II.
Breaking Apart the Foundation: Roman Catholicism and Protestantism
Looking
mainly at the oneness and holiness of the Church, Fr Dumitru goes on to write,
‘Unity belongs to the Church’s constitution as the incarnate Word’s extended
body. For the Lord became incarnate, was
crucified, and rose from the dead as a man in order to gather in Himself those
divided, to gather them in the infinity of His love for the Father and of the
Father’s love for Him. This unification
of all in Him constitutes the very essence of salvation. For this unity means unity in the blessed and
infinite God. In fact, unity is not
possible outside God, and thus neither is salvation. Christ extends Himself in us through His
sacrificed and risen body, so that He may unite us and make us like Himself; He
fills us with the same love that He has for God the Father and that God the
Father, who is in Him, has for Him. And
this is the Church. Being filled with
this love, the Church is also the loving unity among her members (The Church, pgs. 57-8).
‘
. . .
‘Thus
the foundation of the Orthodox Church is Jesus Christ Himself, whose sacrificed
and risen body is found deep within the Church.
The unity of the Church is an ontological unity, or better said, a
supra-ontological one. In Catholicism
this kind of inner unity has been weakened because through the mysteries one
receives only a created grace, not grace as uncreated energy in which Christ
Himself is found.
‘In
Catholicism this weakening of the union with Christ through the mysteries led
to the elevation of the pope as vicar, or locum tenens, of Christ. Obedience to the pope has thus become the means
by which the unity of the Church is maintained in a more juridical or
institutional way. Protestantism,
unhappy with such a nonspiritual and rather external unity of the Church, has
reduced the relationship with Christ to a simple relationship of the believer
with Him through faith. But because this
faith does not have its source in Christ’s bodily presence in the Church, to a
great extent it has become devoid of power and content, becoming more like a voluntary,
subjective act with a much reduced content decided upon by each individual (p.
62).
‘
. . .
‘The
Church is unitary because, having
Christ working within her, she is truly His extended body; that is, she is
fully united with the head and fully united within herself. A Church that does not have Christ within her
in this full and intimate manner, and that considers that Christ is so distant
from her that she needs a vicar, is not fully united with Christ, and
consequently neither is she fully one within herself in the innermost way—not
to mention the total lack of unity in a Church in which Christ is even more
absent and in which an experience of the whole Christ does not exist, but only
a faith that to a great extent is inconsequential for life, a faith that is
interpreted in as many forms as there are individuals (pgs. 65-6).
‘
. . .
‘The
holiness of the Church is strongly connected with her unity. For the more united the Church is with Christ
and thus within herself—that is to say, the more intimately she is united with
her head, who is holy—the holier she is in her quality as His body. Sin, which is the opposite of holiness, is at
bottom a sin against unity. The holiness
of the Church and of her members flows from the union with the Lord’s
sanctified body through obedience and sacrifice. The holiness of the Church and of her members
is the form in which we see manifested their strong union with Christ, who was
sanctified through His sacrifice for us although He was already without sin due
to the hypostatic union.
‘This
means that the holiness of the Church, just like her unity, has its source in
Christ, who is holy and who is present within her. Where there is a direct and intimate
relationship with Christ, and in Him with the other faithful, there is
holiness. In Protestantism, in which the
faith in Christ’s intimate and working presence in the Church has been weakened,
the holiness of the Church—along with her unity—has also been weakened to the
point of disappearing. Concern for the
holiness of the body through abstinence has also been greatly weakened in Catholicism
(see, for example, the absence of fasting, eating before Holy Communion, and so
forth), due to the lack of emphasis on partaking of Christ’s sanctified body in
the Church, and generally due to the similar reduced emphasis on the importance
of Christ’s body and His holiness, as well as our body’s importance in the work
of salvation.
‘The
Church’s holiness and unity, which derive from the strong union with Christ,
are attributes in which Christ’s saving power is manifested through the
Church. Salvation cannot be obtained
without participation in Christ’s holiness, which works in the Church. If salvation is participation through the
transparence of the body in the divine infinity in the Holy Spirit, who
spiritualizes our bodies, one understands why some Western denominations that
avoid any effort toward spiritualizing the body conceive of salvation as a
juridical solution to the conflict between God and human beings, as a purely
formal solution that will bear fruit in the faithful’s existence in the life to
come.
‘Christ
is holy because, above all else, He is God.
Holiness is an attribute of God.
The created being does not have holiness except through
participation. That is why when
participation in Him is not affirmed, the created being’s holiness is not
affirmed either (as in Protestantism). .
. .
‘It
is with this holiness that, through the Incarnation and His sacrifice, the Son
of God has filled the human nature He assumed, raising it onto the divine
throne and guaranteeing its life, together with its eternity, from the divine
infinity. Because Christ is in the
Church with this nature and because He abides in the faithful, holiness,
salvation, and the eternal divine life are communicated to them. Holiness is communicated from His body
through His Holy Spirit. Through His
pneumatized body His holiness is being endlessly communicated to us in the
Church, as is the power to become ever holier, ever more open to God’s purity
and eternal love, and free of any egoism that is opposed to holiness’ (pgs.
68-70).
Works Cited
Staniloae, Dumitru.
The Experience of God, Orthodox
Dogmatic Theology, Vol. 4: The Church: Communion in the Holy Spirit. Ioan Ionita, trans. and ed. Brookline,
Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press,
2012.
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