About the Church.
Our Lord Jesus Christ established the Church on earth so that it would lead everyone to salvation and eternal life.
The Church is a society of people who maintain a single Orthodox faith, are sanctified by the holy sacraments and taught by spiritual shepherds.
The head of the Church, its leader and supreme shepherd, is the Savior Christ Himself. The holy Apostles taught and wrote about this, saying that God made Christ, the Son of God, the head of the Church, which is His body (Eph. 1:22-23). If you are a member of this holy society, you are obliged to lovingly obey the holy Church and fulfill its statutes and commands. If you love Christ, you will love the Church. Christ said: “If anyone does not listen to the Church, then let him be to you as a pagan and a tax collector,” that is, such a person will be deprived of the grace of God (Matthew 18:17).
Church" is the house of God; the Heavenly King is invisibly present in it, and you must visit it with special zeal in order to be closer to God, as Christ said about this: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). According to the word of the Savior, the Church will endure forever. “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell (i.e., all the forces of evil) will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), said Christ. He promised to always be with the Church: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen” (Matthew 28:20).
If the Savior established the holy Church and promised to always abide in it, then it means that without the Church we cannot be saved. He who moves away from the Church moves away from Christ. We must remain firmly in it so that no forces, not even death, will deviate us from the Holy Church. The Holy Fathers taught that “there is no salvation outside the Church.” St. John Chrysostom says: “Do you want to be saved? Stay in the Church and it will not betray you. The church is a fence: if you are inside this fence, then the wolf will not touch you; and if you go out, you will be kidnapped by a beast.
Do not shy away from the Church: there is nothing stronger in the world than it. She is your hope, in her is your salvation.”
About spiritual shepherds.
Having suffered for the sins of people, dying for us on the cross and rising from the dead, the Savior ascended to heaven, but left special persons on earth who were to continue His work, that is, to teach people His faith and lead them to eternal life. These persons were the holy Apostles, to whom the Savior said: “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
The apostles were the first spiritual shepherds. After themselves, they appointed other people to continue the work of God. So, to this day there are, and until the end of the world, there will be spiritual shepherds in the Church who must lead the work of God on earth. St. Apostle Paul wrote to Christians that Christ appointed shepherds and teachers to accomplish holy work (Eph. 4:11-12). Every good Christian should listen to the shepherd as a servant of Christ. This is what the Savior said about this to His Apostles: “He who listens to you hears Me, and he who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke 10:16).
Everyone should respect and honor shepherds as performers of the sacraments of God and their mentors. St. Apostle Paul wrote about this: “Obey your leaders and be submissive; for (because) they continually care for your souls" (Heb. 13:17).
If every good Christian should pray for everyone, then even more so should he pray for his spiritual father, so that the Lord will help him holyly carry out the work of God.