The name of our Church gives the inquirer some hints about what the Church is, but only hints. Come and see for yourselves; you are always welcome.
The city of Antioch, formerly in Syria and now in Turkey was a major urban center of the Roman Empire on the Orontes River. From the Acts of the Apostles, we know that Jewish and pagan converts to Christianity were gathered in a community visited by both Saints Peter and Paul. In this city the followers of Jesus were first called by the name "Christian". (Acts, 11:26) The person appointed by the apostles to watch over the Christian community was Ignatius, who was martyred for that Christian faith at Rome about the year 113. Beginning with Ignatius, 170 bishops - "overseers" - which is what the word means-- have guarded that same faith by presiding at the altar and celebrating the Mysteries, just as Saint Ignatius I himself ordered them to do. The present bishop, Ignatius IV, elected in 1979, is known as the First Father or Patriarch of Antioch and All the East. In this country, the Church is protected by the first or Arch-bishop Philip, who is also known as a Metropolitan, a name given to bishops responsible for very large urban areas and the lands surrounding them. The new local bishop for our area is Bishop Thomas Joseph, Bishop of Oakland, Pennsylvania and the East. Every Orthodox parish church is united to the bishop, and from long custom, a chair reserved for the bishop is always present, even in the humblest church. With the growth of Christianity, a bishop could not be in all the smaller churches in a city or its area. His representative in the local Church came to be known as the presbyter or elder; a man of experience, wisdom, and upright life who presided for the bishop. (1 Tim. 5:17; Tit 1:5). Over time, in the English language, the word "priest" came to be used more commonly for the Greek term. Helpers to the bishop and his elders are the deacons (Acts 6:2-6).
The name "Orthodox" comes from two Greek words and means straight or correct, praise or worship. By using this word, Christians since the 300s intended to show that if one wanted to know the one, true God, one could do so only by being a member of a community of faith that knew how to worship Him correctly.
The name "Christian" needs little explanation. But the use of the term Christian to describe Orthodoxy in the United States is fairly recent. The use comes partly from the need to distinguish the Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic. In many older documents, you may find the term "Orthodox-Catholic" used. The word "Catholic" refers to the universal Church, meaning the Church that has existed from the beginning, everywhere in the world, and includes all of humanity in the fullness of right worship and teaching; both those still in this world, and those asleep in the Lord.
But the word "Church" is really the most difficult term and needs the most explanation. For Orthodox Christianity, the Church at its most basic and awesome is life itself - life in communion with the Holy Trinity. Key words of Jesus tell us this: "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10). That same Gospel proclaims that "in him was life; and the life was the light of men" (1:4). The eternal life for which humanity was created, life in communion with God now has been bestowed "more abundantly" by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Patriarch Ignatius IV has said that the Christian Church really has only one proclamation to make: "Life has been manifested in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, and this life is communicated to us through His Death and Resurrection." But how does this life enter into us? He answers: "the Church." But the Patriarch immediately warns that "the Church is not an institution, a set of rules, a denomination that we sign up with. Regardless of what people may think who have lost the sense of its Mystery, the Church is not a structure of this kind. In the Church there are only sacramental structures, insofar as the Church is the sign by which Christ gives life to the world.
"The Church then, is the Body of Christ, a new creation that is both present in, and in the process of transforming, the creation. The Kingdom of God, in which both humans and the angels worship the Trinity, already exists. But the reality of Christ's Resurrection is only made present in creation by the Holy Spirit. Without Him, God is far off, Christ is in the past, the gospel is a dead letter, the Church is only an organization, authority is domination, mission is propaganda, worship is a mere mouthing of words, and Christian action is a slave morality."
[Patriarch Ignatius IV, The Resurrection and Modern Man. transl. Stephen Bigham with a forward by Olivier Clement (Crestwood, N.Y., 1985, 78. 79, 89-90.]
All such attempts to describe the Church fail, however. We have to point out that the only way to "know" the Church is to follow the urging of Christ himself when asked by the curious followers of John the Baptist where he lived: "come and see." (John 1:39)
No one is likely to do this, however, unless he or she is convinced that the Church actually fills a need or addresses a major concern in that person's life. At the most basic level, we would say this: Orthodox Christianity proclaims the Cross and Resurrection as the triumph over "the last enemy" - death. (1 Cor. 15:26). But Orthodox Christianity does not simply proclaim a "static" set of "past events". As Patriarch Ignatius points out, the Church is a living organism comprised of those who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. What Orthodox Christians find in the Church is the assembly of those joined to the Head of the Church where through a slow, but active process, they are transformed to become capable of eternal union with a personal God whose first and last manifestation of Himself to us is selfless Love (1 John 4: 7-16).
The Church is not, in any sense, an escape from the realities of this life that includes both joys and sorrows. Rather, it is the communion of the saints where participation in the life of the Trinity enables us to confront our deepest and darkest fears, anxieties and needs, and to begin to see correctly, in the reflected Light of the One True God. To be able to lay down our lives as He did for us is no small or easy task, and certainly not one we can manage on our own. But Orthodox Christianity shows how, in prayer, fasting, alms-giving and constant reception of the Mysteries, we know ever more fully the One, True God, and our own need for Him. We are to "be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17: 3)
But knowledge that results in eternal life can only come from hearing rightly, and acting accordingly: "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent? Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:14-15, 17). That Word is proclaimed only in the Church, as it has faithfully prayed the Holy Scriptures since the beginning.
A final word: the Church as we experience its life in this world is not a society of the perfect. It is a hospital for those who are ill and need the Physician of Souls. The perfection of the members of the Body of Christ is a "work in progress," whose outcome depends upon our willingness to respond to God. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." (Rev. 3: 20-21).
Others have gone before us in this journey. "As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:12). This is why the Orthodox remind themselves that " since we also are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrew 12: 1-2)
We will only take seriously "the Church" when we confront our race to escape death and know that it is a race we cannot win, left to ourselves. We will only know the Church if we learn from the example of how the Holy Spirit was allowed to accomplish His work in Christ's own mother. No one exemplifies the Christian life as did Mary, without whose consent, the triumph of the Cross and Resurrection over death could not have occurred. "Be it unto me according to thy word," (Luke 1: 38) sums up how we are called to be open to the Holy Spirit's transforming power. And a caring mother's last words recorded in Scripture remind us to follow the Physician's cure for the death and sin that afflict our lives: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." (John 2: 5).
Come and see.
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