The title just about says it all, but a little extra general information:
My father is a Russian Orthodox priest, and these are the sermons he gives during Sunday Divine Liturgy.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Friday was the Feast of the Holy and Glorious Apostles Peter and Paul and yesterday was the Synaxis of the Twelve Holy Apostles. Today our epistle reading tells how Christ gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, etc. for the building up of the Body of Christ, the Church. So this morning I will reflect on the subject of apostles and how they relate to the Church.
Apostles have a universal (catholic) ministry which transcends geographical and jurisdictional bounds, unlike Bishops, whose ministry is confined to a particular locality or jurisdiction. Therefore Peter belongs to the whole Church, not just Rome as the Latins claim. Before he established Rome, he established first Jerusalem, the "Mother of Churches" and also Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians.
Paul, likewise, who established many churches among the Gentiles, belongs to us all. And also, all the other holy apostles, on whom the Lord conferred the power to bind and loose—not to one man alone—not even Peter--but to all the apostles, was this authority bestowed, and it remains vested in the Bishops, not in any one man.
We see this demonstrated in the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 when the apostles and elders and indeed the whole church gathered to discuss the error of the Judaizers. Peter spoke and Paul and Barnabas spoke, and finally, James gave sentence as it seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and to all. Thus they reached a consensus as a whole, and so it was at the Seven Ecumenical Councils where all things were decided in unity, not by the infallible decree of one man.
This is why we Orthodox can never accept the dual heresies of Papal Supremacy and Papal Infallibility which give the Bishop of Rome universal jurisdiction and elevates his opinions above even the Ecumenical Councils. We knew nothing of this during the 1,000 years when we were in communion with the See of Rome, therefore we could accept nothing of this when the Pope-- like King George III, who sought to impose his will arbitrarily upon the Colonies without their consent-- endeavored to impose his arbitrary will upon our Churches, demanding that we alter the Creed by inserting the Filioque and that we forsake the traditions of our Fathers in favor of Latin practice. Neither can we accept the error of Protestantism, where there is not just one pope, but every man with a Bible in his hand is a pope, "infallibly" interpreting the Scriptures according to his own private opinions—all the while rejecting the dogmas of the Ecumenical Councils as "man's teaching" So what is this man with Bible in hand, if not a man? An angel? God forbid! You laugh, but even if he was an angel from heaven we ought not to accept him if he teaches contrary to what was handed down from the apostles in and through the Church.
There is a humorous photo circulating of a church building—probably Roman Catholic—which is missing a letter in its name. Instead of "Saint Peter's Church, it reads "_aint Peter's Church". Perhaps it was an act of God, God knows, but it is prophetic nonetheless. For it reveals a very important truth: any church that bears the name of a man or of some doctrine of men, is not the Church of Christ. And here it would be well to point out an important distinction. Orthodox Churches are often dedicated to certain saints, such as ours, St. Spyridon Orthodox Mission. On the surface that may appear to be doing the same as the Catholics and Protestants, but note the absence of the "'s". You will never see an Orthodox church named as belonging to a certain saint. That is because the Church is Christ's alone.
In a nutshell, this is how all the Western schisms started. First Rome claimed to be Peter's Church, and separated itself from all the other Apostolic Churches. Sow the wind, and you reap the whirlwind, saith the prophet...then those who separated from Rome began to call themselves Luther's church, or Calvin's, or Wesley's, and so on, and thus they were divided both from the Church and from one another ad infinitum, just like the splitting of an atom in a nuclear reaction. But the Church of God's building remains one and undivided. So the Church ain't Peter's Church and it ain't Paul's church neither. Nor is it Luther's, nor Calvin's, nor Menno's nor Wesley's church. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, built on the Rock which is Christ. And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come! Come out from among the confusion of Babel into the unity of the faith which is found in the Church of Christ's building, the Orthodox—the Right-believing-- Church! Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
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