What is the Church?

What is the Church Now?

3/5/2021

My penfriend Father S. Janos - a retired Orthodox priest, prolific Russian-English translator, and expert in all things Berdyaev - offers his definition of what a church is:

What is the Church?? The historically venerable and Beautiful structures are, however, not the essential part... The core and essential element is the individual Believer within his Family, and in the Extended Family, -- the Parish!... Christ teaches: "Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in their midst!"... And thus, Orthodox clergy in greeting one another exchange the threefold "Kiss of Peace", not some mere handshake but an actual Kiss, as anciently was done between believers, -- and is proper even now amongst Layfolk... In exchanigng the Kiss of Peace clergy proclaim: "Christ is in Our Midst!" to which is replied: "He is and He shalt be!"...

2020 was not a good year for churches. 2021 is not shaping up to be much better. The choices churches have made and continue to make concerning litmus tests and birdemic agenda issues have not done them any favors in the eyes of serious Christians. As a result, some of these Christians may be contemplating the validity of Christianity altogether.

To anyone in that position, I can only say the following - do not fall into the trap of interpreting church closures and the continuing corruption of Christian institutions as a purely negative event in the further development of Christianity.

After all, the churches in the System are no longer churches in the proper sense of the word anyway. Think about it. How many can confidently declare that Christ to be in their midst?

To paraphrase something else Fr. Steve mentioned in his comment, the antinomy concerning churches may in fact be a blessing. The time has come to soberly consider what Divine intelligence is communicating to us amidst all of this.

You are now the church; you and your family are now the church; your family and other families you love and can trust are now the church. That is how it all began; that is now where we need to be; that is how Christianity moves forward from here.

And if you are a solitary Christian without family or community, take heart; the Holy Spirit is accessible to every individual. Christ is in the midst and shalt be in the midst of the solitary as well. Far better alone with Christ than in a community without Christ.

Note added: Fr. Steve maintains an excellent Berdyaev website (see side bar), which I highly recommend. He has also translated many of Nikolai Berdyaev's books - some of these translations are available here.

9 Comments

Michelle

3/6/2021 12:06:03

Certainly there is a realignment underway. Truth is being made so obvious for anyone who wants to (chooses to) see it right now. And you must be open to it once you see it.

But first you must run through hundreds of if-then scenarios. My March 2020 thoughts: If I must receive the consecrated host in order to be in communion with Christ, then what happens if i can't and that option is willingly denied? And what happens to that poor soul on his deathbed who was denied receiving his final sacraments because other men are too scared to do so? If courage and compassion and replaced with fear and loathing, then what? What if my church was acting in a way, in every way, that was overtly contrary to Jesus' teachings? Then....
My 2021 thoughts: if all the stuff from 2020 was true, then I must cut out the traditional middleman and make communion directly with the divine.

Francis Berger

3/6/2021 12:50:21

@ Michelle - I agree with what you have said. I believe the keys are discernment and priorities.

I was painting with very broad strokes in this post. There are still some individual churches and quite a few more individual priests and clergy who continue to be aligned with Christ. If we belong to one of these churches or know some of these priests and clergy, we can continue church in some conventional form or other, but we must be open to discernment.

I attend the Catholic church in my village of 650. The Church is a big part of life here and the church closure had a profoundly negative effect on the community. I attend mostly for the community now. This does not entail that I support or endorse official decisions made by the Catholic hierarchy. If those negative decisions begin infiltrating my village church or they close again, I will no longer attend mass, regardless of the community. Instead, I will attempt to maintain the sense of Christian community outside of the church.

Blind obedience to any church at this point is unwise and, potentially, detrimental.

Milton Stanley link

3/7/2021 04:02:30

Both you and Michelle sound a little Protestant here.

3/7/2021 07:16:43

@ MS - If you are still interpreting things from the perspective of "sounding" denominational, then you haven't truly grasped the gravity of the situation.

3/7/2021 19:16:08

Precisely because of the gravity of the situation, of the depth of darkness in the profound and widespread overreaction to what is essentially a bad cold virus, of that overreaction's origin and impetus among demonic powers and principalities and forces of evil in heavenly places, of the demonic civil war between ahrimanic and sorathic evil, it is worthwhile for a man who does understsand the situation to connect with those few others who also perceive its gravity, even if one man is in Hungary and the other in Mud Creek, Tennessee.

I preach and teach in a little, country church in Tennessee, and I try to keep my words few and simple. Frankly I'm disappointed that you so quickly jumped to the implication that my understanding is superficial and my thinking sectarian. I'm looking to interact with those who see what is really at stake today, and I hope that you are one of them.

Ingemar

3/7/2021 18:18:25

I've been going to Traditional Latin Mass almost exclusively in the wake of the Birdemic. Mainly because traditionalists have been the only ones serious about the necessity of Sacramental grace and because their clergy have been awakened to how Holy Mother Church has been infiltrated and subverted over the past several generations.

Naturally, I disagree with you on the notion of Christians outgrowing the need for a visible Church. I will however point out that taking the Trad pill seems to multiply sorrows rather than alleviate them; and I don't mean this in a pious sense of gaining true sorrow for sins.

I mean that New Trads are stricken with the twin spirits of legalism and gnosticism. In the former case, it seems (at least online) that these sorts of Catholics keep copies of the Catechism of Trent to make sure they aren't sinning, or to prove the post V2 Church is completely illicit, and so forth. In the latter case, this select knowledge of how things out to be and how badly Christendom has transgressed leads to a mentality that "we are the only True Catholics" and either acting like Neo/Morpheus to the wider world or else hoping for an impregnable fortress of Doctrine to keep all the heathens out.

This paragraph makes me sound like a Pope Francis apologist, but I'm not. But even to someone like me who is resistant to the banalities of New World Order Catholicism, this shows there's something lacking in the idea of "if we can prove that we are more right we'll win."

Something I think is lacking in NuChurchians and Trads alike is an unwillingness to let God's will be done, no matter how ugly or painful it looks in the short term (and allowing "short term" to last as long or longer than a human lifetime).

3/7/2021 18:44:38

@ Ingemar - Thanks for the great comment.

As I mentioned to Michelle, I am painting with broad strokes in this post. In all honesty, I personally don't like the idea of Christians outgrowing visible churches and sincerely hope some form of authentic church re-establishes itself at some point. On the other hand, I also don't like the idea of churches standing in the way or, even worse, intentionally misleading.

I like your observation about the unwillingness of many churches to let God's will be done. This resonates with many of my own observations.

3/7/2021 19:43:51

@ Milton Stanley - I am glad you understand the gravity of the situation, and I don't mind simple and frank, but when I write a post and receive a one sentence response alluding to nothing more than how a commenter and I happen to "sound" in reference to a Christian denomination, it doesn't give me much to work with, Milton. I hope you can appreciate that.

I welcome your simple and frank comments, but a little more substance in the future would be immensely helpful.

Apa János pap Lázár István link

3/8/2021 05:56:22

Dear Friend Ferenc is indeed too Cordial in his Kindliness towards Apa János pap Lázár Istvánovich, who is little more than an old bumbling Hermit, invisible in plain sight... It is Ferenc himself who is a Teacher both by Profession but even moreso by Vocation, an Uchitel'!! Upon him much doth rest, -- for the Benefit of each and all of us!! Both the old & the New Rome ought to have suchlike Married Men as Priests, and be done with the Celibacy Nonsense, honouring St Paul far above the Married St Peter: Lazar used to have great Fun preaching how Our Lord & the Apostles, after a long a wearingly dusty Day trudging Up & Down & All Around the Land of Israel, -- landed finally @ St Peter's House, only to find St Peter's Mother-in-Law lying there extremely Sick!! -- Whereupon Our Lord instantly healed her, and She jumped up and put on a Real Spread of Victuals, -- as would any Real Mother-inLaw!!!.. (sic) a Classic Mother in Law Anecdote!!...

And Yes, -- for all of you so concerned over the locking of churchly doors recently, -- it returns us to the Glorious Persecuted Days of the early Catacomb Church, when it really really meant something to be a "Believer"... a Life or Death something!!... It is a Wake Up Call -- summoning us as the church-building lights wither and wane, for the Fiery Flaming Tongues of Fire atop our heads, bestown at Pentecost, -- to shine forth all the more Brightly!!... (QED)... As for "Repentance", that is the Monastic Duty of Each Believer in the Monastic Privacy of his/own Heart & Soul, -- not "for show" in some sort "play church" manner... The Fiery Tongues of Pentecost is what renders Each of Us at the very Heart & Core of the Church -- the Equal & oft moreso than any bishop or priest... Too many indeed a priest has sacrificed All, -- i.e. his immediate Family -- and had the Devil take all, -- his family, his priesthood, his sanity and more... Fie on such Folly!!...

Also (if now AI does not to heighten our paranoia cut short Lazar's comments), -- there is this Matter of "Personal Salvation" to be considered: for quite long and most unseemly supposed Christians have been pushing and shoving to get to the head of the Line for Heaven, -- as though it be of Limited Capacity -- Some Sectarians indeed teach that the Ship will fill up at 144,000 Capacity, and then the gangplank gets pulled away... Bunkum...

In the Orthodox "Prayerful Before Communion" We pray amongst other words: " I Believe & I Confess that Thou art the Christ the Son of the Living God, Who came into the World to Save Sinners, of whom I am the Foremost (i.e. the Worst, the Baddest, the Most Loathsome etc), too oft said as merely empty words... In Old Rome they used to Pray similarly "Domine, non sum dignus".. and similarly nonetheless go up to receive the Body & Blood of the Christ the Lamb... When there is no Liturgy/Mass possible, what then ??? Then is still Possible a Spiritual Communion, -- such as in the Gulag & Concentration Camps amongst Believers, when no Bread nor Wine (just imagine??) gets distributed amongst the Zeks... Yes, the Flaming Fiery Tongues of Pentecost, that selfsame formless Living Zoroastrian Flame of Love that in civilised Lands is set within Lampadas atop the Graves in cemeteries.... We have too many Doubting Thomases, -- the original one should have sufficed to diffuse our doubts... Our World is already for Each the traditional Purgatory/Limbo, Lazar's 4-Day Entombment if You will, and We Each ought to hearken to the Closing words of St Janos/John the Golden-Tongued's Paschal Sermon: "Death now hath been Overthrown, for Christ Our God is Risen!!"... and then heed that Voice of God within the inmost depths of Our Soul, "...Come Thou Forth"!!... to step forth into the Dazzling Brilliance of the Resurrection, wherein the Prospect of Death is naught else than merely a "Bad Dream, a now for us unwarranted Nightmare"... -- since per John 1:1ff "that which is cannot not be", nor can "that which is not, nowise can it become" -- which was Satan's Trump-Card underlying his Revolt, imagining that he could become "as the Very God, i.e. become as the Very Gottheit"... Christianity 101, eh??...If We're Lucky, the paranoia inspiring AI will allow this Entire Message to get thru (enemy lines)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP3aO07LAjA&list=PL2uprUtZALABFbSj7t-eIuu7NUlgmybSl&index=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZX7z5hSuD4&list=PL2uprUtZALABFbSj7t-eIuu7NUlgmybSl&index=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKYZAVf9UCE

Köszönöm, - Apa János pap Lázár István...

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

What is the Church Now?

Leave a Reply.

Archives