Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 24: The Apostolicity of the Church. Hierarchy and Clergy

Christians who lived closer to the time of the apostles had a liturgical worship that centered on the Eucharist. They understood that there was a role to build each other up as “spiritual temples” and “living stones.” The apostles were not of the Levitical priesthood. Not all Christians were from Israel genealogically. Christ continued the apostolic ministry through the priesthood and the episcopacy and the holy nation of people by transferring these to the New Israel, who are now Orthodox Christians. Archpriest Nikolai Afanasiev, an Orthodox theologian in the 20th c., expressed this early Christian background by emphasizing the lay leadership in the Church. When unholiness of the clergy began to make Medieval Christians call into question the dogmatic and structural aspects of the Church and in the later Reformation Era, anticlerical movements gained ground in Protestant countries as well as Roman Catholic ones. The Council of Trent exacerbated animosity toward the clergy when the Pope of Rome more sharply distinguished the roles of “teachers” and docile “learners,” or priests and people. 

But there was an important distinction between apostles who witnessed Christ’s earthly ministry and later apostles. The “circle of the apostles” revolved around the eucharistic community and overseeing various “ministries” of the members of all the churches. One of the charismatic gifts given by the Holy Trinity to the Church is leadership. The Holy Apostles Peter and Paul had been given this apostolic gift of leadership among the other apostles too, and that is carried on in the apostolic succession of the hierarchy, which is a Greek word that means “holy leadership” (hiero-archos). The Holy Spirit secures this passing down of gifts to all believers. In this way, Jesus’ ministry has continued through the charismatic succession of apostles in the hierarchical structure of the Church. There was not a solidified distinction between priests and bishops until the 2nd c. Priests came to represent the apostolic assembly while the bishops became the symbol of the Shepherd who serves, heals and leads the sheep into grace-filled gifts. The Greek word episcope means a person who oversees or watches over others. Bishops sit watching “in the place of God,” but not in replacement of Him. Jesus Christ did not come to leave the Church to wander off like sheep tend to do, as many Protestants would like to imagine how the early Church got easily off course so soon. Order is the ontological structure of the Church. Without hierarchy, there is anarchy, whether in our souls or buildings. The priesthood is also important because it is described as “the art of healing men.” Jesus first said to the disciples to become fishers of men. Another important ordered ministry of the Church are deacons (another Greek word that means service). Deacons often are put in charge of baptizing men, calling Christians to prayer, teaching and eucharistic service, just as we see happening today. There were also deaconesses who helped to teach and minister to other women and assist with female baptisms. Here we can see a recognition of the spiritual importance of ministry and order even to the needs of different genders. The inner structure of the Church and its outward hierarchy leads us into imitating holiness and virtue so that we can pass on those gifts to other Christians. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 23: The Conciliar Church

What affects all, includes all and encompasses all is the Catholic or Universal Church. The word catholic is a Greek derived word that describes the Orthodox Church. It means the whole stock, what is common to all, general, and more literally over the whole or each whole to describe a whole that is distributed into parts. Parts are the whole insofar as they are in relation to each other. Catholic can also mean spiritually what is in heaven and on earth, what is open to all people, involving the whole human race, the Church where all categories of sin are healed, and all the kinds of virtues that are given to Christians. 

There are no real geo-political boundaries for Orthodox Christians that the Holy Trinity cannot overcome, though we find ourselves in different places and under different governments. There are no limits to how the Holy Catholic Orthodox Church can reach the world. For millennia rulers of world empires and civilizations sought limitless kingdoms, eternal panaceas and utopias to bring all the parts into a whole and maintain that identity over time. But the divine liturgy in each local church led by one bishop is how the Church has taught and worshiped the same everywhere. 

Catholicity is the principle of spiritual organization among Orthodox Churches around the world. St. Cyprian of Carthage describes catholicity or universality as distinct rays of the sun that remain a part of the same light or the waters that flow from a single river. St. John Chrysostom comments on 1 Corinthians that the “the whole body was not the Corinthian Church, but the Church in every part of the world … individually … i.e., the Church amongst you is a part of the Church existing everywhere and of the body which is made up of all the Churches.” The unity of the original Church has been the eucharist that is held in common among all churches everywhere because they are in relation to and in communion with each other with Christ as the Head of all churches or the Catholic Church. Each church is not merely a part lacking the fullness of a church, nor can bishops shepherd a church without being in communion with other bishops from other churches; in fact, according to the canons, bishops are confirmed to their role by other bishops. When all local churches and bishops are in communion with each other, they are called catholic, universal and meeting together in oneness in love and in the eucharist is called conciliarity. The Latin word concilium means to call together to meet and unite in peace. Just as a bride would meet the groom in unity or the members of the body would call each other together to work in unison, so too the Church is conciliar as a body or bride would be. If each individual church was not the universal church, then to seek and find the whole church one would either have to go to all churches at once or claim only one local church contained all, and so to alter the principle of catholicity and conciliarity among the apostles of Christ and the successors to the apostles. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 22: The Holiness of the Church

The two primary images that Metropolitan Hilarion has chosen to focus on in chapters 21 and 22 are the body and the bride of Christ. All Christians are called to deify the body through the Holy and Healing Body of Christ. All Christians are also called to enter the closeness of a marital kind of union with the Holy Trinity. The Church, then, is described often as a “pure virgin,” a term that is also used of the Theotokos. The Book of Acts describes members of the Church also as “holy ones” or the Latinate word, “saints.” They are the faithful members who are made one and holy through partaking of holy communion. 

We yield to the Church as a bride who would be led by the groom into a new oneness of life. Faithfulness must be practiced in the Church daily as a newlywed must work at loyalty and love over the course of many years. Holiness is a mystery to be lived in the deepest part of the body – the noetic heart – where our body and soul meet the Divinity of Christ within our members in the Eucharist. Marriage is a fitting image because two people become one body. The recapitulation and reversal of humanity happens through the incarnation so that the incarnation can make us divine within ourselves through grace. Deification is the true marriage of Christians. The Church is given as a holy bride of Christ. The Holy Apostle Peter speaks of the holy ones as a royal priesthood. The whole people of ancient Israel were often called priests, or a “nation of priests” in the book of Exodus. So, we are called to be a holy nation, to become married mystically in our hearts, to be royal priests in the new kingdom. Christians all over the world are one people. Many indigenous and nations of the past called themselves in their own languages, “the first people,” “original men” and “the real humans” as opposed to foreigners. Likewise, we become fully human in the Church through deification, and the source of all life, light, holiness, purity, spotlessness, and infallibility in teaching everywhere flows from the Holy Trinity, St. Clement of Alexandria teaches. 

The Church has been given the apostolic succession through holy hierarchs, and the Holy Spirit moves within it to preserve the doctrines, teachings and traditions of the Church intact. Holiness is pursued fully in the faithful practice of what was handed down to us through apostolic successive authority. There was no prerequisite of being holy, however, before entering the Church because sin is viewed primarily as an illness that can be cured, and Christ wants more than anyone to heal us all in His Church, often called a “hospital” by the eastern and western fathers. There were heretical and misguided views about the contradiction between individual holiness and the Church’s reputation of being “pure and spotless.” In the 3rd c. AD, the Roman episcopacy fought against such heretical groups as the Novatians and Donatists who wanted to create a pure church of their own. Novatian set up his own authority on the seat of the Roman episcopate and Donatus wanted to purge the Church of repeat sinners and apostates seeking forgiveness. Though there may be times when sacrifices are not offered rightly to God on the altar, the East and West early on agreed that the sacraments do not depend on the person doing the action but the faith of the person receiving the action, such as baptism, for instance. Holiness is not a numerical data point or added up individually; sacraments are given to make us holy from God Himself in a process of time. But the growth, experience, holiness and discipline of leaders in the Church are still important. The New Testament often exhorts churches to guide and order affairs according to the maturity and reputation of Christians and their calling. A “virtuous life” is the real rank of importance, as Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us because for every ecclesial rebirth, there is a downfall. The Roman way of governing and constructing city life was very systematic and defined in comparison to others outside of the empire. They marked the boundaries of the known world. This kind of “powerful institution” was a temptation for the Church to imitate. How then can the Church still claim to be Holy, One, Universal, if we see so much of secular dealings encroaching on the Church? St. Cyril of Alexandria asks that question in the next chapter, “Where is the Catholic Church?” The idea of conciliarity is part of the body and bride. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 21: The Unity of the Church

Whether in heaven or on earth, the Head of the Church is Christ Himself, the New Testament teaches. All breath and life come together as one because Christ is the only breathing One who can give life to a body. All Christians are unified into the sacraments through baptism, Eucharist, and the Spirit of Christ. In Holy Tradition and Scripture, the signs of unity are not merely outward nor merely inward; the body and spirit in a great mystery are one. God made the Church one so that mankind cannot undone this teaching on unity. This oneness is “ancient,” teaches Clement of Alexandria, because it is tied to the One God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because of that, the Old and New Testaments are really One Testament that stretches across time, as he writes in the Stromata. 

In the Eastern churches, unity was taught to founded on the existence of the Holy Trinity and how the Church can imitate that divine unity in “openness and love.” There is, then, only “one mind” among Christians and the true Church. The Eucharist has been the sign of unity and the way Christians are unified by partaking of the holy communion. St. Cyril of Alexandria teaches that “for if we partake of the one Bread, we are all made one Body; Christ cannot suffer severance.” Because of the communion of Christ’s Precious Body and Blood, we also have unity with the Holy Spirit. The Church’s oneness and the so often talked about unity of Christians today comes from the oneness of the Holy Trinity. 

The Holy Trinity established the episcopate to help us order our lives and arrange ourselves to live within the sacraments. In the East, Christians who have separated themselves from the Church were dealt with according to the degree of deviation from dogmas and to the degree of schism. If the separation was serious and involved dogmatic variance with the teachings on the Trinity, akrivia or strictness might be used by the bishops. Heretics who doubted foundational dogmas had to be baptized in order to enter the Church, for example. If the separation was less about doctrines but involving a minor schism or dispute over ecclesial territory or historical misunderstandings, then economia or a lenient approach might be used. Schismatic groups who were already baptized in the Trinity, for example, and desired to enter the Church, did not need to be re-baptized, as St. Augustine and the East argued. St. Cyprian of Carthage also started with the Holy Trinity as the foundation of the Church, but with an emphasis on St. Peter as representative of the unity of all bishops in the Church, since his main argument with the schismatic Novatians set up rival bishops in opposition to the bishop of Rome. In both eastern and western churches, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was found in the one episcopate with its “starting-point” in St. Peter; however, Rome developed a theology that connected this idea specifically with the Roman throne later.  In the West, there was a tendency to apply definitions of outlining the effects or powers, effectus as St. Augustine called it, and degrees of grace in schismatic groups. Both East and West did not view the sacraments of those who separated themselves as effectual to change the lives of Christians, but that those sacraments offered outside the Church can be “perfected” when they are brought under the unified episcopacy. The lamb must be eaten within the house at the exodus just as holy communion can only be received within the Orthodox Church. Spiritual unity of sacraments is arranged orderly and kept organized by the episcopate to help Christians maintain “one mind” within the altars of their heart just as priests offer sacrifice on the altar during the liturgy to make us all holy. The next chapter discusses, then, the holiness of the Church.  

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 20: Salvation as Deification

Deification, also known as theosis in Greek, is a word from Latin that refers to a deeply grace-filled life with the Holy Trinity that begins here and will be completed in the resurrected life. Deification developed much more in the East than in the West, and Orthodox Christians are reminded of this transformation into becoming like God in the Eastern liturgies as well as in the writings of the Eastern church fathers. Beyond the juridical pardoning of sins and guilt, beyond mere restoration of what was lost, deification entails an elevated life and a transcendent goal for humanity. Metropolitan Hilarion writes that God earnestly wants to give us his divinity and God gives us the deepest desire of our heart — to become like Him. Deification is the original plan of the Holy Trinity, whether or not we sinned in the garden. Diadochus of Photiki teaches, “for God formed people to be gods.” Great Vespers for the Transfiguration (Sticheron at the Aposticha) hymn, “O Christ, making the image that had grown dark in Adam to shine once again like lightning, and transforming it into the glory and splendor of your own Divinity.” Holy Thursday, Ode Four hymns, “I will be with you in my Kingdom, as God with gods.” We become god as much as iron that is put into the fire takes on the likeness and heat of fire but does not become fire itself, as the fathers taught. This idea of salvation and justice is not congruent with the ancient religions. Christ does not hold a scale nor is He depicted blindfold, but Christ holds a scroll and a cross. 

Metropoitan Hilarion writes that salvation is not “a one-time event.” God gives us His divinity and holiness and we give Him our humanity and weakness, writes St. Symeon the New Theologian. He developed this eternal exchange as taught by the fathers of the Church, like Irenaues, Ephraim, and Athenasius who had formulated this reversal teaching earlier. Symeon describes deification as birth-giving, “ineffably he begot me spiritually” and as a process, “while I remained a man, he made me god.” The human race is returned to God in a better state because He is “the lover of mankind.” 

Salvation isn’t given without a mutual offering to God, that is, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. We experience this deification by becoming pure sacrifices and lovers of God and all mankind, as if we too were blind folded like lady justice. Many ancient civilizations prized and worshipped justice. The Egyptians worshipped Ma’at, the goddess of justice, law, truth and order; however, the Pharaohs could not see the lover of mankind in their dealings with the enslaved Hebrews and the encounter with the One God. Moses experienced the divine light on Mt. Sinai. Likewise, our communion with God through purification, illumination and the Eucharist will place us on the path of contemplating the Divine Light. Deification refers also to the deeper transfiguration of a person’s soul and body with Christ’s “Divine Spirit” so that “man becomes tri-hypostatic by grace.” To become godlike is to become an image of the Holy Trinity in the very structure of our soul and within the bones of our body. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 19: The Resurrection of Christ

 The resurrection of Christ is the saving plan of the Holy Trinity, and that dogma rests also on the incarnation of Christ, His first coming. In Orthodox Christianity, there are two Passovers. The first, Holy Friday celebrates the Passover Crucifixion, and the second, Holy Pascha (Easter) celebrates the Passover Resurrection – with Christ’s Descent on Holy Saturday being in the middle of the two. The word pascha means a passing over in Aramaic. The Old Testament tells us that the angel of death passed by the homes of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt and that Pharaoh refused to free them just as Hades held onto all humanity in death. The exodus prefigures the resurrection of all people. The crucifixion, dying, and descent into Hades all precede the paschal joy of Christ’s resurrection and our own too. Likewise, our suffering must come before we experience real joy. Pascha is joyful because it celebrates a specific victory over death and hell; it saves our body and soul together. On Holy Pascha, Orthodox Christians begin to sing throughout the festal season, “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”  Life is specifically given to people who have died and are waiting in the grave for life, and to those who are going to the grave – the so-called living. The typology of the Old Testament is linked to the New Testament by several key images. The Passover lamb links to the Eucharist, the Red Sea to baptism, and the exodus from Pharaoh’s Egypt to the freedom from Hades. So, the Eastern fathers did not write about these themes as a separate arrangement but as if it were one icon.

How do we experience and witness the resurrection if we were not there to see it? The Apostle Paul teaches that we do witness the same resurrection of Christ through faith by believing “in your heart.” Metropolitan Hilarion in Orthodox tradition describes that experience of trust and persuasion as “seeing with the noetic eyes [of the heart],” and not necessarily relying on the physical eyes. St. Symeon the New Theologian also answers that faith question by describing the experience as “beholding” and not believing with our logic. Faith has its own rules, understanding, and persuasion in the heart; it’s another kind of knowing lost on those who only see logical knowledge. When we hold something dear, we trust it and believe it and behold it as a witness. Being a witness of the resurrection today has a kind of personal and communal knowledge, or faith, that shares in the cloud of martyrs of the Church. In his Homilies on Romans, St. John Chrysostom describes faith as a kind of persuasion rather than just a mental acceptance based on reason or ignoring what is convincing. Nothing reveals more quickly a person’s honest belief and faith than facing up death itself within us and around us. Orthodox faithfulness also holds that we will resurrect like Christ. We trust and behold that what will happen to those in the tomb will happen to us in our own tombs. Faithfulness makes us “co-strugglers” with Christ in His suffering, death and resurrection, Metropolitan Hilarion writes. The Godman, Jesus Christ in Orthodox Christianity, is the summa of all theology and anthropology. This recapitulation of the created world is preached through a poem written by Melito of Sardis called On Pascha. He writes, “…in the man was Christ encompassing all things.” Christ is the reality of the type, the man of the lamb, the Word of the Law. In Melito’s paschal poem, Christ is the Victor and sole speaker with Hades; mankind doesn’t negotiate, fight, escape from Hades except through Christ’s word of freedom. The resurrection is tied to the freedom found in Hades. The victorious Christ has brought salvation to the dead and the dead are saved by rising with Him, teaches St. Gregory the Theologian on his Oration on Holy Pascha. If we suffer with Christ, if we live with Christ, and if we rise with Christ, then we become divine like him. This core teaching of salvation is called deification. It can mean making godlike or making God within us again. 

Orthodox Christianity, Vol II, Chp 18: The Descent into Hades

Adam came to us through Christ, writes St. Gregory of Nyssa in his Greek poems on Scripture. Christ’s descent into Hades is one of the most important teachings in Holy Orthodoxy. That theme is connected to many other dogmas. In the Church’s hymnography, Christ’s coming to save the whole of Adam’s race and lead humanity as a whole out of captivity from death and hell is heard most often in the Festal Hymns, Holy Friday, and Pentecost. The First Epistle of Peter and the Apostle Paul, many of the patristic writings, and early Christian traditional belief also holds to this core idea of Christ saving us by His descent to all of those who were hoping for salvation, both the virtuous and sinners. 

The Orthodox teaching emphasizes the total victory of Christ who conquered Hades and all who were trapped there in gloominess. True freedom for Christians is salvation from every part of Hell, and that encompasses a freedom from death, corruption, passions and even the very prison that once held all souls, which is now destroyed once and for all. In contrast, Roman Catholic dogma teaches a “partial victory” because only the righteous are taken out of infernum partum. That is a Latin phrase that designates a part of Hell where the holy patriarchs of the Old Testament were kept; but other sinful souls were not saved by the preaching of Christ to “the spirits in prison.” Orthodox teaching does not divide Hell into sections as the Thomistic and scholastic tradition does in the West. The Revelation of Jesus Christ according to St. John speaks about Christ holding the “keys of Hades” that is a powerful image of our coming salvation against all infernal enemies and territories throughout any time, even outside of time. The Psalter too speaks of “the king of glory” who destroys “the gates of Hades.” Hell has no power in the kingdom of God. 

The descent of Christ is also part of the wider theme of recapitulation, the reversal of all that is sorrowful, evil and grief-stricken in our human nature. The tree was used by the serpent to trick mankind, the demons are mocked by the wood of the Cross. Death and Hell devoured souls like sheep, we are found and led out by the Good Shepherd. The Devil bound us in chains, Christ frees us and binds the demons in chains. Death kept us in darkness, Christ’s descent enlightened us. Our true home is in Paradise, not Hades, which is a place that was assigned only to the demonic angels, a different fallen race who are the sole source of genuine wrath, suffering, sin, as Metropolitan Hilarion writes. The reversal is finished. Christ entered and departed from Hades as the conqueror in a complete way for the human race. His descent is tied closely to the dogma of redemption and the resurrection. The holy fathers did not need to treat this topic separately or systematically because of the wide-ranging connections the descent into Hades already has to the teaching on salvation of souls and bodies. Eastern iconography depicts Christ with a glowing, white robe coming out of the tomb and pulling the wrists of Adam and Eve out of Hades. The resurrection of Christ, then, is celebrated joyfully during the great feast of Pascha.