6.

 What transition in the external life of the Church occurred at this time?

            In the early days of Christianity, in order to worship God, Christians had to leave the city at night and go into caves. Even there, however, they were not safe. When they were discovered, the authorities would block the cave's entrance and would collect brush and set it on fire, thereby killing those inside.

            In addition to legalizing Christianity, Constantine moved the seat of the empire eastward from Italy to the shores of the Bosphorus, calling this city Nea Romi (New Rome), although people referred to it as Constantine’s City, or Constantinople.  From the moment that the Christian Empire was established, the center of the world’s life was shifted from ancient Rome to Constantinople, the latter of which became the symbolic center of Christianity.  Old Rome thus joined Constantinople, New Rome, the former city of Byzantium, and a primacy of honor, one that was recognized by the Second Ecumenical Council, came to be shared by these two great capitals.

            Two Greek hierarchs explain the purpose of the Roman Empire, and they give a highly refined assessment of the first Christian emperor, a view that is sadly lacking in Western accounts, particularly in the historiographies of the Protestant world. They explain that:

For the Byzantine, the empire, as the structure into which the Church was integrated, was not a power that, because of increasing strength and numbers in Christianity, had capitulated to this new force. It existed for the very purpose of accommodating the Christian Church. Thus the Emperor Constantine was genuinely enlightened from within to favor the Christian religion, having been convinced of its power by a miraculous image of the Holy Cross that promised him victory in battle. His participation in the theological debates and dialogues that helped safeguard and standardize the Christian beliefs and traditions which had reached his age from the time of the Apostles was, therefore, not — as prevailing historical theories would have it — an attempt to sway the Christian Church towards a theology of his liking. His participation grew out of his internal knowledge and acceptance of the divinely ordained role of the Roman Empire in the spreading of Christianity. It was not a life of piety or a martyric confession of Christianity that ultimately makes the Emperor Constantine what he is. His simple acknowledgement of his role and the role of the empire in the Christian scheme made him a saint, an Equal-to-the-Apostles — the human through whom the divine mission of Christianity was made manifest [Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna and Bishop Auxentios of Photiki, The Roman West and the Byzantine East, p. 22].

It is important to pause on St. Constantine, for a common Protestant misconception of Church history is that the Church fell into apostasy from the time of Constantine to the Reformation. A former Protestant minister who converted to Orthodoxy, Fr. John Whiteford, comments that in reply, it can be stated that had the Church ceased for even one day, then the gates of hell would have prevailed against it on that day, something contrary to Christ's promise (Mt 16:18). Moreover, the same author continues, if the Church did indeed cease for a period of time,

...when Christ described the growth of the Church in His parable of the mustard seed (Mt 13:31-12), He should have spoken of a plant that started to grow but was squashed, and in its place a new seed sprouted later on. Instead, He used the imagery of a mustard seed that begins small, but steadily grows into the largest of garden plants [Sola Scriptura: an Orthodox Analysis of the Cornerstone of Reformation Theology, p. 19].

That the Church did not cease to exist at the time of Constantine is also shown to be false inasmuch as Christ is the Head of the Church (Eph. 4:15-16), the Church is His Body (Eph. 1:22-23), and because Christ promised to be with the Church “even unto the end of the world” (Mt 28:20). Fr. John points out that Christ did not promise that His Church would be prosperous or the most numerous of religions; in fact, He promised the opposite (Mt 7:13-14, 10:22; Jn 15:20). Neither did Christ promise that there would be no sinners in the Church (Mt 13:47-50), or that it would not have to contend with false shepherds or wolves in sheep's clothing (Jn 10:1,12,13). Christ did promise, however, an abiding and ultimately triumphant Church that would have His abiding presence and that would be guided into all Truth by the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:13). If the Church had indeed fallen into apostasy from the time of Constantine to the Reformation, then these and many other scriptural passages would be rendered meaningless, Fr. John concludes.

            Now that the Church was out of the catacombs, churches began to be built above ground. Some of the first churches constructed were over the holy sites in Palestine where Christ had lived. The Emperor Constantine and the Empress Helen, his mother, built a massive church in honor of the Resurrection of Christ, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. They also built churches on the Mount of Olives in Bethlehem, and in Hebron at the Oak of Mamre. Later, in the sixth century, St. Catherine's Monastery was built on Mount Sinai over the site of the burning bush, near the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Most of these buildings serve to this day as Orthodox churches and monasteries.

            Also during this new time of freedom and rest for the Church, the Emperor Constantine called a Council of bishops to gather from the four corners of the world. Modeled after the Council in the time of the Apostles, it was the first of seven Ecumenical Councils in the history of the Church. This First Ecumenical Council held at Nicaea, as well as the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, articulated the Creed of Christianity, the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith, or Nicene Creed (also called the Creed), so that there would be one confession of the faith and not different interpretations. This Creed (“I believe in One God...”) is a concise summary of all the truths of the Christian faith, and it is sung at every Divine Liturgy and recited in several other places in the daily services of the Orthodox Church. The Ecumenical Councils themselves acknowledge the Creed as being primary and fundamental among all the doctrinal decrees of the Councils, and they forbade any changes whatsoever in it, not only in its ideas, but also in its words, either by addition or subtraction. Whoever does not accept the truths of the Creed is not an Orthodox Christian.

            This new period likewise became a time to articulate the beliefs of the faith and to choose the books that would comprise the standard of Scripture. Before the First Ecumenical Council, there was no universally accepted New Testament canon of Scripture, and thus no Bible. There were accounts of Christ's life by the four Evangelists, and many epistles from several of the Apostles such as Paul and Peter. There were also the letters and writings of the disciples of the Apostles such as Saints Ignatius, Clement, Dionysius and others. One of the persons instrumental in the First Ecumenical Council was St. Athanasius of Alexandria, who is responsible for the canon of the New Testament Scriptures that we have today.

            Christianity began to flourish once the Church came above ground. The new freedom allowed the perfection of liturgical music (chant) and the refinement of religious art (iconography), and Christian literature proliferated. In short, the Church became the center of every aspect of life.