THE UNITY AND UNIQUENESS
OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
In our time, as never before in our past, has there been such an UN-CHURCHLY UNDERSTANDING of the essence of the Holy Church. Now in all the world, the so-called “churches” - Catholic, Protestant, Lutheran ... and how strange, even Orthodox - Rumanian, Greek, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antiochian and others, act as ordinary public corporations whose goal is to gain political advantages and economic achievement in this temporal life, whilst the Church of Christ MUST BE SEPARATED from such temporal components of life. The Church of Christ calls itself HOLY, leading people to HOLINESS and not towards advantages in temporal life. Bishops should NOT adhere to this in their holy labours.
In 1054 the Roman organization separated itself from the Christian Church and commenced a new understanding of the Church. From here, they were followed by protestants and other heretics who called themselves Churches and Christians. However, they did not follow the Christian path. They will be the ones to whom the Lord will say at the last judgment, “I do not know you” (Matthew 7 v.23, Luke 13 v.25).
Under the influence of public understanding of a secular society which doesn’t feel its separation from the spiritual essence of the body of the Church, they separate themselves from their bishops and the body of believers, trusting their own un-churchly ideas BUT NOT WITH THEIR LOVING HEARTS. They consider Church life only as a traditional necessity, whereas the Lord’s primary demand is our LOVING HEART (Matthew 22 v.37) without it we are nothing (1 Corinthians 13, vv.1-8). What is demanded is love of Christ, not just the fulfillment of external demands.
To our regret, bishops and priests merely fulfill ministrations, thereby gaining from the fulfillment of outward duties. This may be laudable, but not at the price of inner spirituality. This is FELT by the faithful but is quieted by the fulfillment of external ceremony, but at the cost of compassion from their bishops and priests.
When the Church leadership - the Bishops of the Church of Christ - sink into the trivialities of externally political or similarly social considerations, it gets’ lost in lies and deceit and begins to follow the general mood. They chose the “easy path and thereby leave the “narrow” path to salvation. They are followed by naive lambs, who the Bishop-administrators drag behind them.
They say that they are leading their flock towards God, but in fact they are leading them away from God.
The Church of Christ is ONE, and is united in LOVE, with the truths of FAITH, and the CANONS of the Holy Fathers and by the APOSTOLIC TRADITION If one of these factors is not safeguarded in the life of the Church, such a Church if not ‘de jure’ but ‘de facto’ leaves the path of God. It thereby becomes a religious organization calling itself Christian. May the Lord protect us from such a “church”.
BISHOP ANTHONY (Grabbe)
President of the Orthodox Palestine Society
in the Holy Land