One Christ! One Catholic Church

The grave of Father Matthew the Poor just outside the monastery of St. Macarius

On this Christmas day I would like to share this chapter from the Communion of Love by Father Matthew the Poor. In this second last chapter of the book he offers some insight about what the one Church of Christ should look like. On this Christmas day let us continue to pray for the unity of the church. Through the incarnation of Christ let us remember that we are all made whole in the body of Christ which unites and does not divide.
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In an age like ours, tinged as it is with sectarianism, we are apt to think that the words We believe in one catholic Church refer to a oneness that applies to the sect or dogma to which a given Christian belongs, whether it be Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant. It follows that catholicity is taken as necessarily denoting sectarian unity. An Orthodox believer insists that the oneness of the Church simply lies in its Orthodoxy, catholicity implying only those who are the Orthodox in the world. Such also might be the claim of a Catholic as well as a Protestant. Thus the theological concept of the nature of the Church takes shape for each and every Christian as though its unity were confined to the limits of dogma, and also bounds its catholicity, the latter being presumably a local aspect of the Church.

In such a narrow-minded concept which fanatically adheres to modes of thinking and to parochial perspectives, what is lost is the reality of the infinite nature of the Church, which transcends the physical earth as well as thought. But the Church is much greater than man! It is even greater than heaven and earth, for man has never filled the Church, nor will he ever be able to do so even if the whole world with all its beliefs and structures were saved (both prospectively and retrospectively speaking). For Christ is the only One who can fill the Church. In Him there abides the entire fullness that can fill all in all, fill man and his mind, fill time and space. The universe with its earth and celestial heavens can by no means contain the Church, yet it is the Church that contains man’s heaven and his earth. The Church is the new creation, a new heaven, a new earth, and a new man. In the nature of the new creation, old earth and old heaven are swallowed up, as if they no longer existed, though they actually do. Death is likewise swallowed up into life so that it no longer rules, and the corruptible into the incorruptible as well. All becomes new, alive, everlasting, and pure. Newness, in this respect, pertains to the unalterable eternal Whole; oldness is that which inevitably passes away bit by bit because of its essentially mutable nature.

Hence, the Church, with regard to its catholic nature is greater than man, his concepts, his structures, and his dogmas, greater even than the universe with its immense heavens, or the vast earth with all its decadence, or temporal events from beginning to end.

The Church is the new Whole. It is from the nature of Christ—out of which has been formed the Church—that this wholeness is derived, which includes all that pertains to man and to God through the incarnation.

The Church then is whole, in other words catholic, as it gathers in its own body of Christ, which fills it, all that belongs to man as well as to God together into one single entity which is both visible and invisible, both finite and infinite, an existence within the sphere of time and place, but at the same time eternal and metaphysical.

The word catholic comes from the Greek kath (in accordance with) and olos (whole). Simply stated, it means "wholeness.” The "wholeness” meant here is that which trancsends the totality of finite existence. It is an unalterable, infinite, unbreakable, inumerable whole; it is ONE, a fixed Whole analogous to the concept of Christ’s nature which is indivisible, unconfused, and unchangeable.

Such is the Church, which follows Christ in all His aspects. For as Christ is unique in His person, inclusive in His nature, simultaneously whole in His temporal and eternal, His local and universal existence, so is the Church also single and catholic. It follows then that whoever is within the Church is necessarily one and should inevitably be one because of the catholicity of the Church; in other words the Church has the divine capacity attained through Christ to make every single person one with God. Whoever is in Christ is from God and is one with God.

The means the Church uses to practice its catholicity are the sacraments, for through the sacraments all the faithful are brought together into union with the mystical body of Christ, thus becoming one body and one spirit; they have access to the nature of the one catholic Church, the body of Christ in the Church being the secret of its catholicty, His person the secret of its oneness.

If the faithful do not achieve a state of single-heartedness and single-mindedness, effected by partaking of the one body and then a state of one love effected by the person of Christ who reigns over all, the sacraments become no more than merely a formal existence, leading to intellectual and dogmatic discord. Sacramental or dogmatic formality is incompatible with the reality of the one comprising body, that which gives life to those who eat of it, and become one in it. In the Church the body of Christ is a source of life and unification; it is both alive and life-giving, and is also capable of abolishing all sorts of barriers created by time and place, as well as by human intellect and instincts, whether it be social barriers ("Neither slave nor freeman in Christ”) or racial and cultural barriers ("neither Jew nor Greek, neither barbarian nor Scythian”) or sexual barriers ("neither man nor woman” [Ga. 3:28]). The mystical body of Christ in the Church is that source of power which makes it capable of gathering all within its own unique catholic nature.

The Church is the new creation; whereas Adam had been the head of the old human creation and the only one from whom all races, peoples, elements, and classes of mankind had sprung, so Christ has become the second Adam and head of the new human creation and the only one from whom the new man has sprung as one chosen race (race here being the divine Christian one) as one justified people (the people here being those who are gathered together by the righteousness of Christ and not by that of its own), and as one holy nation (the only mother here being holy baptism and not a woman’s womb). The great secret behind the power of Christ in unifying races and peoples and in abolishing all barriers among all people on earth (ecclesiastical catholicity) lies in His being an incarnate God, the Son of God and the Son of Man simultaneously. The divinity of Christ has caused His humanity to surpass all raciality, nationality, and partiality, even sin and death. Christ’s sonship, with respect to God, has enabled Him to gather mankind into a single filiation to God. Hence, whoever partakes of the flesh of Christ has all sorts of barriers dissolved in him together with sin and death. He is thus made one with every man, a new man, newly and purely created in a manner analogous to the image of Christ, a son of God within the unique filiation of Christ. In the Church the catholic nature has become dependent on the divine flesh of Christ as implying a power to gather mankind and unify him within a single sonship to God.

Catholicity in the Church is that of Christ; it is the making effective of the nature of Christ which is capable of bringing together simultaneously man with man and man with God. In other words the Church, by nature of its catholicity, is against all sorts of discrimination, division, isolation, and even all that causes division, whatever its source may be, whether within man or outside of him. Christ not only gathers the dispersed colors and races into one mind and one faith, but also gathers them into one flesh in the full sense of the word that implies intimacy, understanding, and love. The Church is His mystical body, with its baptism and its eucharist, the meeting point of all humankind and the only meeting point for all peoples, nations, races, tongues, and colors which dissolves all barriers and disagreements. Thus all becomes one, great, pure body, one spirit intimate and loving, one reconciled man whose head is Christ, to whom pertains all that belongs to races, peoples, colors, and tongues concerning privileges and talents, but void of any division, dispute, or discrimination—which is exactly what is meant by the "catholicity” of the Church.

The reason is plain and simple why the Church has not yet achieved its catholicity, or rather why it does not live by its catholic nature which ought to be the essence of its life in Christ, the proof of its power, the secret of its wholeness or divine integrity. It has not yet conceived its divine concepts as pure and elevated above logic or human reason; i.e. its concepts are still bound to articulate and philosophical interpretations which hinder the vision of the serenity of the catholic nature of Christ which has the exquisite power of total reconciliation and the unification of sundry dispositions in such a manner that surpasses the capability of any nature in itself, and not only ideas, principles, and dogmas, being thus founded upon the forgiveness, purification, justification, and even the sanctification of every person by the blood of Christ which is capable of redeeming the sins of the whole world. It is as if the Church has not yet discovered the depths of power inherent in the blood of Christ and the working potentiality of His flesh and the depth of His love and righteousness.

It is quite obvious that all of the theological terms—as far as defects are concerned—are in themselves without blemish. The defects have occurred in their interpretation and in their comprehension; man, here, has approached the divine— i.e. the simple and serene nature of God—with Adam’s mind and thought, but not with those of Christ. Disagreement here is an inevitable and necessary obligation of the schismatic nature of Adam. The schism manifested in comprehending and perceiving Christ does not lie in Christ’s nature, nor does it belong to His catholic nature, but occurred as a result of the schism essentially inherent in man’s nature, a nature which has been obliterated by sin and has become full of hatred, suspicion, misunderstanding, vanity, and disunity. The fault in the Church’s schism lies not in the nature of the Church, but in the nature of man’s ability to conceive and grasp the nature of Christ and the Church.

Therefore, we can see that any schism in the concept of the nature of Christ and the Church signals that we have mundanely approached the divine through a fallen mind, that is to say, through an undivine approach. Every schism that has taken place within the Church implies that man has started to deal with ecclesiastical matters through an ethnocentric and racialist mind (which disperses), not in an ecclesiastical or catholic way (which unites).

It is only for the new man that Christ will remain unbreakable, indisputable, and without variation; only for the man who possesses the mind of Christ will the Church remain one, unique, and catholic to all people, orthodox in every thought, and void of any sectarianism of division—only for the new man who has accepted the nature of Christ deep in his heart. It is only when people renounce their own will that the sole will of Christ appears, and when they deny their passions and hatred, curb their bodies and minds to the work of the Holy Spirit. Only then will the mystical flesh of Christ be manifested and exert its action in the Church toward the gathering of hearts, principles, and ideas. When people earnestly surrender their lives to Christ, only then will the life of Christ be manifested in the Church, and then will His Spirit be poured out over it. When every soul within the Church spiritually, faithfully, and earnestly yields through fervent repentance to God, and when every Church yields as such, then will the Church be one through the grace of God, then will Churches be one through the power of the Holy Spirit, where Christ becomes one shepherd to the one flock He rules Himself with His Spirit, thus becoming the source of its catholicity and its unity.

Is not the Church a manifestation of Christ’s incarnation on earth and His continuity throughout time? In it the faithful form the new human nature, glorified in the person of Christ, through whom it is adopted by God. How is Christ to be manifested in the Church, except through the oneness of thought, will, desire, and sense common among the children of the only God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but through human and spiritual unity (cf. Jn. 1:13).

How is it going to be proved to the world that God is one, except through the oneness of those born from Him?

And how is the world to verify that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son except through the oneness of the sonship of those who believe in Him, who are born of God through His death on their behalf and through His resurrection along with them, who are now united with His flesh, His blood, and His Spirit? In other words they have all become members in one body.

Is it not obvious that the catholicity of the Church and its oneness are but the totality of theology, the proof of Christ’s existence and action, the actualization of man’s new birth which he obtained from heaven by water and the Holy Spirit?

The lack of integrity with respect to the catholicity and unity of the Church, until now, among the Churches of the world does demand of us—not reconsidering our theology, for our theology is true and faithful—to reconsider ourselves in view of our correct theology so that we might correct our vision of God the only Father of all humankind and correct our view of Christ as the only Savior and the only Redeemer of all who call on His name, through whom is indiscriminately adopted the whole of humanity by God, thus correcting our love toward man—every person—as being inevitably a brother to us, even if he stood against us in hostility and set forth for us snares of death.

Yet it should be borne in mind that what urges us to attain such ecclesiastical catholicity and unity is not merely theological zeal or idealism or even remorse; it should be out of our own faith, our own love, that is to say out of the newness of our new birth which is from heaven and which can by no means be made effectual to us. We cannot abide in it apart from the catholicity of the Church and its unity.

The new man can never live separate from others or as a broken part or with hatred or hostility against others. The new man must be whole and one, for it is out of one catholic nature and one Father that he emerges. The one new nature with which every man in the Church is born is that which makes one of the whole through grace and spirit. Love here imposes its divine and catholic authority. Into the image of Christ the only begotten Son are baptized all those born to the Father by the only paternity.

The Church thus is catholic because it is the body of the Son (sacrificed for the whole world through love), who recapitulates all things within Himself. The Church is one because it is the unbreakable house of the Father.

We now look forward most eagerly with tears and supplication, with the new man’s consciousness, to the Church’s catholicity and to its unity all over the world.

Father Matthew the Poor, The Communion of Love, Pages 215-222.

The Great Divide: Secularism and the Church

Powerlessness has its own speech. Weakness has its own triumph. The world cannot be served from a place of power, but it can be served from the cross. On the cross the world stabs its own heart, but the cross is a school and to run away from it is to run away from the future. Fr. Bishoy Kamel

Fr. Alexander Schmemann prophetically wrote over 50 years ago (1964) that the liturgical crisis the Orthodox Church is facing is not liturgical renewal but the ideological crisis of secularism in the west being imposed on the church. This secularism Fr. Schmemann argues has destroy the beauty of the liturgy and has turned our church to a "Sunday Church". These words can still be used today. The church still finds itself stuck as a "Sunday church" not catering to the poor and needy (those deprived of Christ) but rather serves in how the best serve the church. Father Matthew the Poor summed up the work of the church as that who serves the poor when he said,

"The Church should never desire rule or ownership on earth. Woe to the church that possesses much! Woe to the church that has numerous investments stored away in the national and central banks, only to be eaten away by the moth! Woe to the church whose assets are large while her poor are hungry! Woe to the church which owns many acres and buildings but has no poor eating at her table! But blessed is the church which is satisfied with Christ the Word, and gives daily from her riches, that the people might claim ownership with her in heaven-possessions which cannot be buried, pass away, or perish". Taken from "Words for Our Time" Page 120.  

We should never think of the church as an institution among other institutions but rather as Fr. Schmemann puts it, the place in which the kingdom has been bestowed upon all of creation. The liturgy becomes this journey which leads into the dimension of the kingdom. It is not an escape from the world, rather it is the arrival at a vantage point from which we can see more deeply into the reality of the world. The liturgy is the manifestation of the kingdom on the earth. The issue with secularism is that it has divorced the "sacred" from the "profane". What has naturally occurred from this separation is a division between the "life in the world" and a "life in the church". This great divide has separated the church from its function to serve all nations. Nowadays, especially in the west, the church is perceived as an activity. The priest constantly asks people to do something for the Church. Their activism is measure in quantitative criteria: how many meetings, how much money, how much "doing". What is dangerous is not the activity itself, but the reduction of the Church, the identification of this activity with life in the church. The entire point of the church, the sacramental principle of its life, lies in taking us way from "activity", in making us commune with a new life, the Kingdom. The idea of the church, also demands that we wold bring into the world this experience of a new life in order to purify the world with the life and experience of the church. Sadly the opposite happens and we bring activism into the church, the fuss of the world, and fill the church with worldly cares. What happens is that the church ceases to produce life and it becomes a church of the world.    

We have to recover the meaning of what it means to live in the body of Christ. This notion that the sacrament is set our against, or existing outside the rest of life has taken hold amongst many of the church goers. This distinction between the sacred (sacraments) and profane (the world) has caused a great divide. With the coming of Christ and establishing the new life the scared and profane has been broken. All that we do and participate in has become an offering to God; a sacramental and a calling for the life of the world. We must begin to restore the imagine and likeness of God in who we are as human beings. By inquiring about the traditions, church fathers, scriptures and the church we will begin to restore this image and unite that which has been divided between the "sacred" and "profane". Fr. Schmemann summed up Christianity beautifully when he said,   

 "Religion is needed where there is a wall of separation between God and man. But Christ who is both God and man has broken down the wall between man and God. He has inaugurated a new life, not a new religion" (For the Life of the World 19-20). 

If we understand Christ establishing new life for us when we must understand Christ as our starting point in anything that we do in the church. Baptizing all nations begins with the person of Christ. We must turn our focus away from "activities" and "fundraisers" and turn our focus to Christ and his kingdom. If we cannot even feed the poor how then can we begin to feed ourselves who are constantly deprived of Christ? It is in the Eucharist that we find life. Once we come to the realization that all we do is Eucharistic (unites us to God) then we will realize that all of life, good and bad, unites us to that which has brought us life; Christ!

"And so the Eucharist is not simply a way of discharging our duty of thanks to god, although it is that as well. It is not merely one possible relationship to God. It is rather the only possible holding together-in one moment, in one act-of the whole truth about god and man. It is the sacrament of the world sinful and suffering, the sky darkened, the tortured Many dying: but it is also the sacrament of the change, His transfiguration, His rising, His kingdom. In one sense we look back, giving thanks for the simple goodness of God's original gift to us. In another sense we look forward, eschatologically, to the ultimate repair and transfiguration of that gift, to its last consummation in Christ". Fr. Alexander Schmemann

 The following are different sayings I came across that relate to this topic!

T.S Eliot, a Anglo-Catholic said in 1930: 

There is no good in making Christianity easy and pleasant; "Youth," or the better part of it, is more likely to come to a difficult religion than to an easy one. For some, the intellectual way of approach must be emphasized, there is need of a more intellectual laity. For them and for others, the way of discipline and asceticism must be emphasized; for even the humblest Christian layman can and must live what, in the modern world is comparatively an ascetic life. Discipline of the emotions is even rarer, and in the modern world still more difficult, than discipline of the mind...thought, study, mortification, sacrifice: it is such notions as these that should be impressed upon the young...you will never attract the young by making Christianity easy; but a good many can be attracted by finding it difficult: difficult both to the disorderly mind and to the unruly passions. 

Fr. Stephen Freeman in a recent blog entry entitled Grace and Psychology of God said:

In our modern culture, Christian belief has become divorced from Christian Church (this was an intended outcome of the Reformation). Thus people, self-identified as individuals, struggle to have a "relationship" with God in a manner that is analogous to their "relationship" with other individuals. The nature of these "contractual" events is largely perceived as psychological. How we feel about one another and what we think about one another is seen to be the basis of how we treat one another. And so in our cultural "social contract" we seek to control, even to legislate how we feel about one another. We imagine that eliminating "hate" and "prejudice", "racism" and "sexism" will impact violence. But despite that unflagging efforts of modernity, violence not only continues but escalates. With God the "contract" is often extended or renamed a "covenant," an agreement between a human being and God that stipulates requirements and behaviors and outcomes. Grace, perceived as a divine emotion or attitude, is part of the contract. God's promised manner of performance. The result of this imaginary divine milieu has been the gradual decrease of the Church (or anything resembling it). The Church as sacrament and mystery has been replaced by the sentimentality of the individual. People attend Christian assemblies because they "like" them and they encourage them to "feel" good. Teaching is interpreted as learning to manage the "relationship" (contract, emotions, obligations) with God.    

Fr. Johnathan Tobias says: 

Real beliefs actually produce real religion, like church attendance, prayer and charity. But "religious opinions" have no power to produce any real religion. The mere fact that Americas "agree" with a survey statement reveals only an observation that Americas have a positive opinion on God's existence, with the strong likelihood that they might not want to do anything at all about that opinion. If religion is demoted to the level of opinion, or, more accurately, "consumer choice," then like any other choice it can always be easily replaced and switched out with something more convenient or entertaining. Maybe something more "personally fulfilling" will come along. This state of affairs is really contemporary stuff--religion is not only privatized now, it is also commoditized. Like everything else, religion is passed through a "values clarification" mental evaluation that judges whether or not it is "doing anything good" for the individual. Is it entertaining? Is it fulfilling? Are my kids happy in the youth group? As I attracted to the leader and the crowd? Do I feel better about myself?     

On Preaching and Christian Identity

The following is a question and answer with Metropolitan Anthony Bloom. These question do not have a particular theme as they range from topics on the WCC, to mission and preaching. Metropolitan Anthony was a bishop in England who truly lived for others. A selfless man who gave up a lot in order to see others smile. For more info on Metropolitan Anthony follow this link for more details.  

Full dialogue can be found here.

Question: How do you answer those who say that this is again a religious message? What is the difference between a religious message and the Gospel message?

Answer: "For one thing, I am not ashamed of bringing a religious message, because it is not my fault that Bonhoeffer has made of 'religious' almost a dirty word, and others have followed suit. If you mean by religion, religion as understood in the ancient world or by people who use the terminology of the Gospel with the mentality of idolatry, if religion is a system of methods and means and ways by which one can trap God and hold him prisoner and make him do what we want, then of course we have no religious message because the whole Gospel is a testimony that this is no approach. What one could say about Christianity is that Christianity is the end of religion in the sense that we need no longer hunt God down and hold him. God is in our midst, Emmanuel. God is one of us, Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Son of God become the real son of man. In that sense we don't need to look for God anywhere. He is in our midst, and not only the fullness of the godhead in Jesus, but the fullness of that godhead in the Spirit given to the Church and given to each of its members. In the presence and the relatedness to the Father, as St. Paul puts it: 'Our life is hid with Christ in God.' In that sense it is no religion."

Question: Let me now ask you a very blunt question-What do you evangelize for? What is the object of your evangelism?

Answer: "I was a totally nasty unbeliever until I was in my middle teens. I had never read the Gospel. I had never held one in my hands, never heard it; I made sure that I never got to church. I was totally outside this realm of things. At fifteen I read the Gospel for the first time at a moment of very deep despair and negativism, when life..., people... made absolutely no sense, had absolutely no meaning to the point that I had determined to commit suicide if I did not find a meaning within a year. A meeting face to face with Christ as my living God, in the living, risen person of Jesus of Nazareth, made an absolute difference to everything. And this is what I have got to speak about: the discovery of meaning who is a person; the discovery of truth who is someone; the discovery of the end which is not ahead of us but which is come now and is even behind us, 2,000 years back; the discovery or eternal life which is not for tomorrow when I will be dead but for today because one lives it. And all that is in the context of the total Gospel with all its narrowness, its sharpness, its refusal of any compromise with anything which is not that truth which is declared there."

Question: The young people who through your preaching come in various ways to a wonderful experience of Jesus Christ, a personal meeting with him, do they all become professional religious, or do they go into trade-unions, into political life, into the social struggle of society, where they encounter not only the problem of relation of persons to person but of class to class?

Answer: "No, they certainly do not become sort of professional religious. That would be really too bad. I think the Christian must be present everywhere. You know, by profession I am a physician; I am not a theologian. I have never been in a theological school. I did five years of war surgery and five years of general practice. That's my background. And I have met people of very different walks of life in both capacities. Now, what I feel is that what is characteristic of the Christian individual and of the Christian community is that both are eschatological realities. They are a presence of eternity, of the world to come, of the final summing up of history already here within time. And it is in that capacity and as such that we should be present in all the walks of life. Now, that is a very important thing, because I do not believe that Christians should be in politics, social work, medicine, or anywhere else simply as human partners, but as people who have another dimension. Not as people who are prepared, say, on the ground of the Gospel's commandments to do things better or slightly differently, or with more love, because all that is untrue. There are millions of people who do things better and with more love than we do. But we can introduce through our very presence, without saying a word about it, a dimension which is properly the dimension of God, and that is our vocation."

Question: I have only one more question, and it is this: you are a member of the WCC Central Committee. You work in the Christian Medical Commission and at the same time your heart is warm with the desire to convey the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What would be your advice to the WCC, or if not advice, your brotherly message? Is there something that the WCC can do, should do, must do?

Answer: "But on that level the witness to the Gospel must be made, perhaps first of all, in the shining of a Christian eschatological personality or in the resplendence of a Christian eschatological body of people and secondly, in the supernatural way in which we can work sacrificially, loving beyond the measure of human love and with a degree of forgetfulness of self which will leave us without any awareness of self, so that only others can assert us because we have forgotten to assert ourselves at all. Our witness comes not by speaking in quotations of the Gospel, but in the spirit of the Gospel, in being leaven in the dough, so that every situation is leavened, every situation is made new by the salt added to it. And in that respect, may I say that I do not believe that the people of God are the people who possess Bible in 250 languages, can read it aloud to others or can make timely or untimely, true or doubtful quotations from it. The people of God as I see it in the Old and the New Testament, are the people who are so rooted in God, know him in such a personal way that they could write and proclaim the Bible, not only rehearse and repeat it. And unless we learn that approach to our message, unless we become the people who can re-proclaim the whole Bible — I am not, obviously, saying 're-write it' as it was written — bringing to people the message of the Bible whether the Bible exists or not physically, we are not yet the people of God. We are simply people repeating other people's messages, while we play the role of a postman delivering a letter, and that is not enough. If we were the people of God in that true sense, we would not make people angry by eternally quoting at them things which have gone stale on them or go against the grain. We would be a revelation of what there is to be revealed."