who lived 350 years after the Resurrection of Christ, constantly expressed his grief about the fact that Christ stopped being the part of life of the capitals and people were attracted only to theatres, circuses, gossips, fashion, wealth accumulation, but did not search for Divine will. Nowadays these secular interests overwhelmed the society in such measure that religious life, except for divine service, started to become the matter of each one’s personal conscience, and started to be thoroughly hidden from the neighbors. We always had many pious people, but had no pious society, no pious common life.
But the light of the Word of God quite recently shone in this darkness of fussy and becoming totally secularized life. With the powerful hand, which created heaven, God the Word gathered people of different society circles, ages and disposition into one body, put in their hearts thirst for listening to the Evangelic sermon, and into the breasts and mouths – His holy chants. And as in ancient Rome the glorification of resurrected Christ reached the angels of God, suppressing the sounds of frantic orgies and loathsome for God feasts, the same way from new, fussy and dissolute Petersburg appeared newest Petersburg, united by the word of the Gospel and chanting of sacred hymns. In the same hours and minutes, when the majority of inhabitants hurry to serve to the world interests and pleasures, the others – with prayer-books in their hands and with Christ in their hearts gather in the temples of God in the unusual for this forgotten matter hours – for additional divine services, dedicated to the Evangelic revelation. Surely, the majority of these people are simple, which are less in number than those rich and deluded by the charms of this world, on the word of the apostle: «For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence» (1Cor. 1:26–30).
This new life began or was restored not only for the righteous, but for desperate sinners, who now through the sanctification by the word of God became better than the righteous and together with them glorified the resurrection of Christ in those holy days, and not vaguely, as the rest, but being filled with bright light of sincere communication with God, tasting of the joy of Pascha, «when they who were held by the chains of hell beheld Thy boundless compassion, O Christ, they hastened to the light with joyful feet, exalting the eternal Pascha.» Our gladness and joy are exactly in that we, through the assimilation of the word of God due to the Church, «partake of the fruit of the new vine of divine joy on the auspicious Day of the Resurrection and Kingdom of Christ.» Therefore we need to understand, in what is our advantage among the other listeners and readers of the Gospel, who do not partake of the kingdom of Christ, who accept the Gospel not from the Church, but each one does that for himself, for his personal life.
«What is to me the Church, priests and divine service? – The sectarians say, – «My Christ had given me His Gospel and I do not need anything that is not in the Gospel in order to be saved; it is enough to fulfill what I will understand in the Scripture, and I do not know and do not want to know about the teaching of the fathers of the church and the Ecumenical councils. I must not be judged for that, for I try to study the law of Christ and join Him and His Divine Person, and to search for my salvation within It, but not within the church.»
These words are unjust, and do not bear the Evangelical spirit. In reality, it is impossible to understand the teaching of Christ without the Church, and one cannot join Christ outside the Church, so our salvation is not only the reward for the exploits of life, but it is in the process of gradual merging of our life with the life of the Church, which is the body of Christ.
1. The Lord said, that His glory is «the way and the Life» (John 6:63), and by that showed that one cannot understand and perceive His teaching in the way any other reasonable teaching is perceived. Simple human wisdom is perceived through reason, and it is possible to perceive the teaching of Christ – the teaching of the spirit and life -no otherwise than through life. «If any man will do his will, – says the Lord, – he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God» (John 17:7).
About what fulfillment of will of the Heavenly Father and about what unique means to perceive His law is talking the Lord? Is it only about the fulfillment of single good deeds? – No, the whole life, human nature must merge with the life of Christ, in order to master His teaching of life. The Jews are asking Him, if He is the promised by the prophets Messiah, whom they had been waiting for. The Lord answers to them: «I told you, and ye believed not…ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me» (John 10:26).
So, in order to believe truly and assimilate the Divine truth of the teaching of Christ, one needs to merge with the life of Christ, first, through the fulfillment of will of the Heavenly Father and secondly, through joining the Divine flock, that society, that life, which the Lord had established on earth, and this life is the Church.
This cannot be otherwise. It is impossible to understand any life-important teaching without taking into account that society or people, who live according to it. Even in secular matters, in order to understand, for instance, Russian songs or ancient epics, one needs to understand Russian life, Russian lifestyle, and if one would not do that, he will have a very funny concept of them, as the French or Germans have about Russian traditions. Only the very life of the people, the very character of them can clarify the essence of the folk legends and ideals, but it will happen only to the extent this folk life remained faithful to itself, to the extent of not yielding to the external influence, as it happened with the life of the highest walks of Russian society, by which one surely cannot judge about the ancient noble customs and legends.
Consequently, in order to perceive the life of Christ, conveyed in the Bible, one needs not only to plunge into the very life of the contemporary Christian society, but have reasons to believe that this life did not deviate from its original path. Truly, for that we got the indisputable promise of the Lord: «I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,» so that anybody, who «neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.»
Beside that, in the Holy Scripture there are references to the fact that people would perceive the teaching of Christ exactly through the Church, which drawn already by the prophets of the Old Testament as a mountain or a virgin, not knowing a man, but having many children. «And it shall come to pass in the last days, – predicted Isaiah (2:2–4) and Micah (4:1–3), – that the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.»
This way, the law and the word cannot be perceived separately, but through the process of ascending onto the Lord’s mountain, Zion, i.e. the Church. The same thought is confirmed in the farewell prayer of the Lord about the Church. «That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me» (John 17:21–24).
The belief of the people in Christ depends on that spiritual unity, in which abide those believing in Christ, the apostles’ followers, the sons of the Church, whom Apostle Paul calls «no more strangers and foreigners,» but as the unity «built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.»
So, the word of God teaches, that without being in the Church and without Christian life man cannot perceive the Evangelic teaching. Therefore those, who assert that only the Bible is necessary for the salvation of each one of them, are mistaken, for the Bible is given not to each one separately, but to the unity of the Disciples of Christ, created by God, i.e. – the Church. That is why, brothers, when the sectarians will talk to you about your confession, ask them: «Did Christ come to give us a book or to give us life? Should we only submit our will to the book, or to that life, which had been established by Christ, and without which the Bible Itself is unclear? And this life, holy and infallible, which rises over my will and mind, is called the Church, which unfailingly bears the truth of Christ, the examples of hope of the apostles and ascetics, the interpretation of the Ecumenical councils, the divine service of great saints and chants’ writers, the grace of the Comforter-Holy Spirit.»
2. A sectarian is bombarding you with his statements about life in Christ, about the personal communication with Him: «My Christ ordered me to do this or that, and He did not ask me to fulfill these things, and I do not want to know about any of your sacraments,» etc. But do we, the Orthodox, state that we do not need communication with Christ? Do not we partake of His sacraments? Do not we call one another in the Great day to see «the radiant Christ who said: rejoice?» Do not we ask him: «Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the unending Day of Thy Kingdom?» What a difference with our communication with Christ do they have? It is in that they cry: «I… my…to me,» i.e. they put themselves outside of that unity, to which Christ calls His followers. Does such excluding, jealous love please Christ? Will He ask us about this kind of love at His Judgment? -Yes, He will demand love for Himself, but not that kind of exclusively personal love, – He will ask for uniting love.
Those, who in love for Him have forgotten about love for the neighbor, would be amazed with His judgment and «then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me» (Math. 25:44–46). Christ demanded that we should be in Him, live with Him, but does He talk about Himself as about the separate personality? No, these words about abiding in Him are preceded by the Lord’s comparison of Himself with a vine with many branches, i.e. people; therefore there appears not exclusively my personal Christ, but Christ within the Church. Christ is not alone, but with His universal family, with brothers, and sisters and the mother, who are those listening to His word and fulfilling His will.
We should love Christ and live only for Him, but not that Christ, that knows you alone, and you know Him, not that One, Who is only your Bridegroom, but Who is the Bridegroom of the Church. We should love incarnated Christ, not only in the glorified flesh, but in that flesh, about which the apostle said: «For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ… And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you» (1Cor. 12:12–22). But still it can only be heard from the sectarians: there is no need in the Church, in good deeds, exploits, but only Christ personally is needed. But as you see, Christ is not self-loving and one cannot please Him with such carnal love and zeal. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.» (Math. 7:22–24). It is easy to imagine ourselves to love that beautiful image of Christ, which we have made up in our mind, but to love Him as a part of the Church – with all His brothers, with His spiritual body, with His bride – this is what we should long for. This Orthodox love for Christ is love of constant self-denial, good will and resignation in life and sectarian love is exceptional, proud, making one blind; not love, but the emotion, which rejects the exploit of struggling with oneself, filled with fantasizing and not contributing to the spiritual growth of man. This is that state of prelest’ or delusion, against which the Fathers of the Church warn us, explaining that real spiritual delight should be preceded by the number of confessionary exercises and cleansing of the heart from self-love and passions through prayer and good deeds. «Your bridal chamber, O my Saviour, I see all adorned, but I have no garment so that I may enter it. Make bright the mantle of my soul, O Giver of light, and save me. » See, in which words our attitude to Christ is expressed.
Is it clear now that without the Church, the communication with It and Its guidance we can neither perceive, nor love Christ? We should be so grateful to God that He gave us the chance to be fed from the source of the Evangelic teaching, preserved by the Church! How we should cherish any recollection of our communication with It, starting with the Holy sacraments, in which we truly obtain the grace of the Holy Spirit, coming over to the sign of the cross and ending with any rite, held by the universal family of our Savior! And at last we should not be embarrassed that only the minority of people, calling themselves Christians, really belong to the body of the Church: «Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!» «Let the dead bury their dead.» Let every year of terrestrial life set new gods for worshipping them: we shall neither be embarrassed by them, nor judge them, as the Lord did not judge them: «And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world» (John 12:47). We, joyful about the Divine salvation, should not judge them, but pity them, as the person that can see pities the blind, as the healthy man pities the sick. We should have mercy for them and help them to be saved through the word, example and prayer. We shall help them and humbly thank God that He made us study His word, and we shall beware of sin, knowing the statement: «That servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.» Let us, at last, subdue ourselves to God and people, thinking that we have fulfilled so little from what we have learnt about the will of God, and ask the Lord to help us in leading the better, God-pleasing life.
