3.

 How do you interpret the words of Khomiakov given in this chapter of the textbook?

            Khomiakov wrote: “We know that when anyone of us falls, he falls alone; but no one is saved alone. He is saved in the Church, as a member of it and in union with all its other members.”

            Khomiakov is speaking of the matter of damnation and salvation. Damnation is an individual matter: those damned to eternal death cannot bring damnation upon their fellow men, for each will be judged according to his own works. As Christ stated: “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works” (Mt 16: 27).

            Salvation, however, is a communal matter, one that takes place in the Church. As the textbook states, since the Kingdom of God is given to men by Christ in the Church, and since it is celebrated and participated in the Mysteries in the Church, Khomiakov can rightly state that we are saved in the Church rather than alone.

            Adding to these ideas, Archimandrite Panteleimon of Jordanville states that in order that people might attain salvation for themselves, Christ founded the Church, His grace-filled kingdom on earth, and He imparts grace (power that sanctifies) to all members of the Church. Christ also established the Mysteries (Sacraments) for the Church as the means by which Christians receive this grace filled power. Fr. Panteleimon additionally states that the Word of God teaches that God Himself founded the Church, gathered His children together, and returned to the enclosure of salvation those who were torn from it by enemy forces [Cf. A Ray of Light: Instructions in Piety and the State of the World at the End of Time, p. 23 ff].

            In the matter of falling alone, Khomiakov is not implying that a person's sin does not effect others. No sin is personal as it has social and universal dimensions. An individual's sins erodes the likeness of God in him so that he becomes less a reflection of his Creator and less of a spiritual influence on others. For this reason, a person's sin does affect others.

            There is a saying among the Fathers that “no man sins alone.” In his Orthodox Moral Theology (in Russian), Professor Ivan Andreyev relates a New York City newspaper's account of a 29-year old child-killer. When the police arrived on the scene, the tortured child was already dead, yet the mother was continuing to beat him and showed no signs of remorse. The police, accustomed to all sorts of crimes, “were not able to bear the sight of the little body,” which appeared to be nothing more than “one massive wound,” as the article reported. Concerning this horrific tragedy, Dr. Andreyev writes:

Since we are all sinners, we create evil and our evil becomes a part of the world's treasury of evil. This evil coalesces into a huge energy of evil which seeks vessels of graceless bodies to put itself into, and when it finds them, it will be incarnated in them and they will do great acts of evil.... Let each one of us consider himself... what were you doing on the evening when this unbelievable but very real act was carried out? Indeed, perhaps it was your sin, your depravity, your malice that provided the last drop of evil necessary for this child-killer's vessel of evil to overflow? This is how we must understand these matters if we are to call ourselves real Christians [“Weep!” translated from Russian in Orthodox Life, vol. 43, no. 2, 1993, pp. 38, 41-42].