§ 48. The Concept and Foundation of the Church

The Church is, by the definition of the Great Catechism, “a community of people, founded by God, who are united among themselves by faith, by God’s law, by the hierarchy, and by the mysteries.”[1] This Church was founded by Christ Himself, when He came down to earth to redeem mankind. He set forth the teaching that everyone who wishes to be a member of the Church must accept and confess; He instituted the mysteries, as visible signs through which the faithful are to receive the heavenly gifts, that they may be steadfast in good; He prescribed the laws that all the members of the Church must keep and to which they must submit, so that the order established in the Church may be preserved and the Church’s purpose attained; and finally He appointed the hierarchy, which, with the participation of the faithful, is to govern the Church itself. The solemn founding of the Church Christ accomplished on the cross, for it was on the cross that He redeemed mankind and united it with God, and on the cross, by His own blood, He acquired His Church.[2] After His resurrection, while He still remained on earth for forty days, He declared to His faithful apostles their exalted calling, and, having given them power to forgive and to retain sins,[3] He sent them to all nations, to preach His teaching, to bring them through baptism into His kingdom, and to teach them to keep all that He had commanded them, adding that He would be with them always, to the end of the age.[4] By this the Church was founded, and became a visible organism, which is to endure to the end of the ages.[5]

Footnotes

[1] The Longer Christian Catechism. 60th ed. On Article 9, p. 46. Our Slavic name “church” (Russian церковь, and likewise among the Germanic peoples) derives from τὸ Κυριακόν—the house of the Lord—and from that narrower meaning it passed to the general one. In Holy Scripture it is called Ἐκκλησία (Matt. 16:18. 18:17. Acts of the Apostles 9:31. 13:1. 20:28. I Cor. 10:32. 12:28. 14:23. Ephesians 1:22. 23. 3:10. 5:23. 25. 27. 29. 32. Colossians 1:18. Galatians 1:13. and elsewhere) and it corresponds more precisely to the essence of the church, which is the community called by God (from ἐκκαλέω). Πιστὸς ὁ Θεὸς, δι᾽ οὗ ἐκλήθητε εἰς κοινωνίαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν, writes the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians (I Cor. 1:9). Cyril of Jerusalem in the 18th catechetical homily writes: Ἐκκλησία καλεῖται φερωνύμως, διὰ τὸ πάντας ἐκκαλεῖσθαι καὶ ὁμοῦ συνάγειν. Cf. on the meaning of the church Zonaras, comm. on canon 6 of the Council of Gangra, in which he invokes Isidore of Pelusium; and the latter in his 246th letter defines the church thus: τὸ ἄθροισμα τῶν ἁγίων, τὸ ἐξ ὀρθῆς πίστεως καὶ πολιτείας ἀρίστης συγκεκροτημένον, ἐκκλησία ἐστί.

[5] The Orthodox Confession of Faith teaches the following concerning the founding of the Church: “There is no other foundation of the Church except Christ Himself, according to the apostle who says: основаніи бо иного никтоже можетъ положити паче лежащаго, еже есть Јисусъ Христосъ. And if the apostles and prophets are sometimes called the foundations of the faith and of the Church, as when John says that the great city of Jerusalem had a wall built upon the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and Paul says: на основаніи апостолъ и пророкъ; but this must be understood in such a way that the prophets and apostles are not immediately and originally the foundations of the faith, for such a foundation is Christ Himself, but only relatively and secondarily, since they were directly and most closely established in the saving teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, and since they were the first to begin spreading the faith of Christ throughout all the ends of the world. For Christ founded His Church not upon men, but upon Himself and upon His divine teaching.” Part I, answer 85.

§ 48. The Concept and Foundation of the Church

§ 48. Појам и основа цркве

§ 48

§48. Понятие и основание церкви