The holy Apostle Paul, in one of his epistles,
gives the most elevated and complete understanding about the Church. He wrote
to the Ephesian community in the days of early Christianity, when the latter
was barely 30 or 40 years old and was represented by small communities
scattered around the Roman Empire. The Apostle was bearing chains, as if a crown, for his
good tidings about Christ, and in this isolation was especially enlightened by
divine light. He wrote that the Church is the Body of Christ, that is, one
living heavenly-and-earthly organism. This understanding of the Church has
been carefully maintained by the universal orthodox consciousness. This
majestic view of the Church is presented as the "fullness of Him (Christ)
that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:23). It is
described as a new existence, the essence of which is the "bond of love,"
an existence uniting "heaven and earth" with strong and constant
ties. The epistle says : "The head, even Christ: from whom the whole
body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love" (Eph. 4:16).
Toward this goal, writes the Apostle, Christ established in the earthly part of
the Church "some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists;
and some, pastors and teachers" (Eph. 4:11). But what are these ties, uniting the parts of the Body
"according to the effectual working in the measure of every part"?
What are these "active" ties, producing the "development"
of each single part of the Church, and at the same time, a growth, a perfection, and a fullness of the entire heavenly-earthly
body of the Church, united under Christ as its single Head? Of course, the
universal bond that unites the Church body is prayer. For
what is the Church itself, if not a "world of prayer?" We can
call prayer the air, the breath, the life of the Church. Like the threads in a
weaver’s loom, the threads of prayer go in all directions; they unite each
member of the Church with the Heavenly Father, the members of the earthly
Church with one another, and the earthly members with the heavenly. The same
occurs in the heavens, in the regions of the angels and saints, only on a
higher and more perfect level. Mortals pray about each other, and, driven by
the law of love, for the deceased. The ones now in heaven pray about the mortal
ones, and, equally, about the deceased, should they need help. Praise and
thanks travel by these prayerful threads in both realms of the Church. Here on
earth they are accompanied with penitent thoughts and feelings.
Of course, the ties within the church are
expressed in certain actions and activities, but this aspect is only
derivative, having prayer as its original source.
Such an understanding is maintained in full only
by the Orthodox Church, corresponding to the latter’s very structure and daily
life. Our Church service is a direct indicator of this understanding of Church
life.
Is this understanding also maintained in the
teachings of the holy Church fathers? Yes, the holy fathers’ thoughts are
filled with it. We present an example from the works of St. Simeon, the New
Theologian, who lived on the time between the first and second millenniums (he
reposed around 1020 AD). We will consider his thoughts about the inner life of
the Church of Christ as a heavenly and earthly body, expressed in his 24th
"Word." In the thoughts presented, the saint does not even
make a definite distinction between the two possible conditions of the Church
members — earthly and heavenly, — not because he rejected them, but to make it
clear that the Church is "one Body under One Head," a
"fullness of the One Fulfilling all in all."
This is what St. Simeon teaches:
"All saints are truly members of Christ, Our
God. As members, they are united with Him and connected to His body, so that
Christ is the Head, and all the saints, from the beginning to the last day, are
His members, and all of them together make up one body, and, in a way, one
person. Some are like hands, toiling to this day, fulfilling His holy will,
transforming the unworthy to the worthy and presenting them to Him. Others are
the shoulders in the body of Christ, who carry each other’s burdens, or, taking
up the lost lamb that was recovered after being lost in the hills and gorges,
bring them to Christ, and thus fulfill His law. Others are like the breast,
from which springs the pure water of wisdom and reason to those who hunger and
thirst for God’s truth, as they teach them God’s word and give them spiritual
bread, which the holy angels eat, that is, true theology, as confidants of
Christ and His beloved ones. Others are like the heart, in which, through love,
they encompass all humans, accepting within themselves the spirit of salvation
and serving as the vessel of the unspeakable and hidden Mysteries of Christ.
Others are like the internal organs, which have in them "the life-giving
power of Godly thoughts of mysterious theology," and through the words of
their teaching sow the seed of piety in the hearts of men. Others, finally, are
as bones and feet, which show courage and patience in temptation, like Job, and
are immovable in their position of goodness, and do not avoid the pressing
difficulties, but gladly accept them and cheerfully carry them to the end. In
this way the body of Christ’s Church is made up in orderly fashion of all His
saints from the beginning, and exists complete and all-perfect, in order that
all the sons of God would be one, reborn, written in the heavens.
I will prove that all the saints are Christ’s
members and are in one body through the Holy Scriptures. First of all, listen
to our Savior Himself, the Lord Christ, as He presents the indivisible union, which
the saints have with Him, in the words to His apostles: "Believe Me
that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" (John 14:11) "At
that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you"
(John 14:20, also 17:20-26)…
Inasmuch as the deity, imparted to us through
association with the Lord, is indivisible, then it is necessary for us,
becoming truly in communion with this Deity, to be inseparable from Christ,
being one body in one spirit (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11, 1Cor. 12:1-14). As God gives
each saint his proper place in the eternal abodes, as we said before, so in the
body of the Church each person is assigned to the kind of members of Christ
that fits him best. The Apostle Paul shows this in the same letter, saying:
"But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it
hath pleased Him" (1 Cor. 12:18). Thus,
there are many members, but one body. Desiring to show the differences of these
members, and what these members are, he says: "Now ye are the body of
Christ, and members in particular. And God hath set some in the church, first
apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then
gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues" (1 Cor.
12:27-28).
"This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church"
(Eph. 5:32). And truly this mystery is and will be great, and above
everything great. Our Lord, the Creator of All, has the same unity, association
and relation with the entire Church, as with one wife, and is one with her, and
is always inseparable from her, as with His beloved. But this unity is
befitting of God, as it is fitting for God to be one with the Church, which is
incomprehensible and unutterable. Again, the Church also unites with its
beloved God, and clings to Him as the body to its head. For as the body cannot
live without its head, so the Church, a collection of believers, that is, the
sons of God, written in the heavens, cannot be a whole and perfect body without
its head — Our God Christ, and cannot live a true and eternal life, if it is
not nourished by Him daily with necessary bread, from Whom all who love Him
receive true life, and grow to a perfect man, by the growing measure of His
fulfillment.
Inasmuch as the Church is the body of Christ, and the bride of Christ, and a
great world, and God’s temple, so the members of His body are all holy. At the
same time, not all of them have yet been born anew or shown them worthy. It is
clear, then, that the body of Christ is not completely whole yet, that the higher
world is not yet filled, that not the entire host of people
have yet entered God’s Church. But to this day there are still many
unbelieving people in the world who are going to become believers in Christ,
there are many sinners, whose duty is to repent, there are many insubordinate,
who will submit to Christ. Many will yet be born anew
and serve God, before the last trumpet sounds. And thus, all those foreseen by
God must be born anew, and the Church’s firstborn must fill the heavenly Jerusalem,
immeasurably higher than this world. Then the fullness of the Body of Christ
will occur, and those predetermined by God will conform to the image of His
Son, becoming the sons of light and day." (The Words of
St. Simeon, the New Theologian, translated by Bishop Theophan, 1st
printing, Moscow, 1892, pages 383-391).
