10.

 Can the Church be divided, or can there be schisms within the Church?

            In the Nicene Creed, Christians confess their belief in “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.” Oneness is the first of these four indispensable characteristics of Christ's Holy Church. The Church is not a set of different denominations having a common claim to follow Christ or to be founded by Him, united only in some invisible way by that claim. The Church, which is the Body of the Risen Incarnate God-Man Christ, can never be divided, for it is one as God is one. There can be only one Body of Christ since there is only one Christ. The Church remains and will always remain one. Therefore, there never were (nor can there ever be) schisms within the Church; there can only be schisms from the Church.

Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky writes that Christ, depicting the Church in parables, speaks of one flock, of one Shepherd, of one grapevine, of one foundation-stone of the Church. Christ likewise gave a single teaching, a single Baptism, and a single Communion. Again, the unity of the faithful in Christ comprised the subject of Christ's High-Priestly prayer before His Crucifixion, when He prayed “that they all may be one” (Jn 17:21). Elsewhere Scripture speaks of “one Lord, one faith, one Baptism” (Eph 4:5), and one Christian Church (Mt 16:18).

            Fr. Michael goes on to explain that the Church is not only inwardly, but outwardly. Outwardly its unity is manifested in the harmonious confession of faith, in the oneness of divine services and Mysteries, in the oneness of the grace-giving hierarchy, which comes in succession from the Apostles, in the oneness of canonical order.

            Moreover, it bears repeating that:

The Church does not lose its unity because side by side with the Church there exist Christian societies which do not belong to it. These societies are not in the Church, they are outside of it [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 235].

Orthodoxy does not view the Church's unity as ideal and invisible, nor does it separate the “invisible” and “visible” Church, for they are one. Likewise, Orthodoxy would never say that the Church is invisibly one but visibly divided. In this regard, Hierodeacon Gregory of Etna, a convert from Dutch Reformed Protestantism to Orthodoxy, writes that when Protestants attempt to identify the Body of Christ, they invoke the nebulous notion of an “invisible Church” — a theological fiction that relativizes the ecclesial nature of Christianity by postulating an abstract reality that can be experienced by anyone, regardless of denomination. For this reason, the holy Hieromartyr Archbishop Ilarion (Troitsky) characterizes Protestantism as “Churchless Christianity.” The same martyr of the Communist yoke also declares that “it is Protestantism that openly proclaimed the greatest lie of all: that one can be a Christian while denying the Church.” Elsewhere the martyr articulates the Orthodox view on this matter with no equivocation:

[It] must be considered as the most vital necessity of the present time to confess openly that indisputable truth that Christ created precisely the Church and that it is absurd to separate Christianity from the Church and to speak of some sort of Christianity apart from the Holy Orthodox Church of Christ [Christianity or the Church?, p. 29].

Here on earth, there is but one, single, visible community which alone is the one true Church established by Christ. The “Undivided Church” is not something that ceased to exist in 1054 (or at any other point in history); it is something that exists now.

            The Roman Catholic Church proclaims that it is the one Church, and it recently reaffirmed its primacy with the document Dominus Jesus, dated September 5, 2000. This document, published by the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith (formerly the Office of the Inquisition) claims that “the fullness of means to salvation can only be found in the Roman Catholic Church.” At the same time, however, according to one Catholic news bulletin, some Orthodox Churches “have maintained Apostolic Succession” and they also “represent the true Church.” Thus, speaking out of one side of its mouth, Rome states that it is the one Church, and then, speaking out of the other side of its mouth, it states that some Orthodox Churches also represent the one Church. Where is the truth?

            An Orthodox abbot gives this explanation of the true Church and its oneness:

The Orthodox Church, continuing the principles which the Apostles and early Fathers taught and which the Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church defined in precise terms, holds that the Church of Christ is ONE and cannot be divided. All divisions and separation from it therefore are from that One Church, not within it. One who breaks away from the faith or from the continuing organic structure of this Church ceases to be a member of it, no matter what position he may once have held within it; he leaves with nothing. A US citizen who leaves this country and becomes a citizen in some other country can no longer claim to be still a US citizen or to vote in American elections — this is true even if he once held some high office like a judge, senator or governor. Orthodoxy teaches that orders and Sacraments belong to — that is, they are the property of — the Church, not to the individual person, and can be bestowed, held and exercised solely within its organic structure.

By the Church, Orthodoxy has always meant that single, worldwide body of mutually believing, mutually recognizing, sacramentally united Christians founded by our Lord Jesus Christ and descending without break from the Apostles: who are openly and visibly “in communion with” one another and with their united hierarchy. All the early Church Fathers and Councils made it abundantly clear that this unity of believers is absolutely essential, and that anyone who leaves that unity, for whatever reason, is an apostate, a schismatic, and outsider; no longer participating in the sacramental life of the Church or entitled to the privileges of its membership, unless he returns to the unity and renounces his errors. This was the unity prayed for by Christ in the Gospels; it was and still is far more essential in determining whether one is or is not a Church member than any “lines of Episcopal succession” or high-sounding titles.

Therefore, any person who has ever broken from this unity, beginning with the early Christological heretics, and culminating with Rome in 1054, left the actual, continuing unity of the One Church founded by Christ, and became apostate. Bishops who leave the Church cease being bishops, whatever they may continue to call themselves. They may (many do) invent new, unscriptural ecclesiologies which seek to justify their separation while continuing to claim that they somehow “kept their orders” and “perform valid Sacraments,” which, of course, like a lamp unplugged from the source of electricity, they cannot do. Thus the Orthodox Church maintains that when Cardinal Humbert walked out of Saint Sophia [in Constantinople] in 1054, he left as an ordinary layman, since he (and his superior in Rome, and all who remained in communion with him) ceased being in open, formal communion with the rest of the Christian Church which continued holding Apostolic doctrine and polity. All who joined that group of men who left voluntarily the unity of the continuing Church have remained apostates and schismatics ever since, no matter how vast, wealthy and vociferous they may be in claiming otherwise.

Whoever either voluntarily sets himself apart from the continuing unity of the undivided Church founded by Christ, or who alters the teachings defined by that Church, ceases to be a member of it. Orthodoxy alone has remained unchanged throughout the centuries, both in her doctrine and in her organization; all other groups, however huge or widespread, and however they may choose to style themselves, are not Orthodox, not in membership in that One Church founded by Christ.

/.../ Undoubtedly God will have mercy and compassion on all His creation, including those devout and sincere souls who grew up in religious beliefs apart from Orthodoxy; He will surely take into account their fidelity to the principles they were taught and consider to be “Church teaching,” even though they are not what the One continuing Church of Christ has always held and taught. This is not the issue. The point is that Christ founded only ONE Church; not many; and of all the competing religious bodies calling themselves Christian and Catholic and other such terms, only ONE is in actual fact the continuing Church which He founded. And this is THE ORTHODOX CHURCH [Abbot Augustine Whitfield, “Valid Orders,” Orthodox America, vol. 9, no. 8, 1989, p. 16; emphasis added].

(It should be pointed out that when Cardinal Humbert walked out of St. Sophia's in Constantinople after the excommunication of the entire East, he actually did not leave as a layman in the Church, deprived only of his orders; he left as something even less. At that time, the cardinal had completely separated himself from the continuing Church and was no longer so much a layman in it, much less a bishop. It can also be added that, given the situation in Rome a few years earlier, when there were three papal pretenders, it was hardly possible for Patriarch Michael of Constantinople to take Cardinal Humbert's behavior too seriously).

            Concerning the Christian Churches outside Christ's One Church, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky gives this insight:

The Orthodox teaching of the Church, which in itself is quite clear and rests upon Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, is to be contrasted with another concept which is widespread in the contemporary Protestant world and has penetrated even into Orthodox circles. According to this different concept, all the various existing Christian organizations, the so-called “confessions” and “sects,” even though they are separated from each other, still comprise a single “invisible Church,” inasmuch as each of them confesses Christ as the Son of God and accepts His Gospel. The dissemination of such a view is aided by the fact that side by side with the Orthodox Church there exists outside of her a number of Christians that exceeds by several times the number of members of the Orthodox Church. Often we can observe in this Christian world outside the Church a religious fervor and faith, a worthy moral life, a conviction — all the way to fanaticism — of one's correctness, an organization and a broad charitable activity. What is the relation of all of them to the Church of Christ?

Of course, there is no reason to view these confessions and sects as on the same level with non-Christian religions. One cannot deny that the reading of the word of God has a beneficial influence upon everyone who seeks in it instruction and strengthening of faith, and that devout reflection on God the Creator, the Provider and Savior, has an elevating power among Protestants also. We cannot say that their prayers are totally fruitless if they come from a pure heart, for in every nation he that feareth Him... is acceptable with Him (Acts 10:35). The Omnipresent Good Provider God is over them, and they are not deprived of God's mercies. They help to restrain moral looseness, vices and crimes; and they oppose the spread of atheism.

But all this does not give us grounds to consider them as belonging to the Church. Already the fact that one part of this broad Christian world outside the Church, namely the whole of Protestantism, denies the bond with the heavenly Church, that is, the veneration in prayer of the Mother of God and the saints, and likewise prayer for the dead, indicates that they themselves have destroyed the bond with the one Body of Christ which unites in itself the heavenly and the earthly. Further, it is a fact that these non-Orthodox confessions have “broken” in one form or another, directly or indirectly, with the Orthodox Church, with the Church in its historical form; they themselves have cut the bond, they have “departed” from her. Neither we nor they have the right to close our eyes to this fact. The teachings of the non-Orthodox confessions contain heresies which were decisively rejected and condemned by the Church at her Ecumenical Councils. In these numerous branches of Christianity there is no unity, either outward or inward — either with the Orthodox Church of Christ or between themselves. The supra-confessional unification (the “ecumenical movement”) which is now to be observed does not enter into the depths of the life of these confessions, but has an outward character. The term “invisible” can refer only to the Heavenly Church. The Church on earth, even though it has its invisible side, like a ship, a part of which is hidden in the water and is invisible to the eyes, still remains visible, because it consists of people and has visible forms of organization and sacred activity.

Therefore it is quite natural to affirm that these religious organizations are societies which are “near,” or “next to,” or “close to,” or perhaps even “adjoining” the Church, but sometimes “against” it; but they are all “outside” the one Church of Christ. Some of them have cut themselves off, others have gone far away. Some, in going away, all the same have historical ties of blood with her; others have lost all kinship, and in them the very spirit and foundations of Christianity have been distorted. None of them find themselves under the activity of the grace which is present in the Church, and especially the grace which is given in the Mysteries of the Church. They are not nourished by that mystical table which leads up along the steps of moral perfection.

The tendency in contemporary cultural society to place all confessions on one level is not limited to Christianity; on this same all-equaling level are placed also the non-Christian religions, on the grounds that they all “lead to God,” and besides, taken all together, they far surpass the Christian world in the number of members who belong to them.

All of such “uniting” and “equalizing” views indicate a forgetfulness of the principle that there can be many teachings and opinions, but there is only one truth. And authentic Christian unity — unity in the Church — can be based only upon oneness of mind, and not upon differences of mind. The Church is the pillar and ground of the Truth (1 Tim 3:15) [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, pp. 243-46].