Brethren, I appeal to you by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarrelling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispos and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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One of the greatest evils that has befallen the church is the evil of division and heresy. This the great Paul acknowledges was a problem also in his time. There was clear dissension amongst the faithful in Corinth as to who was in leadership of this Christian movement. Paul makes the point that if there is one God there should be one teaching. Anyone who calls himself a member of the body of Christ must follow Christ.
At that time there were a number of charismatic speakers. So the people would follow them with the net effect of Christ being divided. This problem has continued throughout the ages to now. There has always been, to Christian regret, people who are prepared to change or reinterpret the message of Christ for their own ends.
The Orthodox Church is the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is the church that carries faithfully throughout history, through the laying of hands the teaching of Christ. Christ gave us his church and he gave the church to be held as a sacred trust for his believing people. In that there is embedded the proposition that we are obliged to not only receive but to transmit the correct teaching of Christ.
A lot of Western Christians today have not heard of holy tradition, apostolic succession, ecumenical councils or the church Fathers. The most wonderful thing about orthodoxy is that each and every one of us does not speak with their own voice as to what they think the gospel may teach. The church accepts that each church father received the true and correct rich tradition, developed it, expounded it and then handed it on to the next. Thus Revelation to the Orthodox Church has been like a chain so that each father forms a link with the one before and the one after which is not broken and stretches back to the first apostles. Like the laying of hands the teaching of the apostles has been taken by the apostolic fathers and their successors who have advanced and explained our faith to what we have today.
People of the Western church have a deficiency. Their deficiency is that because they can read the gospel individually they can then understand the gospel individually. So, like a newspaper, they think that by reading it they understand it all. But consider this when you read the newspaper: do you read the social columns in the same way as the financial columns? Do you evaluate the comic section the same way as you do the news of the world? No. You apply discernment. Some things are intended to be taken frivolously whilst others are intended to be taken seriously. You as reader, make up your own mind as to which is which because you, as reader, know that not all things are read the same way. As reader, you understand quite clearly the exchange between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch who was reading the book of Isaiah. When Philip asked: do you understand what you are reading? The response was “how can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30 – 31).
It is apparent that being able to read something does not equate to understanding it. And reading the Bible is far more difficult than reading the newspaper. The Bible has so many genres within it. We do not know whether or when it’s talking literally or figuratively, plainly or symbolically. Nor do we know what it means. So we come away with our own views. We come away with our own understanding, which understanding is generally wrong.
Here is the thing. There is a Christian organisation known as the World Council of Churches. It is intended to speak with a unified voice for Christ. It has some 350 members. I asked myself why do we need 350 member bodies to hear the voice of the Lord? Also, if these 350 member bodies did speak with one mind and one heart why would you need so many? The World Council of Churches does some excellent work but that said, there are some difficulties with the notion that every church is a branch legitimately attached to the trunk of Christianity. This branch theory – which is the way that modern church justify themselves as Christian, flatly ignores the history of the church. It certainly ignores the teaching of the fathers and it certainly ignores the ecumenical councils that struggled over the centuries to determine the nature and notion of Christ.
Not all Christians today believe in the core teachings handed down by Christ. Nor do they accept the understanding of the church as it has grown in its self-awareness over the centuries. Indeed some people think that their church mysteriously sprung up during the Reformation. Where are earth were those churches for almost 1400 years before that? No, the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church cannot acknowledge as branches those who reject the trunk that they came from or deny that the trunk ever existed. And, the name of the trunk in all its fullness is the Orthodox Church.
So there was no place in the church then, and remains no place in the church now ,for divisions. To say that I am of Apollos or Paul or Cephas is really dividing the truth. There is only one truth. There are not various perspectives of truth. There is no relativism. Either you follow Christ or you do not. Returning back to the World Council of Churches, the vast majority of those members have been created in the last century, with a lot of these churches recognised only after 1950. I for one cannot see how one can seriously take an organisation which calls itself Christian, which church is younger than I am.
Christ gave us the Church. The Church gave us the Bible. The church in tradition allows the Holy Spirit to blow as it will in the church. The church allows those that come now to build upon the work of those before. We, as Orthodox Christians, do not need to reinvent the spiritual wheel. No, we receive from the fathers and build on their work through the Holy Spirit so that such work reveals the beauty and truth of our faith.
We are Christian and as such we belong to Christ. As Paul himself says, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptised in Paul’s name? If we answer honestly to each question then the answer must be no. We are baptised in the name of Christ undivided. If that is so then why on earth do we continue to divide Christ? What gives us the right to say because I now see things a little different I am going to start up my own religion? Do you not see how such a thing is not only inherently evil, it is inherently divisive and allows those who oppose Christianity the ability to attack those so-called Christians with the upshot being that all Christians are seen in the same light. In that way Christ’s church suffers as we do all.
