Church

“He (Christ) is the head of the body of the Church” (Col. 1:18) “This is His body, the fulfillment of Him who fulfills all things in all” (Eph. 1:23) Repeatedly in Holy Scripture the Church is called the Body of Christ. “I rejoice in my sufferings for you... for His Body, which is the Church,” the Apostle Paul writes about himself (Col. 1:24). Apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers, he says, “were given by Christ for the work of ministry, for the edification of His Body” (Eph. 4:11-12). At the same time, bread and wine are offered into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Divine Liturgy, and the faithful partake of them. This is what Christ Himself established when He gave communion to His apostles at the Last Supper with the words: “Take, eat: this is My body; Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the New Testament” (Matthew 26:26–28). How is it that both the Church and the Holy Mysteries are the Body of Christ at the same time? Are the faithful themselves members of the Body of Christ - the Church, and partake of the Body of Christ in the Holy Mysteries? In both one and the other circumstance, the name “Body of Christ” is used not in a figurative, but in the very real meaning of this word. We believe that the Holy Mysteries, while retaining the appearance of bread and wine, are the true Body and true Blood of Christ. We also believe and confess that Christ, the Son of the Living God, having come into the world to save sinners, became a true man, and His flesh, received from the Virgin Mary, was real human flesh; that in body and soul Christ was a true man, in every way similar to others except sin, while remaining at the same time true God. The divine nature did not diminish or change in the Son of God during His incarnation, just as in man the nature did not change, but completely retained all its human properties. Immutably and unmerged, forever, “inseparably and inseparably” Divinity and humanity were united in the One Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Son of God became man in order to make people “partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), in order to free man from sin and death and make him immortal. By uniting with Christ, we will receive Divine grace, which gives human nature the strength to overcome sin and death. The Lord Jesus Christ showed people the path to victory over sin through His teaching and grants them eternal life, making them participants in His eternal Kingdom through His Resurrection. In order to receive that Divine grace from Him, the closest communication with Him is necessary. Attracting to Himself with Divine love and uniting them with Himself, the Lord united with each other those who loved Him and those who came to Him, uniting them into One Church. The Church is unity in Christ, the closest unity with Christ of all those who rightly believe in Him and love Him, and the unity of them all through Christ. The Church consists of its earthly and heavenly parts. The Son of God came to earth and became man in order to raise man to heaven, make him again a resident of paradise, returning him to his original state of sinlessness and integrity, and unite him with Himself. This is accomplished by the action of God’s grace, given through the Church, but it also requires the effort of the person himself. God saves His fallen creation by His love for it, but man’s love for his Creator is also necessary, without which it is impossible for him to be saved. By rushing towards God and clinging to the Lord with its humble love, the human soul receives strength that cleanses it from sins and strengthens it to fight sin until complete victory. The body also participates in that struggle, now being the receptacle and instrument of sin, but destined to be an instrument of righteousness and a vessel of holiness. God created man by breathing a god-like spirit into the animated body He first created from the earth. The body was supposed to be an instrument of a spirit submissive to God. Through it the human spirit manifests itself in the material world. The spirit, through the body and its individual members, reveals its properties and qualities that God gave to it as His image, which is why the body, as a manifestation of the image of God, appears and is called “our beauty created in the image of God” (stichera at the funeral). When the primordial people fell away from their Creator in spirit, the body, hitherto submissive to the spirit, perceiving its commands through the soul, ceased to obey it and began to strive to dominate it. Instead of the Law of God, the law of the flesh began to dominate in man. Sin, having cut man off from the source of life - God, also cut man himself. The unity of his spirit, soul and body was broken, death entered him. The soul, without drinking the currents of life, could not transmit them to the body. The body became corruptible, languor became the lot of the spirit. Christ came to earth, having fallen again, to restore the image and return it to unity with the One Whose image it is. By uniting with Himself, God restores man to his original goodness in all its fullness. By giving grace and sanctification to the spirit, Christ also cleanses, strengthens, heals and sanctifies soul and body. “Being joined to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). The body of a person united with the Lord must be an instrument of the Lord, serve to fulfill His will and become part of the great Body of Christ. Of course, for unity with Christ, it is not enough just to unite our body with the body of Christ. Eating the Body of Christ is beneficial when we rush to Him in spirit and unite with Him. Accepting the Body of Christ while turning away from Him in spirit is like the touch of Christ by those who beat Him, strangled Him, and crucified Him. Their touch to Him served them not for salvation and healing, but for condemnation. Those who receive communion with reverence, love and readiness to offer themselves to serve Him are closely united with Him and become an instrument of His Divine will. “He who eats My body and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him,” said the Lord (John 6:56). Uniting with the Risen Lord and through Him with the entire Ever-Bearing Trinity, man draws from Her strength for eternal life and himself becomes immortal. “As the living Father sent Me, and I live for the Father’s sake, and whoever eats Me will also live for My sake” (John 6:57). All who believe in Christ and who are united with Him by surrendering themselves to Him and accepting the grace of God collectively constitute the Church of Christ, the Head of which is Christ Himself, and those who enter Her are Her members. Christ, invisible to the bodily eye, manifests Himself on earth clearly through His Church, just as the invisible human spirit manifests itself through its body. The Church is the Body of Christ both because Her parts are united with Christ through His Divine Mysteries, and because through Her Christ acts in the world. We partake of the Body and Blood of Christ (in the Holy Mysteries) in order to ourselves be members of the Body of Christ (Church). It doesn’t happen right away. Full stay in the Church is already a state of victory over sin and complete cleansing from it. Everything sinful to some extent removes us from the Church and from the Church; That’s why the prayer reads over every repentant during confession: “Reconcile, unite the saints of Your Church.” A Christian through repentance is cleansed, united closely with Christ in the communion of the Holy Mysteries, but then again the dust of sin settles on him and alienates him from Christ and the Church, which is why repentance and communion are again needed. Until a person’s earthly life ends, until the very departure of the soul from the body, the struggle between sin and truth continues in him. No matter how high a spiritual and moral state someone has achieved, it is possible for him to gradually or rapidly fall deeply into the abyss of sin. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone to receive communion of the holy Body and Blood of Christ, strengthening our communion with Him and irrigating with life-giving streams of the grace of the Holy Spirit flowing throughout the body of the Church. How important communion of the Holy Mysteries is is shown by the life of St. Onuphrius the Great, to whom, like other hermits who stayed in that desert, angels brought Holy Communion; Venerable Mary of Egypt, whose ultimate desire, after many years of desert life, was to receive the Holy Mysteries; St. Savvaty of Solovetsky and many others. It was not in vain that the Lord said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not have life in you” (John 6:53). Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ is the acceptance of the Risen Christ, the conqueror of death, who gives victory over sin and death to all who are with Him. By retaining within ourselves the grace-filled gift of Communion, we have the guarantee and the beginning of the eternal blissful life of soul and body. Until the very Day of Christ, His Second Coming and Judgment over the whole world, the struggle between sin and truth will continue, both in each individual person and in all of humanity. The earthly Church unites all those reborn through baptism, who have taken up the cross of the struggle against sin and followed the hero of that struggle - Christ. The Divine Eucharist, the offering of a bloodless sacrifice and its communion, sanctifies and strengthens its participants, making those who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ true members of His Body - the Church. But only with death is a person determined whether he remained a valid member of the Body of Christ until his last breath, or whether sin triumphed in him and expelled the grace that he received in the Holy Mysteries and connecting him with Christ. He who has fallen into grace, as a member of the earthly Church, passes from the earthly Church into the heavenly Church, but he who has fallen away from the earthly Church will not enter the heavenly one, for the earthly part of the Church is the path to the heavenly one. The more a person is under the influence of the grace of communion and the more closely united with Christ, the more he will enjoy communion with Christ in His coming Kingdom. Since sin in a person’s soul continues to act until death, and his body is subject to its consequences, carrying within itself the seeds of illness and death, from which it will be freed only when it disintegrates after the death of a person and rises already free from them on the General Resurrection. He who is united in spirit and body with Christ in this life will be with Him in spirit and body in the life to come. The grace-filled streams of the Life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ are the source of our eternal joy in communion with the Risen Christ and the sight of His Glory. The same consequences of sin, which has not yet been completely expelled from the human race, act not only in individual people, but through them they also manifest themselves in the earthly activity of entire parts of the Church. Heresies, schisms, and disturbances constantly appear, alienating some of the faithful. Misunderstandings between local churches or parts of them have troubled the Church since ancient times, and prayers for an end to them are constantly heard in divine services. “We ask for unanimity of the Churches”, “Union of the Churches” (Resurrection canon of the Trinity, Chapter 8), “Set up discord for the Church”, “Set up discord for the Church” (Archangel service November 8, March 26, July 13) and similar prayers have been offered by the Orthodox Church for centuries. Even on Holy Saturday, before the shroud, the Church cries out: “Giver of Life, Immaculate and Pure Virgin, quench the temptations of the Church, and grant the world as good” (end of Article 2). Only when Christ appears on the clouds will the tempter be trampled underfoot and all temptations and temptations will disappear. Then the struggle between good and evil, between life and death, will end, and the earthly Church will merge into the triumphant Church, in which “all God will be in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). In the coming Kingdom of Christ there will no longer be a need for communion with the Body and Blood of Christ, for all those who have been worthy will be in close communion with Him and will enjoy the eternal light of the Life-Giving Trinity, experiencing bliss inexpressible in language and incomprehensible to our weak minds. Therefore, after communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ during the Liturgy, a prayer is always offered at the altar, sung on Easter days: “Oh, great and most sacred Easter to Christ! About Wisdom and the Word of God and Power! Grant us the opportunity to partake of You in the eternal days of Your Kingdom!”