Extra Ecclessiam salus non est! Outside the Church there is no salvation! St. Cyprian of Carthage wrote these words to St. Pope Stephen after the Diocletian persecution in the third Century.

 

St. Cyprian was addressing the issue of the Novitian heresy. The Novitianist believed that those who capitulated to the Romans during the persecution were forever outside the Church. They believed that the lapsed could not return to the Church. They said that the Church was only for the pure and the martyrs. St. Cyprian and St. Pope Stephan said that the Church was made up of saints and sinners, they also said that the Church includes the lapsed. They added that it is those who separate themselves from the Church are the heretics and that they are the ones who loose the grace of the Church. The Church has the power to bind and loose and it makes the decisions.

St. Basil the Great says that there are two types of divisions in the Church: Schism and Heresy. Schism is a breach in Church discipline. The word schism is Greek for separation. The Russian word is raskol. Schismatics tend to become small groups of people who consider themselves elite and knowledgeable as to who is in and out of the Church. Many times their criticisms are correct, but they seek to separate and thus cause a division. An example of this, are the Old Believers.

The word heresy comes from the Greek herein, to choose. A heretic, therefore, is one who chooses to follow another path. The implication is that the heretic intentionally chooses what is wrong. A heresy is an irreconcilable difference. The heretic splits the church and a reconciliation can not take place. In a schism the differences are able to be mended.

Who determines what is a heresy? The Church. And by Church I do not mean the laity, deacons priests or individual bishops. The declaration of heresy come about at a council of bishops. There is a due process that takes place. The accused is usually called to make an account of his case. Even when that can not take place the Church still does not automatically call someone a heretic. A false belief alone is not the criterion. For example both Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa upheld opinions that the church declared heresies. Yet both these saints are Church Fathers. The reason they are saints is that they did not attempt to divide the Church with their opinions. Heretics are full of pride and seek to create a cult around themselves. That is why the Church considers heresy a moral problem. When the Church comes upon a theological problem it seeks to reconcile first.

When people seek to separate themselves they begin to divide the Church. An example of this, in the West, are the Protestant Churches. They separated themselves from the Catholic Church. However, they did not produce Orthodoxy. They rather continued to keep separating, even to this day. With the separation of these churches one began to see the rise of new religions like the Mormons.

In the Orthodox Churches one can look at the Old Calendarist movement as an example of schism. They, like us, keep to the Old Calendar. But they have taken the Old Calendar to such an extreme that they not only condemn the New Calendar Churches as heretical, but even condemn each other as not being orthodox enough. St. Joseph the Hesychast was sympathetic to the Old Calendarist movement. He had a vision of Mt. Athos burning in Hell and realized that the Old Calendarists had the spirit of schism. There are other Greek saints who, although sympathetic to the Old Calendarists, did not follow them. One such saint is St. Nicholas Planas. The Russian Church Abroad is on the Old Calendar, as is the Russian Church in Russia. We are not schismatics because we do not condemn the new Calendarist as heretical and we do not say that the New Calendar Churches are without the Grace of God.

Our synod is now considering reuniting with the Church in Russia. It is not up to us as individuals to do this. It is the job of our bishops. Whether or not it is time to reunite is not now the issue. The Church is obligated to seek reconciliation. We are oblig ated to reunite when we can. The Synod was created out of a crisis. That crisis is now over. We may look at the Russian bishops and say that they collaborated with the KGB. That may be. But times are different now. We are told that many former communists and collaborating bishops have repented. We can question that repentance but then we are claiming that we are as knowledgeable as their confessors. We can demand such strict standards of repentance that we could never be convinced of their sincerity. Only God can make the final decision. Our job is to find ways of reconciling without compromising our beliefs. Admittedly, we may have doubts about whether or not our bishop will make the right decision. Even bishops in our synod disagree at times. How are we then as members of the Church to act?

First we are to respond with faith. We must believe that the gates of hell will not prevail. We have to pray and trust that our bishops will make the right decisions. Even if the bishop s make a “mistake”, God has the power to overcome it.

We must also look at the signs of schismatic thinking in ourselves. The first sign is pride. This pride can however mask as humility. We can say we are sinners and then condemn others. Many times we set up a set of standards and blame others who cannot live up to them. We many times do not live under the conditions that others do. We can say that the Russian people do not live up to standards. How could they? Living under a system that attempted to destroy all sense of religion out of everyone? We can also look at from the perspective of how our Russian brethren were able to keep so much under such circumstances.

With a spirit of pride comes a spirit of exclusivity. We like things the way they are and change scares us. It is easier to keep people our enemies. Once we are friends there will be mutual influences, both for the good and ill. And it is then along with these spirits comes the lack of long suffering. As St. Maximos the Confessor points out: a lack of long suffering comes with self love. Without long suffering we are easily angered ( another sign of self love) over the gray areas in life.

The Church has doctrine (i.e. teachings) but it is not doctrinaire. The Church is not another version of the Communist Party. The Church does not seek to punish those who may disagree or who do not live up to all its standards. The Church seeks reconciliation, and it seeks repentance. We are always praying for oneness of mind, brotherly love and piety. This does not mean that we accept all beliefs and behaviors. Right now our bishops are in dialogue with the Church in Russia. They are under spiritual obligation to at least talk about unity. We must have faith that our bishops have the true spirit and love of God. We must trust that they will act in accordance with the Holy Spirit. We must trust that they will not act nilly willy and unite in a cavalier fashion. If we look at how s erious our clergy have been acting we will know that no one is taking the situation lightly.

Finally we must ask ourselves: Is our opposition to dialogue based upon emotion or passions rather than prayer and reason? That is a personal question we must ask ourselves. Faith is difficult. It means trust in God. God, however, placed fallible people in charge of the Church. Despite all our foibles, the Holy Spirt has always led the Church. We must ourselves act in good faith and trust our bishops to make the right decisions. We must pray that we all will be confirmed in oneness of mind, brotherly love and piety.

Church of All Saints of Russia
Denver, Colorado