2. The Episcopal Church and Its Position in the Process of Religious Centralization. The Inadequacy of Its Inner Principles and Search for Outer Support. Ritualism and Its Inner Significance. “The Bankruptcy of Protestantism.” The Search for Catholicity and the Location of True Uncorrupted Catholicity. The Inclination of the Episcopal Church Toward the Orthodox East (Cont.)

The present religious state of the American people, in the opinion of the preacher, is experiencing one of those crises that from time to time occur in the religious-ecclesiastical life of humanity as a consequence of deviation from the true principles of Christianity. Even in the first centuries of Christianity one such crisis came—namely the appearance of Arianism, and the result of this crisis was that “unimpaired Christianity rose up in its strength against the error and true, pure, apostolic faith was thus restored and confirmed.” In the Middle Ages another crisis came. “Roman errors grew and developed slowly until finally in the eleventh century serious Catholics in the eastern part of the Church, no longer bearing the spreading evils, rose up in their majesty to condemn them; and the Orthodox eastern (or Greek) Church determined to break off communion with Rome, which separation continues even to this day.”[1] Meanwhile in the Roman part of Christendom those same errors continued to grow and new ones were added to them, until finally in the fifteenth century serious people throughout the west rose up in their majesty against them and produced the “so-called Reformation.” Protestantism came to dominion, but with it the crises did not cease. On the contrary, they took a worse form. Protestantism, in rejecting firm ecclesiastical principles, stepped onto the slippery path of rationalism, and from this in it, besides continuous minor crises, there is being prepared a general and most terrible crisis for all religious-Christian consciousness. Within it there grows and develops unbelief, practical life is freed from the influence of religious-Christian principles, and “the communion of saints” is destroyed. It is too one-sided in its narrow individualism and too cold for religious enthusiasm, so that in it there is no outlet for those by nature enthusiastic persons who could find their happiness only in complete renunciation of gray practical life in order to devote themselves to serving a higher divine ideal (monasticism). Due to the one-sided abstractness of its principles, it proved inaccessible to the popular masses and therefore degenerated into aristocraticism with brilliant preaching and high rents for church seats.[2] But even among the most intelligent classes its wandering instability develops indifferentism, as a result of which very many, tired of the changeability of forms, reject all forms of ecclesiastical life and live by Christian principle alone, becoming lost in its misty vagueness.[3] Thus Protestantism itself shows its wretched inadequacy—to satisfy the religious demands of humanity. It constitutes a completely failed and harmful movement and prepares a terrible crisis. One must seek salvation from it. But this does not mean that one should seek salvation from it in Romanism. “This would mean returning from an evil consequence to the cause of all evils.”[4] No, salvation must be sought “in the restoration of the ancient, Catholic, and apostolic foundations, free from the admixture of Roman errors.” The signs of the times show the beginning of movement in this direction, movement toward the restoration of “the Catholic Church in its continuous life as a divine institution endowed with supreme authority and adapted to the needs of all ages.”[5] But what is the “Catholic Church”? Does it exist on earth, and if it does, where? “The Catholic Church is a living organism, universal in space and universal in time even to Christ himself.” It is a living body having one organic head; a visible body with invisible life, and this life, this soul of the Church, is Christ.[6] As a visible, living organism, it obviously must exist in space and time. Protestant communities cannot be this organism because their historical life does not go back to the very source of the Church’s origin as a continuously living and developing organism. “But suppose I turn to our (Episcopal) Church. I find that it as an organism, with its hierarchy and ecclesiastical life, goes back to medieval England, and through the early period of Britain—even to the times of the apostles. Here apparently there is something Catholic. But do not be hasty. The life of the Roman Church I can trace equally continuously to the apostles. The same characteristic of continuous existence back to the apostles is found also in the Greek Church.”[7] If one looks carefully at these three churches, there turn out to be important differences between them. “Rome has a pope and the cult of the Holy Mother of God Ever-Virgin, which does not exist in the Greek and Anglican organisms.”[8] But if one looks even more carefully, one can notice that though these three churches—Anglican, Greek, and Roman—differ in some respects, they are wonderfully alike in all else. “All three have a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. All have a sacred altar with the awesome sacrifice as the central purpose in their churches. All have vested clergy. All have the days of saints and solemn church seasons. All have a ceremonial aspect in their worship. All trace their life from the first century. All have magnificent ceremonies and processions; the Greeks have the most brilliant, the Romans less, and the Anglicans even less. All recognize the authority of ecumenical councils. All have the same apostolic succession and the same sacraments. Here thus I begin to find the Catholic Church. Those few characteristics by which the Greek, Anglican, and Roman churches differ from one another are simply local; but all those many characteristics in which they agree form for me plainly, firmly, and distinctly the great Catholic Church; one in space as in an organism, and one in time; existing equally in Russia and in Italy and in England and in America, in Mexico, in Germany, and in Brazil—everywhere, existing also in the nineteenth century and also in the Middle Ages and in the early periods—unchanging and unchangeable. All that in the Anglican, Greek, and Roman communities is held in common by all three and held by them everywhere, always, and by all—that is Catholic. All else, every characteristic that we have but Rome and the Eastern Christians do not have, or that Rome has but we and the Greeks do not have, or that the Greeks have but we and Rome do not have—that is simply local and particular, not Catholic.” Striving to give a clear explanation of his theory, Ewer turns to the well-known comparison of the Church with a tree. “For simplicity,” he says, “let us take a tree. For eight feet above the ground the trunk stands single and undivided. Somewhere at the ninth foot it divides into two main branches. The eastern one we shall call the Greek branch, and the western one we shall call the Latin branch. Six feet higher up on the Latin branch, that is at fifteen feet above the ground, this western branch divides into two large branches. The outer one we shall call the Anglican branch, and the other we shall call the Roman. These two branches and the Greek branch go upward to 19½ feet from the ground. And thus there exist three great branches, each with its own foliage, the Anglican in the west, the Roman in the center, and the Greek in the east. If now you look only at the top of the tree, before you will be three separate groups of vegetation, though the foliage and color are the same. But look at the whole tree and—you will see a symbol of the Catholic Church—one organism from root to crown.”[7] The branching did not violate unity. But why have these three churches broken off all relations and communication with each other? “In reality the unity of the organism was not violated; communication between its three parts is only interrupted for a time, until there occurs in the one Church of God that differentiation which, as Spencer wonderfully shows, is the law of all growth; differentiation which in its last phase appears not as complete separation but as ultimate unity in multiplicity, harmony of subordinate parts. Thus we have found what the Catholic Church is.”[9]

The reasonings presented by the venerable Dr. Ewer[10] expressively depict the state of the religious spirit of the American people—especially the Episcopal community. It is a complete consciousness of the inadequacy of those religious principles by which it now lives, and a thirst for higher principles of “Catholicity.” Wearied by the fragmentation and variability of Protestant forms, it seeks firm unity, a great ecclesiastical organism, one Catholic Church.[11] But in the search for this Catholicity, one is struck at the same time by the vagueness of consciousness as to where precisely pure Catholicity can be found and by what path to arrive at it. Conscious of the abnormality of the present state, the religious spirit of the American people instinctively divines what can provide its salvation, and seeks it in “Catholicity,” but this Catholicity is only instinctively sensed by it, and it does not yet have that clear and distinct consciousness which could directly point it toward the desired goal. Ewer, through his analytical process of thought, arrives at a recognition of Catholicity in three principal ecclesiastical communities—namely, the Anglican, Greek, and Roman. In a certain respect he is right, but the Catholicity found in this way presents something so indefinite, impersonal, and organically separated that for concrete consciousness it presents no tangible guarantee of the adequacy of such Catholicity as the organic, living body of the Church. Meanwhile in the very process of his reasoning there lie data for a more satisfactory solution of the problem. The process of religious-ecclesiastical development was accomplished through a series of crises arising from the deviation of that development from original pure Catholicity. When deviation threatened dangerous consequences for the Church, the parts most sensitive to truth rose up against such deviation and separated themselves from those in error. This separation, to judge by its origin, obviously had as its goal the better preservation of unimpaired Catholicity. The first phase of this separation was expressed in the separation of the Eastern Church, which first became conscious of the deviation of the Roman Church from the path of true development. The deviation meanwhile in the erring part, namely the Roman Church, continued to increase until finally others, apparently less sensitive to truth than the first separated part, also became conscious of this deviation and separated from the erring Church. Thus Anglicanism came about. Thus we have one Church developing steadily along a false path, and two other churches which rose up against such error and separated from it to preserve pure Catholicity. But they separated at different times. The first separated as soon as deviation from truth began to be noticed in the Roman Church, but the second lived for whole centuries in communion with a knowingly erring Church and separated from it only when the error had become unbearably evident. Both the one Church and the other separated with the goal of preserving pure, unimpaired, Catholic faith. But from this it naturally follows that Catholic faith can be found in greater integrity and purity in that Church which showed itself most concerned with the preservation of true and unimpaired faith and hastened to separate at the first signs of deviation from truth in the Roman Church. The second, meanwhile, having lived for whole centuries in organic connection with the erring Church, by necessity became itself permeated with error, and when it finally became conscious of the abnormal development of the Roman Church, in order to preserve Catholicity it was not sufficient to separate alone; it had to not only separate but also purify itself from the acquired errors, and from this Anglicanism appeared not only as a separated Church but as a Protestant one. Due to the reaction against the intensified evil, it had to not only separate from Roman Catholicism but also recoil from it, and from this it did not remain in pure Catholicity but lapsed into Protestantism. But Protestantism is an opposite and most dangerous error. It does not satisfy the religious spirit of humanity thirsting for Catholicity. Thus the only way out that remains is—to turn to that Church which first became conscious of deviation from truth and separated for the sake of its preservation. By separating it protected itself from participation in the further development of false direction and did not experience the crisis that led to Protestantism. If thus somewhere there still exists pure, unimpaired Catholicity, it must exist in that very Church which first became conscious of the error and separated from it. By the acknowledgment of Ewer and others, this Catholicity exists. If so, then the direct and natural consequence from Ewer’s own analytical process of thought can only be that Catholicity, in its pure truth, exists only in the Eastern Church. Anglicanism, as nourished by the sap of an infected organism, in its effort to free itself from it, deviated into Protestantism. Roman Catholicism, as the cause of all these crises, is itself an infected organism. There remains only that organic part which separated at the time when deviation from truth was only arising, and in it is contained pure Catholicity. This part is the Holy Eastern Catholic Church. As having preserved within itself pure and unimpaired Catholicity, it is the organic center of true Catholic faith, and from this center other ecclesiastical communities can receive pure Catholicity—by bringing their religious principles into accord with its Catholic principles. Such Catholicity, represented by the Eastern Church, is not an abstract concept to the acceptance of which Ewer came, but a living, concrete truth embodied in a living, historical, and integral organism of the Church.

Thus Ewer needed only to carry his analysis further to its final natural conclusions, and instead of indefinite Catholicity he would have arrived at the concrete ecclesiastical organism preserving this Catholicity from those very times when, as a result of developing error, it was necessary to separate and preserve it from the process of false development. But if Ewer did not arrive at such a natural and logical conclusion, then to it the general consciousness of the entire Episcopal Church in America is inevitably drawn.