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The ChurchIn examining the nature of our commitment to God it may be useful to think about what we mean when we refer to the Church. There is, of course, the building in which we worship - very important and very expensive to maintain but, nevertheless, essential because we have to have a physical home. If we just rented a building the arrangement would lack a sense of permanence, a sense of 'This is where I belong during the hours I devote to God'. In some countries religion is provided for in the Constitution or the body of constitutional law which regulates the institutions of that country. In England the Church of England is established by law, regulated (in theory anyway) by parliament and has the Queen as its head. In the Republic of Ireland the status of the Roman Catholic Church is enshrined in the Constitution. Other countries view things differently. In the United States the separation of Church and State is considered crucially important. In Scotland the Church has legal status but it is stressed that the monarch is not the head - only Christ can be head of the Church. Then there is a third and universal connotation of the word, which refers to the Church of Jesus Christ purchased with His own blood. This was the Church which Our Saviour referred to when He said to Peter "On this rock I will build my Church" (Matthew 16:18). Christ therefore envisaged the Church. More than that He founded it. But what He founded was far more than an organised, hierarchical structure for His followers to belong to. It was the Body of Christ. Orthodox believe that the process of salvation begins with Baptism and Chrismation in infancy (or for converts like me much later on) and ends with the salvation we will hopefully attain at the day of judgement. In our lives in between these two points our spiritual growth towards what we call Theosis (that state of living our lives as God truly intended us to, so that we grow ever closer to God) is nurtured and developed by the sacramental life of the Church. It is difficult on this basis to sustain the argument that we often hear, that 'You don't need to go to Church, to be a good Christian'. It is hard to see how your Christianity will mature without the sacraments and without contact with your fellow Christians. You can pray, read scripture and live a good and wholesome life, but the Church is part of the basis of our faith. It was in the Church that Christ willed us to be in fellowship with one another and part of one another. It was the same Church that S.Peter and the other apostles added to day by day after His ascension. It was to the infant churches that S.Paul wrote when he was sorting out their problems and keeping them away from the heresies which existed even just a few years after Christ had been with us on earth. In addition to what the Church gives us, our Christianity and spirituality is also developed by what we do for the Church. God has given us all some talent, that talent we must use to the glory of God, through our work for the Church. Your skill may be a practical one or it may be singing, reading, writing, or perhaps just listening. All skills, when rightly used, are equally important in the sight of God. It is only Christ who can save but the Church is the vehicle by which that salvation is accomplished. Christos Anesti ! John Moore |
