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CATHOLIC PROTESTANT or ORTHODOX What Is One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church? | TIO008 CWP080
Have you ever wondered how the early Church envisioned unity and structure? Explore the rich theology of Ignatius of Antioch and discover his vision of the Church as a complete and harmonious body. We'll break down the roles of bishops, presbyters, priests, deacons, and laity, and delve into the transformative power of baptism and chrismation. Drawing insights from St. Paul’s teachings in 1 Corinthians and the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, we’ll uncover how apostolic succession and the mission to evangelize illuminate the Church’s role as the new Israel and a beacon of hope to the world.
But that's not all—we also explore the rich diversity within the Orthodox Church and how cultural differences shape practices while preserving core beliefs. From the unique challenges of fasting in Alaska’s harsh winters to the spiritual struggles within mainline Protestant denominations, we examine how tradition and adaptation coexist. Discover the resurgence of spiritual searching among young people and the vital importance of practices like the Orthodox Lenten Vesper service. This episode offers a beautiful, multifaceted look at how Orthodox Christianity maintains its unity and strength amidst a constantly changing world.
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Ignatius of Antioch in his theology, what he teaches, where the bishop is surrounded by the presbyters, the priest surrounded by the deacons, surrounded by the laos, the people of God, the laity, there the Church is Catholic. He says complete, lacking nothing. And we have a belief and understanding. Every single Eucharistic assembly is that Catholic Church complete, whole lacking nothing. So in the Creed we say I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. So we know that by the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, because we had Nicaea first and then Constantinople when they finished up with the Creed as we know it, and that's why we properly call it the Nicene slash, constantinople creed, although we mistakenly call it the Nicene creed. That phrase was put in there in order to underscore the theological understanding of the church as the body of Christ. St Paul is really good in his book on 1 Corinthians talking about the church as the body of Christ and that we are members of that and individual members, that we have a function and a purpose and that if we aren't doing what we are called by God to do, then the whole body will suffer and we will not be able to do all that we could do. And so St Paul is also trying to impress upon them the importance of the work of God in us, that God is seeking to graft us into his church, into his body and we believe, as Orthodox Orthodox this is done through our baptism and our chrismation and that being grafted into that one tree which is the Church of Christ, the body of Christ, here and now, until his resurrected glorified body comes back in glory at the second coming, that we now manifest, that especially every time we gather together, as in any service, but especially in the holy liturgy, and especially receive community together, that we collectively manifest the body of Christ in time and space. And then, as we go out to the world, we take Christ to the world spiritually and physically, because we have received Christ spiritually and physically in the Holy Eucharist. So the church has always had an understanding that the church is one that is called to be holy because God is holy and that's. We're trying to live up to that. And we know once, once again, from the scriptures and the words of the church, when she prays concerning herself, that she calls in the scriptures and the services of the church, she calls her people holy because they've been given a new nature. Their true nature is that nature that's been given to them. Okay, because of the work of the church and Christ and the Holy Spirit working in us by the will of God, the Father. And so we have this calling of being one, of being holy and Catholic. Meaning complete, whole lacking nothing. It doesn't mean universal. Universal is a later definition of that word in the original Greek. The original Greek meant whole, complete lacking nothing. So St Ignatius of Antioch, in his theology, what he teaches, where the bishop is surrounded by the presbyters, the priest, surrounded by the deacons, surrounded by the laos, the people of God, the laity, there the church is Catholic. He says complete lacking nothing. And we have a belief and understanding. Every single Eucharistic assembly is that Catholic church complete, whole lacking nothing.
Speaker 1:Because we are under a bishop and that bishop is in communion with other bishops, a part of the Orthodox Church. So we maintain the faith and the practice that keeps us Orthodox. We have the apostolic succession which keeps us Orthodox, but also we are in communion with that bishop who's in communion with others that were in the church, and so our notion is that each parish represents that Catholicity. It's not contingent on a hierarch that sits on a throne somewhere. All right, there is a connection through hierarchs, okay, but it's not contingent only on that one.
Speaker 1:So our understanding was that Christ, in creating his church, chose 12 apostles. He had 70 disciples also that were some of them equal to the apostles in the work that they did. He had women who were called equal to the apostles. But the 12 kind of represented fulfillment of the 12 tribes that God called out of the apostles. But the 12 kind of represent a fulfillment of the 12 tribes that God called out of the Old Testament. Once again, our Lord, when he comes, he does so much that fulfills what was all in the law and the prophets from before. And we find the fulfillment in what Christ is doing with his people and then in the life of the church. And so the purpose of the life of the church is that we are to go and do what. We're to go and take Christ to the world.
Speaker 1:That Christ comes to correct that which was lacking in the understanding of the Jews. He saw them as their Old Testament church. They are the Old Testament Israel, but the church is now the new Israel. We're not talking about a state that was started in 1948. It has nothing to do with that. We're talking about the notion that we are called to be the new Jerusalem, the city on the hill that is giving light and salt to the world around us. That is giving light and salt to the world around us, and we are to be not only worshiping the Lord and ministering to the people who are part of that body of Christ, but we are called to go forth to the whole world and make disciples of all nations, of every race, every ethnicity, and to baptize them, to graft them into the church spiritually and physically the only way we know that they would thus be part of the body of Christ and thus to take the nutrition which is being fed, the medicine of immortality, from the Holy Communion that comes out of that.
Speaker 1:And so the church's understanding was always this is where the fullness of the faith is. It's the faith, once and for all delivered unto the saints, that the gates of hell will not prevail against us, and what we mean by that is not that hell is attacking us, but we're actually attacking hell. I like that scene from the Return of the King, right when Aragorn is leading the charge there at the gates of Mordor. That's really what we should be doing, right. It's not like we're trying to defend ourselves against the devil and his onslaughts. Well, that is a struggle. It's a very real struggle, and we don't take on these spiritual attacks lightly. But in reality, we're meant to be more firm in our faith and outgoing than possibly that we are, and so their understanding of the church is that this is what God has placed us in and he seeks to have this as an ark.
Speaker 1:We are this in this ship. There's many different analogies that are used, taken from the Old Testament. Noah's ark is one example. We were placed in this ship as the Ark and it's not meant to be that only two from here and two from here and two from here. It's meant to be that the Lord's will is that all should be saved. This is open to anybody who wants to climb aboard. It's not that we're exclusive like. This is a cruise for the Orthodox only, nobody else. Our goal is to bring anyone who wants to come in to the Orthodox Church. But what develops between our understanding, between the East and West? It's a little bit more complicated, to take a little bit more time, but there becomes an emphasis on the connection to the throne of Peter and that you really can't be completely a Catholic whole lacking nothing unless you're under in communion with the throne of Peter.
Speaker 1:And the Orthodox Church in the East. That was not our understanding An apostolic faith in communion with others who believe so and maintaining that faith and practice, that faith and practice. And so there does become a difference of opinion to what makes up the church between East and West, and it's not necessarily connected as always having to be in communion, or connected with the throne of Peter in Rome. Now, for many centuries, for the first millennia, we were in communion. There were a couple of breaks of that communion the Phocion Schism was one, but usually the breaks unfortunately took place usually on the side of the West, cutting communion for us as Orthodox and charging us with changing things. In reality, we're the ones who are keeping the same practices and things that changed in the West because of the disaster of the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the barbarian invasions. They barely survived and in their ability to thank God, barely survive.
Speaker 1:There were a lot of accommodations and changes were made. Changes were made in the creed. Changes were made in various forms of practice. There was no longer a complete immersion three times that was the ancient universal practice for receiving a person in Later became pouring water or sprinkling. There'd be changes in how they would do the Eucharist no longer having leavened bread. How they would do the Eucharist no longer having leavened bread. There would be changes in how they had the priesthood. In some cases, they would be saying that the clergy had to all become celibate. Even though the first popes were married, the first clergy for centuries were married. In Rome, there is a tradition of East and West of married clergy, and we would hope that the Church of Rome would come back to that. They would solve a lot of problems for themselves if they did, but they don't seem to be headed that direction for some reason.
Speaker 1:So the notion of what it is to be church for us. As Orthodox. We see this call, though, to go out into the world to be able to offer this salvation to people as being part of the great commission that Christ gives to us. Now the church has throughout the different centuries and different ages. Sometimes we've done a better job at that, and sometimes we haven't. It also depends upon what's going on. Usually, we're not doing this in isolation. Usually we're doing it sometime with persecution from without invasions, people who don't agree with us or different religions persecuting us, and sometimes it comes with people who create divisions, schisms and even heresies that attack the church from within and they end up leaving the church. So we know that we've been hit hard. Jesus says in the world, you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world and our goal is to thus remain in the church as that ark of salvation, because we know there is true faith, we know that there's true practice and we know that there is the true life and the sacraments, and so we want to draw closer to those. But then how can we then sail on the sea of the world unless we're also trying to take on people who want to climb aboard, and there is a danger that does take place in the Orthodox Church.
Speaker 1:There's a brilliance in the Orthodox Church. We're able to go into lands and whole groups of people convert, and that which is good in their culture, the church will take on. That which it isn't, the church lets go, and so the connection of the integration of the church with the people becomes incredibly strong. We saw the last of the example, beautiful example with the Eskimo youth up in Alaska, as a primary example of done missionary work, some of the best missionary work that was ever done in the last few centuries. That was incredibly successful and that we all need to look at. But the Orthodox Church has done some good missionary work in various places, especially among the Slavs, the southern Slavs, the central Slavs and especially the northern Slavs, amongst the Ukrainians and the Russians, and so we see the good work that's done there.
Speaker 1:But that means when the church goes into some of these lands and if they go, they and by the Holy Spirit we'll take on these things and thus what they take on in that culture will be different from the mother culture that they came from. So there's going to be slight variances. There should be the same creed, same basic practice, but there will be slight variances. We don't have a problem with that. God has created this diversity and he can handle the diversity, so that's not a problem for us. So if you go as an orthodox Christian up to Alaska, there are going to be some things that they do that are going to be slightly different and that they'll need to do. It's kind of hard to fast in wintertime up there the way we would normally fast, when all they're going to be able to eat is greens and lentils, when they don't have that to eat up there. So there's going to be certain things that they do up there. That's going to be connected with their culture. That's not going to be what the Greeks would do, or what the Macedonians would do, or what the Bulgarians would do, or what the Arab Christians, orthodox, would do.
Speaker 1:Church never sees that as a bad thing. They see that as part of what they call legitimate diversity. But it's kind of like a rubber band, you know, it's just like this. I can stretch this out so far, but if I pull it too far that it breaks, it's no longer Orthodox. So the same way with some of these practices the faith, especially practices in the Orthodox Church and so what we see happening right now in our modern culture is incredibly, both tragic, but also it's something we've come to see happening, as the churches in the West have veered away from the core of the faith and the practice and started developing their own teachings and their own practices and are moving further and further away from what we, as Orthodox, see as the faith and the practice of the church. That, as a result, some of the people in those various church denominations become very, very upset and some people have just even dropped out of church. There's been a huge apostasy in a lot of the mainline Protestant churches, fights over, I mean, but fights are actually. They're over practical things, but some of that will be ethical and moral issues concerning gender, according to marriage, according to sexuality. There will also be fights over theology.
Speaker 1:When I was at Holy Cross and was involved in Seminarians Interacting, which was a consortium of seminarians from Orthodox seminaries, from Catholic seminaries and Protestant seminaries and even Jewish seminaries at the time, even they have a group that's connected with Muslims at the time, trying to help promote mutual understanding and toleration amongst one another, not to create one amalgamous religion, but so that we are trying to understand that that's why they do things their way, and so we don't call for the destruction of their temples or their synagogues or their churches that we're trying to live in this country being tolerant of the people, to allow them to do what they're doing according to what's guaranteed to them by the law. So what we ended up seeing happening is that when I was there at the seminarians interacting, it was interesting to see that the diversity that was there. We could have an appreciation for what people were doing, but there was an admiration for us as Orthodox because we would do the we always did the Lenten Vesper service and we always got the most compliments for that service because it's a gorgeous service, it's absolutely beautiful, just beautiful. And we did what we were called to do. Our Catholic brothers would set a special Stations of the Cross, but it was made with more social justice things and, man, they got skewered every single time because they were trying to be over-relevant. It's like, man, just be faithful to your tradition, you don't have to go and prove anything else new. But that's how they've been swept away with it.
Speaker 1:And in some of the Protestant churches it was even harder because they had us grouped, we were grouped. The Orthodox were together, grouped, we were grouped. The Orthodox were together. The Catholics were a separate group. They had the black American group, that was, they wanted to have their own group because they felt their tradition was different. They had the evangelical Protestant group and then they had the mainline Protestant group. Well, the mainline Protestant group. They were so in argument and fighting amongst themselves because one of them even got up there and I will quote him.
Speaker 1:He says you know, I, I go to Princeton. Princeton Seminary says, and there is not one professor that believes that in the miracles, with Jesus Christ as God or is resurrected in the seminary, you know. So that's why. That's why he was and he was not saying that because he was proud of that, he was lamenting that and that was reflected in the fact that where some of these churches were going.
Speaker 1:If you don't believe that Christ is fully God, if you don't believe that he's fully man, that he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, that he grew up here, he faced and was tempted in all things, as we were tempted, and yet without sin, that he did the miracles that he did, that he taught what he taught, that he went through the passion and the crucifixion, the death, the burial and the resurrection and the ascension. If you don't believe that, then why are you even in the church and why are you trying to live this Christian life? It's a struggle, it's not easy, trying to live a holy, pure life in this, in community with other people. And so what happens is a lot of those people have left the church and those denominations have just shrunk. And then a lot of those people who left, they chose not to raise their children as anything, and we're seeing a huge number of a lot of young people and I don't know if it was COVID.
Speaker 1:I think it's the work of the Holy Spirit that God is just trying to gather people in and people are searching. And for as much as we might lament things about the Internet, it's like any technology we have. It's not good and bad in and of itself. It's what we use it for. And I think that has brought a lot of people searching for the truth to come across the Orthodox Church. And as they come across the Orthodox Church and read a lot about it across the Orthodox Church and as they come across the Orthodox Church and read a lot about it, they want to be able to see if this is something they can stake their life on.
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