The Dogma of the Church of Christ

Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) of Eastern America and Jersey City (+1960)

 

 

I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. (Symbol of Faith)

Dogmas are called the fundamental truths of the Faith of Christ. They are set forth by the Ecumenical Councils in the “Symbol of Faith.” Whoever violates even one of the dogmas of the Faith thereby falls away from the Orthodox Church into heresy.

In each period of church life, the Providence of God sets before the church consciousness, for precise clarification, a particular dogma of the Faith. Thus in their time were assimilated by the church consciousness the dogmas about God the Creator and Provider, about the Holy Trinity, about the Incarnation of the Son of God, about Salvation, about the Holy Spirit, about the veneration of icons, and others. At the present time, by the Providence of God, the dogma of the Church of Christ is set in turn, and we do not have the right to pass this question over in silence in view of the position of our Russian Orthodox Church in the USSR and of the demands for loyalty now being presented to us by her present leaders.

In the “Symbol of Faith” this dogma is set forth in these words: “I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”

What then is the Church? According to the Word of God, the Church is the Body of Christ (Rom. XII. 5; 1 Cor. XII. 27; Eph. I, 22–23; Col. II. 19).

The Church is a heavenly-earthly organism created by the Savior: in the heavens — the triumphant Church of the saved righteous; on earth — the militant Church of sinners, repenting and being perfected “unto the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Eph. IV, 13).

What is the purpose, aim, task of the Church? The Church was founded by the Lord Jesus Christ by His Precious Blood in order that through Her He might regenerate fallen men, from sinners recreate a “new creature,” destined for good works (2 Cor. V, 17; Gal. VI, 15; Eph. II, 10).

Here is how the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians depicts the Church of Christ: “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together harmoniously, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Eph. II, 19–21).

And further: “He [Christ] gave some as Apostles, others prophets, others Evangelists, others pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ... that by true love all might grow up into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, being joined and knit together by every supporting bond, according to the working in its measure of each member, receives increase for the building up of itself in love” (Eph. IV, 11–16).

The structure of the Church and the means for attaining the task set before Her are visible from these same passages of Holy Scripture cited above: the divinely instituted succession from the Apostles, hierarchy, preaching, prayers, the sacraments, and the Christianization of the entire life of the flock. The closer the bond of the earthly Church with the heavenly, the nearer the Church is to the goal set for Her by the Lord.

All this pertains to the whole Church in general, to the One Universal (Catholic) Church. Of Her the Lord also said: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against Her” (Matt. XVI, 18).

But already from apostolic times, the One Universal Church was divided into local ones by cities, countries, states, or peoples. Thus, the Apostle Paul sends epistles to the Churches of Rome, Corinth, Galatia, etc. And now there exist the Greek, Russian, Serbian and other Churches. They are born, grow, flourish, or fall ill and even die, depending on how faithful they are to the task set for the Church by Her Founder-Christ — to regenerate people unto eternal life.

An example of this is in the evangelical parable of the husbandmen (Matt. XXI, 33–44). For the Old Testament Church and hierarchy were also established by God, and great before God were Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and other Old Testament hierarchs; but when at the time of Christ’s coming the hierarchy contemporary with Him and the leaders of the people betrayed the aim and purpose of the Old Testament church, then the Lord pronounced judgment upon them: “He will miserably destroy those wicked men.” And of the Old Testament chosen people: “The Kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth its fruits.” Likewise concerning the New Testament local churches, it is said in the Apocalypse: Thy leaders “call themselves Apostles… and they are liars… I will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent” (Rev. II, 2–5).

The history of the Church of Christ testifies that local churches have often fallen ill and have been close to heresy. Most often this occurred through the fault of the ruling hierarchy. Let us take several examples of this from the history of the Russian Church. Thus, the head of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Isidore of Moscow, accepted at the Council of Florence (1439) the Union and, upon returning to Moscow, began to commemorate the pope, to commune under one kind without the chalice, and in the Symbol of Faith to add “proceeding from the Father and the Son.” But the tsar and the people did not accept such an innovation, and Isidore fled to Rome. Likewise in Western Rus’, the “Roman union” was introduced by the bishops Kirill Terlecki [+1607] and Hypatius Pociej [+1613], but the “church body” did not accept it and resisted it.

In recent times, state authority, taking into account that the church is a powerful force for influencing the people, strives to select a hierarchy devoted to it and through it to carry out its political plans. Thus it was in Poland before the war: certain Russian bishops who did not wish to hand the Church over into slavery to Polish authority were expelled from Poland by the Polish government (Archbishop Vladimir, Sergius, Metropolitan Eleftherius), while it selected corrupt ones (Metropolitan Dionysius, Georgii, Alexander, and others) and through them began to carry out the Polonization of the Orthodox Russian people, and only the war prevented the completion of this affair.

Now an even more grievous illness has come upon the Russian Orthodox Church. The communist godless authorities raised up a great persecution against the Church: hierarchs firm in the Faith it killed or exiled to hard labor, and it selected a new hierarchy which gave itself over to the fulfillment of the tasks of the godless authorities. The present patriarchate controlled by atheists demands the same of us.

How is a believer to be here?

They say: the patriarchate has not changed either in dogmas, or in services, or in rites.

No, we answer, the Patriarchate has violated the essential dogma of the Church of Christ, has rejected Her essential purpose — to serve the regeneration of people — and has replaced it with a service unnatural for the Church, the service of the godless aims of communism. This falling away is worse than all former Arianisms, Nestorianisms, iconoclasm, and others. And this is not the personal sin of one or another hierarch, but the root sin of the Moscow patriarchate, confirmed, proclaimed, bound by oath before the whole world, so to speak, a dogmatized apostasy.

We are within the bosom of the local Russian Orthodox Church and do not have the right to abandon the Mother Church in Her grievous illness. But neither can we obey Her present official leaders. We are in the same position as the Apostles before the Jerusalem high priests, and to the demand of the Moscow Patriarchate we cannot answer otherwise than with the words of the Apostles Peter and John: “Judge ye whether it be right before God to hearken unto you more than unto God” (Acts IV, 19).

We have no need for the convocation of a new Ecumenical Council to resolve this, our dispute with the present hierarchy of our Mother Church. This court has already taken place and the decision has already been rendered by the Universal Church.

This decision is recorded in the epistle of Saint Athanasius the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria, to Rufinianus, accepted by the Ecumenical Councils. This epistle was written on the occasion of the cessation of the persecution by the Arians, supported by the secular authority, against the Orthodox. The Arianism-professing hierarchy, with the help of the secular authority, then likewise oppressed and committed violence against the Orthodox Bishops, just as now the Moscow patriarchate supported by the Bolsheviks does violence to us. Here is an excerpt from this rule:

“Know, my most beloved lord, that in the beginning, after the cessation of the violence that had taken place [from the Arians], there was a council of bishops who had assembled from foreign lands: there was also one among the fellow-ministers in Hellas, likewise also among those in Italy and in Gaul; and it was decreed both here and everywhere that to those fallen and who had been leaders of the impiety [of Arianism] there should be shown condescension if they repent, but that no place in the clergy should be given them; but to those who had not been voluntary agents of impiety, but had been carried away by necessity and violence, there should be given forgiveness, and they should have a place in the clergy, especially when they also had brought a justification worthy of belief, and this was done, it seems, with a certain good consideration. For such affirmed that they had not turned aside into impiety, but that lest certain, having become more impious, should disturb the churches, they judged it better to yield to violence and bear the burden than to destroy the people. Saying this, they also, in our opinion, spoke worthily of acceptance: for in justification of themselves they presented also Aaron the brother of Moses, who yielded in the wilderness to the lawless demand of the people, but had an excuse in his intention, that the people might not return to Egypt and remain in idolatry. For it seemed probable that, remaining in the wilderness, he might cease from impiety; but having entered into Egypt, he would strengthen and increase impiety in himself. For this reason, it was permitted to admit such into the clergy, since to those enslaved and who had suffered violence forgiveness is given.” (3rd Canon of Athanasius of Alexandria) [1]

 

Notes

1. Therefore, we also, being united in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia under the headship of our First Hierarch Metropolitan Anastasy, must judge differently concerning the former conduct of each bishop who was under the Bolsheviks.

 

Russian source: Догмат о церкви Христовой, Archbishop Nikon (Rklitsky) of Washington and Florida, supplement to the journal Православная Русь, No. 8, 1973, pp. 29-32.

Online: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Vitalij_Maksimenko/dogmat-o-tserkvi-hristovoj/