Excerpts from

"The Orthodox Church"

By Archpriest Sergey Bulgakov (1871-1944)

Content:

The Orthodox Church

Orthodoxy is the Church of Christ on earth. The Church of Christ is not an institution; it is a new life with Christ and in Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit. Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, was made man, uniting His divine life with that of humanity. This divine-human life He gave to his brethren, who believe in His name, although He died, rose again and ascended into heaven, He was not separated from His humanity, but remains in it. The light of the resurrection of Christ lights the Church, and the joy of resurrection, of the triumph over death, fills it. The risen Lord lives with us, and our life in the Church is a mysterious life in Christ. "Christians" bear that name precisely because they belong to Christ, they live in Christ, and Christ lives in them. The Incarnation is not only a doctrine, it is above all an event which happened once in time but which possesses all the power of eternity, and this perpetual incarnation, a perfect, indissoluble union, yet without confusion, of the two natures — divine and human — makes the Church. Since the Lord did not merely approach humanity but became one with it, Himself becoming man, the Church is the Body of Christ, as a unity of life with Him, a life subordinate to Him and under His authority. The same idea is expressed when the Church is called the Bride of Christ; the relations between bride and bridegroom, taken in their everlasting fullness, consist of a perfect unity of life, a unity which preserves the reality of their difference: it is a union of two in one, which is not dissolved by duality nor absorbed by unity. The Church, although it is the Body of Christ, is not the Christ — the God-Man — because it is only His humanity; but it is life in Christ, and with Christ, the life of Christ in us; "it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). But Christ is not only a Divine Person. Since His own life is inseparable from that of the Holy Trinity, His life is consubstantial with that of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Thus it is that, although a life in Christ, the Church is also a life in the Holy Trinity. The body of Christ lives in Christ, and by that very fact in the Holy Trinity. Christ is the Son. Through Him we learn to know the Father, we are adopted by God, to Whom we cry "Our Father."

The love of God, the love of the Father for the Son and that of the Son for the Father, is not a simple quality or relation; it possesses itself a personal life, it is hypostatic. The love of God is the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father to the Son, abiding upon Him. The Son exists for the Father only in the Holy Spirit which rests on Him; as the Father manifests his love for the Son by the Holy Spirit, which is the unity of life of Father and Son. And the Spirit itself, being the love of two persons, in keeping with the very nature of love lives, so to speak, in Its personal existence outside Itself in the Father and the Son.

The Church, in her quality of Body of Christ, which lives with the life of Christ, is by that fact the domain where the Holy Spirit lives and works. More: the Church is life by the Holy Spirit, because it is the Body of Christ. This is why the Church may be considered as a blessed life in the Holy Spirit, or the life of the Holy Spirit in humanity.

The essence of this doctrine is revealed in its historical manifestation. The Church is the work of the Incarnation of Christ, it is the Incarnation itself. God takes unto Himself human nature, and human nature assumes divinity: it is the deification of human nature, result of the union of the two natures in Christ. But at the same time the work of assimilating humanity into the Body of Christ is not accomplished by virtue of the Incarnation alone, or even by the Resurrection alone. "It is better for you that I go (to my Father)" (John 16:7). That work required the sending of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, which was the fulfillment of the Church. The Holy Spirit, in the form of tongues of fire, descended on the Apostles. The unity of these, the unity of the twelve presided over by the Blessed Virgin, represents the whole of mankind. The tongues of fire remained in the world and formed the treasure of the gifts of the Holy Spirit which reside in the Church. This gift of the Holy Spirit was conferred in the primitive Church by the Apostles after baptism; now the corresponding gift, the "seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit," is accorded in the sacrament of confirmation.

The Church, then, is the Body of Christ. Through the Church we participate in the divine life of the Holy Trinity, it is life in the Holy Spirit by which we become children of the Father and which cries in our souls: "Abba, Father," and which reveals to us the Christ living in us. That is why, before attempting any definition of the Church as manifested in history, we ought to understand the Church as a sort of divine fixed quantity living in itself and comparable only with itself, as the will of God manifesting itself in the world.

The Church exists, it is "given" in a certain sense, independently of its historic origin; it took form because it already existed in the divine, superhuman plan. It exists in us, not as an institution or a society, but first of all as a spiritual certainty, a special experience, a new life. The preaching of primitive Christianity is the joyous and triumphant announcement of that new life. The life is indefinable, but it can be described and it can be lived.

There can thus be no satisfactory and complete definition of the Church. "Come and see" — one recognizes the Church only by experience, by grace, by participation in its life. This is why before making any formal definition, the Church must be conceived in its mystical being, underlying all definitions, but larger than them all. The Church, in its essence as a divine-human unity, belongs to the realm of the divine. It is from God, but it exists in the world, in human history. If the Church is considered only in its historic development and if it is conceived only as a society on this earth, its original nature is not understood, that quality of expressing the eternal in the temporal, of showing the uncreated in the created.

The essence of the Church is the divine life, revealing itself in the life of the creature; it is the deification of the creature by the power of the Incarnation and of Pentecost. That life is a supreme reality, it is evident and certain for all those who participate in it. Nevertheless, it is a spiritual life, hidden in the "secret man," in the "inner chamber" of his heart; in this sense it is a mystery and a sacrament. It is above nature — in other words, it exists apart from the world; still it is included within the life of the world. These two attributes are equally characteristic. From the viewpoint of the former, we say the Church is "invisible," different from all that is visible in the world, from all that is the object of perception among the things of the world. One might say that it does not exist in this world, and, judging by experience (in Kant's use of the term), we encounter no "phenomenon" which corresponds to the Church; so that the hypothesis of the Church is as superfluous for experimental cosmology as the hypothesis of God for the cosmology of Laplace. Thus it is correct to speak, if not of a Church invisible, at least of the invisible in the Church. Nevertheless, this invisible is not unknown, for, beyond the scope of the senses, man possesses "spiritual vision," by means of which he sees, he conceives, he knows. This vision is faith, which in the words of the Apostle, is "the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1); it lifts us on wings to the spiritual realm, it makes us citizens of the heavenly world. The life of the Church is the life of faith, by means of which the things of this world become transparent. And, naturally, these spiritual eyes can see the Church "invisible." If the Church were really invisible, completely imperceptible, that would mean simply that there were no Church, for the Church cannot exist solely in itself apart from mankind. It is not altogether included in human experience, for the life of the Church is divine and inexhaustible, but a certain quality of that life, a certain experience of the life in the Church, is given to everyone who approaches it. In this sense everything in the Church is invisible and mysterious, it all surpasses the limits of the visible world; but still the invisible may become visible, and the fact that we may see the invisible is the very condition of the existence of the Church.

Thus the Church in its very being is an object of faith; it is known by faith: "I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church." The Church is perceived by faith, not only as a quality or an experience, but also quantitatively: as an all-embracing unity, as a life unique and integral, as universality, after the pattern of the oneness of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Only the infinite subdivision of the human species is accessible to our sight, we see how each individual leads a life egotistical and isolated; the children of the same Adam, although they are social creatures, altogether dependent on their brothers, do not perceive their essential unity, but this unity manifests itself in love and by love, and it exists by virtue of participation in the one divine life of the Church. "Let us love one another that in the same spirit we may confess" proclaims the Church during the liturgy. That unity of the Church reveals itself to the eyes of love not at all as an exterior union — after the fashion of those we meet in every human society — but as the mysterious, original source of life. Humanity is one in Christ, men are branches of one vine, members of one body. The life of each man enlarges itself infinitely into the life of others, the "communio sanctorum," and each man in the Church lives the life of all men in the Church. In God and in His Church, there is no substantial difference between living and dead, and all are one in God. Even the generations yet to be born are part of this one divine humanity.

But the Church universal is not limited to humanity alone; the whole company of the angels is equally a part of it. The very existence of the world of angels is inaccessible to human sight, it can be affirmed only by spiritual experience, it can be perceived only by the eyes of faith. And thus our union in the Church becomes even larger through the Son of God, in that He has reunited things earthly and things heavenly, has destroyed the wall of partition between the world of angels and the world of men. Then to all humanity and to the assembly of angels is added all nature, the whole of creation. It is entrusted to the guardianship of angels and given to man that he may rule over it; it shares the destiny of man. "All creation groaneth and travaileth together" (Rom. 8:22-3), to be transfigured in a "new creation," simultaneous with our resurrection. In the Church man thus becomes a universal being; his life in God unites him to the life of all creation by the bonds of cosmic love. Such are the boundaries of the Church. And that Church, which unites not only the living, but the dead, the hierarchies of angels and all creation, that Church is invisible, but not unknown.

It may be said that the Church was the eternal end and the foundation of creation; in this sense it was created before all things, and for it the world was made. The Lord God created man in His image, and thus made possible the penetration of man by the spirit of the Church and the Incarnation of God, for God could take upon Himself only the nature of a being who corresponded to Him and who in itself contained His image. In the integral unity of humanity there is already present the germ of the unity of the Church in the image of the Holy Trinity. Thus it is difficult to point to a time when the Church did not exist in humanity, at least in the state of design. According to the doctrine of the Fathers, a primordial Church already existed in Paradise before the fall, when the Lord went to speak with man and put Himself into relation with him. After the fall, in the first words about the "seed of the woman" the Lord laid the foundation of what may be termed the Church of the old covenant, the Church wherein man learned to commune with God. And even in the darkness of paganism in the natural seeking of the human soul for its God, there existed a "pagan sterile church," as some of the songs of the Church call it. Certainly the Church attained the fullness of its existence only with the Incarnation, and in this sense the Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ and realized at Pentecost. On these events, the foundation of the Church was laid, but its fullness is not yet attained. It is still the Church militant, and it must become the Church triumphant, where "God shall be all in all."

It is impossible, then, to define the limits of the Church in space, in time, or in power of action, and in this sense the Church, although not invisible, is not completely comprehensible; nevertheless that does not make the Church invisible in the sense that it does not exist on earth under a form accessible to experience, or even in the sense that it is transcendent only, which would in reality mean its non-existence. No, although we do not comprehend its whole meaning, the Church is visible on the earth, it is quite accessible to our experience, it has its limits in time and space. The life invisible of the Church, the life of faith, is indissolubly connected with the concrete forms of earthly life. "The invisible" exists in the visible, is included in it; together they form a symbol. The word "symbol" denotes a thing which belongs to this world, which is closely allied to it, but which has nevertheless a content in existence before all ages. It is the unity of the transcendent and the immanent, a bridge between heaven and earth, a unity of God and man, of God and the creature.

But if the Church as life is contained in the earthly Church, then this earthly Church, like all reality here below, has its limits in time and space. Being not only a society, not comprehended in or limited by that concept, still it exists exactly as a society, which has its own characteristics, its laws and limits. It is for us and in us; in our temporal existence. The Church has a history, just as everything that exists in the world lives in history. Thus the existence eternal, unmoved, divine of the Church, appears in the life of this age as an historic manifestation, has its beginning in history. The Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ; He has ordained that the profession of faith of Peter, spoken in the name of all the Apostles, is the corner-stone of His Church. After the resurrection He sent the Apostles to preach His Church; it is from the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles that the Church of the New Covenant dates its existence — at that time there rang from the mouth of Peter the first apostolic appeal inviting entrance into the Church: "Be ye converted, and let each one be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ — and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38): "And there were in that day nearly three thousand persons added to the Church" (Acts 2:41). Thus was laid the foundation of the New Covenant.

Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition.

NOT all human race belongs to the Church, and not all Christians belong to the Church — only the Orthodox. Both these facts give rise to problems which concern the searching reason of religious faith. Both problems have exhausted the theologians. How can it be, if Christ took upon Himself a whole humanity, that the Body of the Church, His Church, comprehends externally only that part of humanity which is in the Church? And how is it that of that section of humanity called to the love of Christ by baptism, only a portion live the true life of the Church, elect from among the elect? The Lord has given us no understanding of the first problem, and only a partial comprehension of the second, which we shall consider later. The salvation of mankind through entrance into the Church is not a mechanical process, independent of the will of man, but it presupposes the voluntary acceptance or rejection of Christ (Mark 16:16). Thus by faith one enters the Church; by lack of faith one leaves it. The Church, as an earthly society, is first of all a unity of faith, of the true faith preached to the world by the Apostles after the descent of the Holy Spirit. Since this faith must be expressed in words, confession, preaching, the Church appears as a society joined by its unity of religious, dogmatic consciousness, containing and confessing the true faith. This concept of the true faith, of orthodoxy, cannot be conceived as some abstract norm. On the contrary, true faith has a definite content of dogmatic teaching, which the Church confesses, demanding of its members the same confession. Thus a departure from the true faith means separation from the Church: heresy or schism.

The Incarnation took place in the world, not above it. It completed historic time without destroying human history, but rather giving it a meaning positive and eternal, and becoming its centre. In spite of its divine and eternal nature (or, more exactly, because of it) the Church has a history within the boundaries of human history and in connection with it. Christianity is greater than, but not outside, history; it has a history of its own. In this history the Church takes dogmatic forms; it provides the norms of true belief, of the profession of the true faith. And each member of the Church accepts the doctrine of the Church, expressed and fixed during all the time of its history. The life of the Church, while mysterious and hidden, does not for that reason become illogical and "non-dogmatic," on the contrary, it has a logos, a doctrine and a message. The Lord, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, preached the Gospel of the Kingdom in revealing the meaning of the Scriptures announcing the dogmas concerning Himself, the Father and the Spirit. His Church concerns itself with the same things. For faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). Knowledge comes from the preaching of the true faith; right living is necessarily connected with right believing; they come one from the other.

The fullness of the true faith, the true doctrine, is much too vast to be held in the consciousness of an isolated member of the Church; it is guarded by the whole Church and transmitted from generation to generation, as the tradition of the Church. Tradition is the living memory of the Church, containing the true doctrine that manifests itself in its history. It is not an archaeological museum, not a scientific catalogue, it is not, furthermore, a dead depository. No, tradition is a living power inherent in a living organism. In the stream of its life it bears along the past in all its forms so that all the past is contained in the present and is the present. The unity and continuity of tradition follow from the fact that the Church is always identical with itself. The Church has an unique life, guided at all times by the Holy Spirit; the historical form changes, but the spirit remains unchanged. Thus belief in Church tradition as the basic source of Church doctrine, arises from a belief in the unity and self-identity of the Church. The period of primitive Christianity is very unlike the present time, yet one must admit that it is the same Church like unto itself; by its unity of life, the Church binds together the communities of Paul and the local Churches of today. In different epochs, it is true, tradition has not been known and comprehended in the same degree by all members of the Church, and it may be said, practically, that tradition is inexhaustible, for it is the very life of the Church. But it remains living and active, even when it continues unknown. The essential principle of tradition is this: each member of the Church, in his life and his knowledge (whether it concerns scientific theology or practical wisdom) should seek to attain the integral unity of tradition, to test himself if he is in accord with it. He ought to carry in himself living tradition; he ought to be a link inseparably connected with all the chain of history.

Tradition has many aspects: it can be written, oral, monumental. Besides, there is one source of tradition which occupies a place apart, perfectly recognized; it is Holy Scripture. Does Scripture or tradition hold the primacy? At the time of the Reformation the Western Church tried to oppose Scripture to tradition; really no such opposition exists; the idea of such antagonism was produced artificially by conflicting desires, either to lessen the value of Scripture in behalf of tradition, or the reverse. Scripture and tradition belong to the one life of the Church moved by the same Holy Spirit, which operates in the Church, manifesting itself in tradition and inspiring sacred writers. In this connection we should note that the latest Bible studies make increasing use of the traditional and collective element. Analysis of the books of the Old and New Testaments, discloses some early sources from which these books were drawn. Holy Scripture thus becomes a sort of written tradition, and the place for those individual writers who wrote under the dictation of the Holy Spirit. Holy books such as the Epistles of the Apostles — are they other than chronicles of the life of the different churches, preserved by tradition? Scripture and tradition must be comprehended, not as opposed one to the other, but as united.

Holy Scripture is thus a part of the tradition of the Church. It is that tradition which affirms the value of the holy books in the Church. The canon of holy books which affirms their inspired character is established by tradition; the inspired nature of the Scripture is guaranteed by the Church; that is to say, by tradition. No one can of himself decide questions relative to the divine inspiration of the Scriptures and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Bible. That is given only by the Spirit of God which lives in the Church, for "no one knows divine things, except the Spirit of God." This cannot then be a question of personal choice but depends only on the judgment of the Church. History tells us that among many written works, the Church has chosen a small number as inspired by God; among many Gospels it chose the canonical Gospels; after much hesitation, it included in the canon certain books (for example, the Song of Songs, the Apocalypse) and rejected others which were a part of them for a certain time (the epistle of Clement, the "Pastor" of Hermas); it has maintained the difference between canonical and non-canonical books (deuterocanonical, pseudo-epigraphal and apocryphal). It is right to say that the Word of God possesses an inherent witness to itself, an intrinsic efficacy, a sort of immanent evidence of its inspired character, and it would not be the Word of God, addressed to men, if it did not penetrate into human consciousness like a cutting sword. And yet it would be exaggeration and error to think that man could, by his own choice and after his own taste, establish that certain written works were inspired; these works he can comprehend only in the measure of his personal capacity, and in a manner of thought characteristic of a given time.

The Church has given us the Bible through tradition, and the Reformers themselves received the Bible from the Church and by the Church, that is to say, by tradition. It is not for each of us to establish anew the canonicity of Scripture. Each one must receive it as such by the hands of the Church which speaks through tradition. Otherwise Scripture ceases to be the Word of God; it becomes a book, a literary work, subject to philological and historical investigations. But the Word of God, while being studied as an historical document, can never become only a document, for its exterior form, although bearing the character of a certain historic epoch, nevertheless encloses the word of eternal life; in this same sense it is a symbol, the meeting place of divine and human.

We should read the Word of God with faith and veneration, in the spirit of the Church. There cannot be, there should not be, any break between Scripture and tradition. No reader of the Word of God can fully comprehend f the inspired character of that which he reads, for to the individual there is not given an organ of such comprehension. Such an organ is available to the reader only when he finds himself in union with all in the Church. The idea that one can himself discern, at his own risk and peril, the Word of God, that one may become interlocutor of God, is illusory: this Divine Gift is received only from the Church. This gift is received immediately, in its fullness, in union with the Church, in the temple, where the reading of the Word of God is preceded and followed by a special prayer. We there ask God to aid us in hearing His Word and in opening our hearts to His spirit.

The Divine word, it is true, can well enter the individual perception, become an individual good, thanks to the inherent efficacy of the Word of God and of its interior evidence; Protestants are right so to affirm. If there were not that individual, direct perception (the individual in the Church) the Bible would become a sacred fetish, spoken of by the Apostle when he says: "The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." It is right that there should be this personal discovery of the Word of God, its comprehension by the individual. That comprehension may be immediate or not. It is not immediate when one receives the truths of the Word of God, not directly from the Bible, but by means of the divine service, pictures, preaching, etc. In any case, the personal reception is possible only if one is in spiritual union with the Church, if one feels himself close to the Church, if one participates in its entire life; nevertheless the reception must be an individual matter. Protestantism also accepts the canon of the sacred books, as a norm which should be our guide. The reformers wished to have their Bible separated from the Church. But the Bible cannot be separated from the Church, for, separated from the Church, it becomes simply a collection of "books," a human document," writings." The Church, then, gives us the Bible as the Word of God, in the canon of the sacred books, and ecclesiastical tradition bears witness to it. Only the transcendent can testify to transcendence. The Church, which partakes of the divine life speaks of that which is divine, especially of the divine character of the Word of God. As for the individual, he may or may not be in the Church, but he is not himself the Church. In the history of the Church the recognition of the Word of God and a statement of that fact is the origin of the canon of the sacred books. The canon, however, does not order, by some exterior law, the recognition or non-recognition of certain sacred books; it testifies rather to the fact that the Church has already accepted them. It declares, confirms and legalizes that acceptance which cannot from henceforth be doubted. The ecclesiastical power, the councils of bishops, which express the knowledge of the Church, have only to give a true expression, an unchangeable formulation to that which already exists in the life of the Church, to that which is given by the Holy Spirit guiding that life.

And here a council operates not as an authority only, but as an organ of the Church. And only after this solemn proclamation of the truth already accepted by the Church, the canon of the holy books becomes the norm of ecclesiastical life, a law to which the individual conscience should be adjusted.

Ecclesiastical tradition is always alive; the process never stops; it is not only the past, but also the present. Touching the canon, the ancient Church formulated its definitions only under the most general forms, replying to questions which arose then: which are the books forming part of the Word of God and which are those not a part of it? The Church thus established only a sort of general catalogue of Scripture. Its decisions have absolute authority concerning what is excluded from or not included in the canon. It is a negative judgment, clear and simple, which certainly has primary importance. The positive verdict, on the contrary, gives only a very general judgment as to the value of the books included in the holy canon. It gives no indication of the character of divine inspiration, which differs among the books. It says nothing about the immediate authorship of the books of the canon, which in certain cases do not correspond to their titles. Nothing is said on the question of inspiration itself, of the correlation of divine and human which works in these books, of their history, nor of the interpretation of the relationship between their content and their historical background. In a word, the whole domain of Old and New Testament science-isagogic, hermeneutic: this domain is still far from being completely explored, it is still nothing but a domain of open questions, it is the domain of living tradition which is being created.

We also follow the march of history, and the Word of God seems to evolve somewhat according to our understanding. It does not change in its eternal content, but in the form accessible to human comprehension. Thus tradition, at the point of crystallization represented by the definitions of the Church, even in regard to the Word of God, is never finished and exhausted. Once fixed, tradition certainly becomes obligatory in the very measure of its authenticity and demands that great attention be given to it, particularly for the traditional attribution of the sacred books to one or another author. It is impossible to ignore these attributions, but it is not necessary to take all of them literally. The Church does not object to the study of the Word of God by all means possible, particularly by the methods of scientific contemporary criticism; more, it does not decide beforehand on the findings of that criticism, provided only that a pious and religious sentiment is preserved toward the sacred text as toward the Word of God. On the one hand it is impossible in Orthodoxy to have a rationalistic criticism, without faith, without religious principles, entirely detached from religion, a criticism which decomposes everything and which abolishes "the method of veneration." Such rationalism has made itself felt in liberal Protestantism.

Orthodoxy affords liberty for scientific study, provided the fundamental dogmas of the Church and the ecclesiastical definitions are safeguarded; it would be inadmissible, for scientific reasons, to change the canon of the holy books, to abrogate or to add to it. If the divinity of Our Lord is not accepted, His miracles, His Resurrection, the Holy Trinity — scientific study becomes tainted by an interior imperfection; it becomes blind and opinionated concerning all the Scriptures where these points are touched upon.

Such a science of the Word of God, a science without faith, contradicts itself. This internal contradiction affects equally all attempts to establish "scientifically" by means of historical criticism the veritable essence of Christianity outside the Church and its tradition. Thus a hopeless confusion arises between different domains, a confusion which, in advance, condemns scientific studies to religious sterility. It must be admitted from the very first that ecclesiastical science, while completely free and sincere, is not without premises, but a science dogmatically conditioned, a science of things believed or not. In this it is like the rationalistic science of unbelievers, which proceeds also from certain negative premises. Thus, for example, it is not possible, while retaining full liberty of scientific criticism, to study the gospel stories of the Resurrection of Christ, if one has not an exact dogmatic attitude upon the fact of the Resurrection (belief or unbelief). Such is the nature of a science dealing with belief. That science is not so difficult for those who do not believe as for those who half believe; the latter take as a decisive criterion their personal point of view, detached from ecclesiastical tradition. This is the position of certain extreme forms of liberal Protestantism. The truth is one, but men learn to know it by the discursive processes of development. And the Orthodox consciousness has neither to fear nor to be disturbed by Biblical criticism, for, by means of that criticism, there is gained a more exact idea of the ways of God and the action of the Holy Spirit, which has operated in the Church in different times and in different ways.

Orthodoxy has no reason to shun the modern scientific spirit, when it is a question of genuine research and not of giving free rein to the prejudices of an epoch; on the contrary, that scientific spirit belongs to Orthodoxy as does everything living and active in human history. Orthodoxy has an universal scale; it cannot be measured by one epoch only, which would give it an exclusive and particular imprint. It includes and unites everything truly creative, for the hidden promptings of real creativeness and of real knowledge proceed only from the Spirit of God Who lives in the Church.

Ecclesiastical tradition gives testimony to Scripture, and Scripture is itself a part of tradition, but its uniqueness is not thus lessened; it preserves its own nature as the Word of God; known anew and guaranteed by tradition, it lives as an independent and primary source of faith and doctrine. The inclusion of holy Scripture in tradition by no means compromises its originality and its value as the Word of God; the Word of God is above all other sources of faith, especially of all tradition in all its forms. Tradition adapts itself to the different needs of different epochs; holy Scripture, that is the voice of God addressed to man, has absolute value, though revealed under a conditioned historic form. It is the eternal revelation of divinity, a revelation addressed not only to this age but to the ages to come, and not only to the world of men but to that of angels, the eternal good tidings of the angel who flew in the midst of heaven (Rev. 14:6). From this point of view, it must be said that Holy Scripture and tradition are unequal in value; first place belongs to the Word of God; the criterion of the truth of Scripture is not tradition (although tradition testifies to Scripture), but on the contrary, tradition is recognized when founded on Scripture. Tradition cannot be in disagreement with Scripture. Tradition always supports itself by Scripture; it is an interpretation of Scripture. The germ found in Scripture is the seed; tradition is the harvest which pushes through the soil of human history.

The Word of God is at the same time the word of man, which contains the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it has been, so to speak, uttered by Him. It has become of the same nature as the God-Man, divine and human at the same time. In whatever fashion inspiration is understood, it must always be admitted that its human form depends upon historical circumstances, such as language, time, national character. Contemporary Biblical science is learning more and more to distinguish this historical form, and thus we increase our comprehension of the concrete side of inspiration. But although dependent upon historical circumstance, Scripture always preserves its divine power, since the Word of the God-Man, the Word of God addressed to man, could be spoken only in a human language. But that human historical form becomes an obstacle to the understanding of the Word of God; it becomes transparent only under the guidance of the Spirit of God, Who lives in the Church; so that to understand the inspired Scripture a special inspiration, inherent only in the Church,, is necessary.

Holy Scripture, the Bible, was compiled in the course of centuries from among books by various authors, of different epochs, of different content, of different degrees of revelation. This is true of the two Testaments; the Old, which is no longer valid as a covenant, and the New, which is not yet completely manifested. The Bible is not a system, but a conglomerate, a mosaic in which the divine word is written by God through His profets. The Bible does not have a finished, exterior form or system. The canon of the holy books has been formed by ecclesiastical definitions, but that is only an exterior fact; it possesses the force of a fact, and not that of interior self-evidence. The fullness of the Word of God does not consist in an external "finish" of its form (this it does not have), but in its interior fullness, which is manifested in inseparable connection with the Church tradition. The Church has always lived under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it has always possessed the fullness inherent in it, nevertheless it has not always had the Bible, at least in its present form. The books of the Old Testament came into it as they took form, and not all at once. The Church of the New Testament, during the first flourishing days of its existence, lived entirely without sacred books, without even the Gospels; these were produced only in the course of the first century, and were made part of the canon, together with the Epistles, much later, finally taking definite form at the beginning of the fourth century. This shows that it is the Holy Spirit, living in the Church, which is essential, and not one or another of its manifestations. It must be added that the content of the Word of God differs in its different parts, both as to the general purpose of the books (law, historical books, books of instruction, prophetic books, Gospels, Epistles, Apocalypse), and as to their own substance. All the Bible is the Word of God, all Scripture is divinely inspired (II Tim. 3:16). But one may distinguish among its parts those more or less important for us, at least within the limits of that which is accessible to us. The Gospels are for us different from the books of Ruth or Joshua; the Epistles are not the same as Ecclesiastes or Proverbs. The same distinction obtains between canonical and deutero-canonical books.

Protestantism has arbitrarily impoverished its Bible by excluding the deutero-canonical books. This distinction in degree of divine inspiration seems contradictory. Can there be degrees of inspiration? Is there not simply presence or absence of inspiration? This simply means that divine inspiration is concrete and that it adapts itself to human weakness and consequently can be greater or less. This is why the non-canonical books have a certain authority as the Word of God, but less authority than that of the canonical books. Speaking generally, the Bible is an entire universe, it is a mysterious organism, and it is only partially that we attain to living in it. The Bible is inexhaustible for us because of its divine content and its composition, its many aspects; by reason, also, of our limited and changing mentality. The Bible is a heavenly constellation, shining above us eternally, while we move on the sea of human existence. We gaze at that constellation, and it remains fixed, but it also continually changes its place in relation to us.

It is highly important to establish a right relationship between the Word of God and tradition in the life of the Church. The Word of God may be considered as the unique and primary source of Christian doctrine. Protestantism has become the religion of a book instead of being that of the spirit and of life — the religion of the New Testament scribes. But the Bible, considered solely as a book, ceases to be the Bible, which it can be only in the Church. Biblical orthodoxy, which is developed in certain branches of Protestantism and in certain sects, dries up Christianity, making of it a legalistic religion. Catholicism of the Middle Ages neglected Bible reading; it had no confidence in such reading, which produced a direct " anti-Biblicalism." Certainly, each member of the Church has the right to possess the Bible. In fact, the degree of Biblicalism in a church corresponds to its level of ecclesiastical culture. This varies among different peoples, and, in this particular, first place belongs to Protestantism. To forbid the reading of the Bible to laymen, nowadays, would be heresy. As a matter of fact no Church does forbid it. But, the connection between Scripture and tradition being so close, a man not knowing the Bible cannot be considered as deprived of Christian instruction, where the vacancy is filled by living tradition; oral, cultural, plastic. And just as the Church, at its best moments, has had the power to exist without the written word, certain communities continue to live without the Scriptures in our day. A Christian can and should have a personal attitude towards the Bible, a life united with the Bible, just as he should have an individual prayer-life. This personal connection comes from long years of frequent reading of the Word of God. We have examples of this among the Fathers of the Church whose speech was impregnated with Biblical expressions. They thought in terms of the Bible — lived with it. The Word of God became an inexhaustible source of instruction. But such a personal feeling toward the Bible does not remain individual and isolated; does not lose its connection with the Church. The attitude of the Church does not extinguish the personal sentiment; on the contrary, it makes it more definite. For all that is ecclesiastical lives only in that which is personal, and it is in the union of the individual and the collective that the mystery lies, which is the spirit of the Church.

The Word of God is used in the Church in two ways: liturgically and non-liturgically. In the first instance the Bible is used not simply in separate readings, but is made a part of the daily rite. This liturgical reading gives a passage a special value. The. event whose story is read happens in spirit in the Church; that is not an account of something which happened in the past and no longer exists; no, it is also the event itself. Such are, for example, the readings about the Gospel events, especially on great feast days. The Church mystically re-lives the happening itself, and the reading of the Gospel has the force of an event.

When Scripture is read outside the service, it is necessary, from the very first, to discriminate between the scientific point of view and the religious. It is not that these points of view mutually exclude or oppose each other, but that each of them makes its special emphasis. The scientific study of Scripture, as a work of literature, differs not at all from other categories of scientific study. The same methods are used. The results of scientific study are inevitably and naturally applied to the religious interpretation of the content of the Word of God in so far as they help to attain a more exact understanding of its historic context.

Scientific study, while maintaining full liberty in its own limited domain, cannot pretend to interpret Scripture from the point of view of dogma — and yet this often happens. Still this scientific study does partake, in a certain degree, of dogmatic exegesis. In reality, knowledge of the sacred text, under all its possible aspects, has necessarily a certain value for religious interpretation. A scholar cannot begin his work by taking himself as his sole point of departure. He must study the work of all his predecessors and carry it on without a break in the continuity. Thus it is equally impossible that an interpreter of Scripture, working to understand the religious point of view, should ignore the results of scientific study already made, without prejudice. Thanks to contemporary scientific study the sacred text may be seen anew; what may be called the scientific tradition is normal and inevitable. This tradition, by the way, dates from the most ancient times, beginning with the interpreters of the "Septuagint," the Great Synagogue and the Holy Fathers.

The Church, then, applies to the interpretation of Scripture this self-evident general principle: the understanding of Holy Scripture must be based on tradition. In other words, when one undertakes to understand the Word of God from the point of view of faith and dogma, one must necessarily be in accord with the interpretation of the Church handed down by the divinely-inspired Fathers and teachers of the Church and from the apostolic times. After His resurrection Our Lord opened to His disciples the understanding of the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). This understanding continues to be opened to us by the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Thus the treasure of wisdom of the Church is formed; not to use it would be folly. This principle curbs the individual will by placing man face to face with the Church, subordinating him interiorly to the control of tradition, making him responsible, not only as an isolated individual, but also as a member of the Church. In practice, it amounts to this: in obvious cases his conception of certain events or doctrines must not be in disagreement with the fundamental conceptions of the Church; in less obvious cases he is obliged to collate his opinions with what predominates in Church tradition; he must himself seek such verification and agreement. For the spirit which lives in the Church is one — it is the spirit of unity.

This principle by no means excludes a personal feeling toward the Word of God, or the individual effort to understand it. On the contrary, when the individual does not apply himself personally to the Word of God, it remains a closed book. But this individual feeling must not be egotistically individual; it must be full of the "spirit of the Church." We must be, within ourselves, in union with the Church and feel keenly our "sonship" in the unique life of the unique Spirit. If then, we aspire to be connected with Church tradition, this is a natural need springing from free personal feeling; for liberty is not license of free will, but love and concord.

In practice, after having found the testimony of tradition, the exegetist ought to connect his own opinion with such testimony, and to try to place his opinion in the context of interpretation given by the Church. Scientific study also tends to understand each question in connection with its history; in this sense, science also seeks a sort of tradition in history. But, for science, history is rather a succession of events, than a unique manifestation of the spirit which lives in it; it is more the history of errors than a testimony to the truth. And yet the difference in the point of view of the separate communions in regard to tradition is often exaggerated. It is thought that Protestantism denies all tradition because it accepts this only in limited fashion, and denies certain particular traditions — which do not correspond with the tradition of the whole Church. Protestantism began by denying the primacy of the Pope, indulgences, etc., and came at last to reject all tradition. For tradition in regard to one or another question is not expressed in some Church rule obligatory for all, which is the result of a conflict of opinions (like the definitions of the Councils) but includes opinions of great authority and of different shades of meaning, sometimes even contradictory. The differences of exegesis and of method in ecclesiastical writers are too well known to be overlooked. If a guide is sought in tradition, it must be accepted not as an external norm or an order, but as an internal and creative work.

In the Roman Church where the Pope is the supreme authority, there is no place for such an attitude toward tradition, for the meaning of tradition here is that which the Pope attributes to it. Such a state of affairs does not exist in Orthodoxy, and fidelity to tradition expresses itself by the tendency to be in accord with the spirit of the doctrine of the Church.

This fidelity, consequently, does not shut out liberty and the creative spirit, but even presupposes them. It is not a substitute for a personal understanding and by no means does away with such understanding, but only enriches it.

Tradition is not a law; it is not legalistic literalism, it is unity in the spirit, in faith and in truth. It is natural and appropriate to the conscience of the Church, while proud individualism and egocentrism are contrary to the Church's nature and spirit. As Scripture is given to the Church and by the Church, it must be comprehended also in the spirit of the Church, that is in connection with ecclesiastical tradition and not outside it. But the fact remains that God has given us a thought of our own, and that our personal work cannot be done in the past. In other words, ecclesiastical tradition does not put the voice of the past in the place of the voice of the present; in it the past does not kill the present, but gives it full force. That it is necessary to follow ecclesiastical tradition and to seek in it its own individuality, to drink of the source of Church unity, is an axiom of Church consciousness. If the Church is, and if the Word of God is confided to it, it is evident that the perception of truth is given to us as members of the Church and that we, in consequence, ought to preserve the spirit of the Church.

Fidelity to tradition — in that which concerns the divine word — such is the spirit of the Church. It is now time to consider the general dogmatic question: what is tradition?

The tradition of the Church is an exterior, phenomenal manifestation of the interior, noumenal unity of the Church. It must be comprehended as a living force, as the consciousness of one organism, in which all its previous life is included. Thus tradition is uninterrupted and inexhaustible; it is not only the past, but also the present, in which the future lives, as well. We have an image of living tradition in the relationship between Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament is not abrogated, but completed, by the New. Still the Old contains the New within itself in a preparatory form, as its own fulfillment, its own future. And from the Old Testament there stream rays of light into the new age, beyond the Second Coming — light which extends from the Creator to the Fulfillment when He shall be "all in all."

Tradition is not a sort of archaeology, which by its shadows connects the present with the past, nor a law — it is the fact that the life of the Church remains always identical with itself. Tradition receives a "normative" value precisely because of this identity. And as the same spirit dwells in each man living the life of the Church, he is not limited to touching the surface of tradition, but, in so far as he is filled with the spirit of the Church, he enters into it. But the measure of that spirit is also the measure of sanctity. This is why sanctity is an interior norm used to determine what constitutes Church tradition. The light of sanctity thus illuminates tradition.

From an exterior point of view, tradition expresses itself by all that is impregnated with the Spirit of the Church, and in this sense it is inexhaustible. Into the personal conscience of each member of the Church there enters only a drop of that sea, a grain of that treasure. But here, quality matters more than quantity. The timid and trembling light of a candle lighted at the sacred flame preserves that same flame. The candles burning in the temple whose many fights transform themselves into one light, represent Church tradition as diffused in the entire Church.

In the interior life of the Church, its tradition assumes many forms, literary, liturgical, canonical documents, memorials. All the life of the Church at all times in its existence, as far as it is fixed in documents — this is Church tradition.

Tradition is not a book which records a certain moment in the development of the Church and stops itself, but a book always being written by the Church's life. Tradition continues always and now not less than formerly; we live in tradition and create it. And nevertheless the sacred tradition of the past exists for us as present; it lives in our own life and consciousness. Moreover, between the past and the present there is this difference, that the present is for us fluid and without form, still being created, while the tradition of the past is offered to our knowledge under forms already crystallized, accessible to intelligence.

Tradition concerns faith and life, doctrine and piety. Primitive tradition was oral — Our Lord Himself wrote nothing and taught His disciples by word of mouth, and primitive teaching was also oral. But little by little tradition became written. In practice, the Church picks out from the written body of tradition the most essential parts and gives them the force of ecclesiastical law (the Canon), their acceptance and acknowledgment become obligatory for all Christians. Such a minimum of tradition obligatory for all, but by no means exhausting all tradition, the Church has forced from the decisions of the Councils, ecumenical and local, possessing most authority, supreme organs of the ecclesiastical power of an epoch. Such a profession of faith, obligatory for all, is the Nicene Creed recited during the liturgy (to which may be added the Apostles' Creed, which has less value and is not of liturgical use, and especially the Athanasian Creed). Then come the dogmatic definitions of the seven ecumenical councils. Anyone who does not accept this minimum of Church tradition by that fact separates himself from the society of the orthodox. The canons of the ecumenical and local councils, concerning various sides of the life of the Church, are also obligatory. But the value and importance of these practical rules cannot be compared with the dogmatic definitions mentioned above, many among them being the outcome of historic circumstances. Thus certain canons have been simply abrogated by others more recent (something which cannot happen to dogmatic definitions); other canons, without being formally abrogated, are no longer in force. Ceasing to be living tradition in the Church, they enter the domain of history and of archaeology. But it is just upon these ecclesiastical laws which are based upon tradition, that the organization of the Church and the hierarchical order rests. As regards Church services, a ruling also obligatory for all is the so-called Typikon which fixes all the services during the entire ecclesiastical year. But the Typikon, also, does not have the value of the dogmatic canons; its requirements change according to varying conditions of life and place; it is obligatory only in a general manner. In principle the order of service can assume different forms; as happened, for example, before the separation of the Roman-catholic church, when there were two rites — Eastern and Western-and two liturgies, each of equal value, though such differences in regard to dogma were not permitted. And when such a difference appeared in regard to the procession of the Holy Spirit ("filioque"), it led to separation. All the order of the services and the sacraments belongs especially to the domain of Church tradition — written and oral — and both are equally important.

By means of the services certain dogmas of Christian doctrine which have not been declared by the definitions of the ecumenical councils, acquire the force of law. For example: reverence of the Mother of God in Orthodoxy, the doctrine of the Seven Sacraments, the cult of holy images and relics, the teachings about the future life, many things which liturgical tradition suggests for our acceptance, in a manner sometimes more powerful than conciliar decision. Thus the dogmatic definitions of the Councils of Constantinople of the fourteenth century concerning the doctrine of Gregory Palamas about the light on Mt. Tabor are confirmed by the services of the second week of Lent; on the other hand, the definitions of the Councils of Constantinople of the seventeenth century on transubstantiation, which are not confirmed liturgically, have less authority.

The maxim of St. Vincent de Lérins on tradition: "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est" — is often considered as a guiding rule on the subject. Nevertheless, this principle, systematically applied, cannot have the universal importance which is sometimes attributed to it. First, this maxim excludes all possibility of the historic origin of new dogmatic formula (this includes even the pronouncements of the seven ecumenical councils), for they do not agree with the semper of the maxim. So, to demand that tradition should be ecumenical quantitatively — ah omnibus et ubique — does not seem to correspond to the essentials of things, for then local traditions would become impossible (and nevertheless these traditions can, in the course of time, become universal). Besides, it can happen that the truth of the Church is professed not by a majority but by the minority of members (for example, at the time of Arianism). In general the above maxim makes impossible all movement in Church tradition, which is nevertheless movement itself; the life of the Church would be condemned to immobility, and its history would become superfluous and even impertinent. This is why the maxim of Vincent de Lérins, understood formally, does not correspond at all with the whole of the life of the Church. Thus it can be accepted only in a limited and relative sense, in the sense that true dogmas, already proclaimed by the Church as such, are obligatory for all. The point in question here concerns the definitions of the seven ecumenical councils; their denial would be truly in contradiction — ,direct or indirect — with the profession of faith which is the foundation stone of the Church: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." To the maxim of Vincent de Lérins must be added the word ascribed to St. Augustine: "In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas." This latter maxim better expresses the real life of tradition where one part which is certain and already manifest must be distinguished from another part which is not yet so revealed and in that sense doubtful, problematic.

Outside this part of tradition fixed by the Church as lex credendi or lex orandi, or lex canonica or lex ecclesiastica, there remains a vast domain of tradition which has not the same clearness and remains a problem for theological knowledge and science. The monuments of Church tradition are, first of all, ecclesiastical literature in the wide sense of the word; the works of the Apostolic Fathers, the Fathers of the Church, the theologians. Afterwards come liturgical texts, architecture, iconography, ecclesiastical art; finally usage and oral tradition. All this tradition, while produced by the same unique Spirit Who lives in the Church, is at the same time impregnated with historic relativity. On certain points of detail differences, divergences and contradictions are permitted. All these gifts of tradition should be studied, compared, understood. It seems necessary, in depending upon the monuments of tradition, to fix upon what can truly be called the tradition of the Church. The measure of the plenitude of this comprehension may vary. Certain epochs can have a more or less sharp perception of different aspects of the doctrine of the Church. Then, all that preserves the living memory of the Church forms the volume of tradition. The quality of ecclesiastical tradition is the unique life of the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit in all times. The life of tradition consists in the inexhaustible creative work of the Church by which the depths of its knowledge are manifested. Thus Church tradition is the life of the Church in the past which is also the present. It is a divine truth revealed in human words, deeds, and decisions. It is the divine-human body of the Church, living in space and time. Least of all is it an external, obligatory law, which is only a small part of tradition. It is rather an inner law of the Church, arising from its unity.

Is the Church capable of historic development, particularly of dogmatic development? This is the question which presents itself on the subject of Church tradition as history. On the one hand this question is answered by the facts themselves, for it is obvious that dogmas are developed in history and that, in consequence, the Church knows a development of dogma. The primitive Church, in comparison with the epoch of the ecumenical councils, was comparatively adogmatic, and the contemporary Church is richer and more full of dogmatic "content" than the ancient Church. But on the other hand, the Holy Spirit, Who resides in the Church and the eternal life which He gives us, knows neither diminution nor augmentation, and thus the Church is always identical with itself. This arises from the fact that the Church is the union of human and divine life; its substance is invariable in its plenitude and its identity with itself, but its human element lives and develops in time, lives not only with the grace-endowed life of the Church, but also with the life of the world. The leaven of the Kingdom of God is mixed with a dough which ferments according to its own laws. The historical development of the Church consists in a realization of its super-historic content; it is, so to say, a translation of the language of eternity into that of human history, a translation which — notwithstanding the unchangeableness of its content — nevertheless reflects the peculiarities of a given epoch and language; it is a varying form, more or less. adequate, for an invariable content. In this sense it is possible to speak of dogmatic development and just on this account it is equally impossible to speak of stagnation or immobility in the consciousness of the Church.

Dogmatic definitions are made with the means and content of a given epoch and thus these definitions reflect the style and the peculiarities of that epoch. The Christological controversies and the definitions of the ecumenical councils most certainly reflect the spirit of Greek thought. These are, in a certain sense, translations of the fundamental truth of the Church into the Hellenistic tongue. Even contemporary dogmatic controversies, in matters of ecclesiology, for instance, are marked by the spirit of modern times and its philosophy. That is to say, the expression of dogmatic formulae is determined by historic circumstances, so to speak, pragmatically. This does not lessen their significance but merely indicates their connection with the inevitable historic development of the Church. Dogmas arise from the need to understand anew and to re-interpret anew the elements of the experience of the Church. This is why, in principle, new dogmatic definitions will always be possible. In fact, in the thought of the Church, new thoughts and new dogmatic definitions are always ripening, while the unique and divine life of the Church remains always identical with itself, outside of and above history.

Let us distinguish between that part of Church tradition which remains absolutely unchanged and that in which a certain development is possible. The Spirit of God living in the Church never changes, neither does Christ Himself, but on the other hand we must clearly recognize the inevitability of dogmatic development in the revelation of Church consciousness, since certain of its expressions are of purely historical origin and pragmatic in character. This recognition of pragmatism or historism in dogmatic development, and hence in dogmatic forms, in no wise diminishes the significance of dogma. It does not introduce a general historic relativism, according to which dogmas may not only arise, but grow old and die. Relativism relates to forms and not to content. As to the latter, it partakes of the unity and constancy of tradition. It cannot be abrogated, and in this sense, the content of dogma is without fault and, so to speak, absolute. But though content is absolute, form is not, although we should recognize the higher appropriateness of a given form and its content. For instance, Greek philosophy was accepted as the most satisfactory form for the expression of Christology. This pragmatism of form is nevertheless no hindrance to the special divine inspiration which, so the Church holds, is evident in the dogmatic decisions of the ecumenical councils. We should remember that the Word of God has its historic external form, belonging to a definite historical epoch, bearing the marks of that time, yet in no way thereby losing its divine inspiration. On the other hand, we must not identify the dogmatic formula of Church tradition, formula of historic origins, with the Word of God which bears within itself its own absoluteness and eternity. If, for instance, we trace the development in Church literature of the Trinitarian formula, we shall see that some writers, even the most authoritative, give it an approximate and inexact expression, which we can accept only in its historic sense. Of course, in this connection, the dogmatic definitions of the ecumenical councils rise above the rest like mountain-peaks, although even these, for their complete understanding, demand an historical as well as a spiritual commentary.

All Church traditions consists of such relative-absolute, pragmatic, historically-conditioned expressions of the one life of the Church. This means that it must always be historically comprehended in its expression and in its unity, perceived from within. This means, also, that tradition is never completed, but continues such throughout history. Our epoch, our life, in so far as they are in union with the Church, are the continuation of tradition. It results from this, also, that tradition, to be the true tradition of the Church, should be a living tradition. This means we should live it in our lives. To make living tradition, a personal inspiration and an effort of the spiritual life are necessary. Tradition is not something static, but something dynamic; it is lighted at the fire of our enthusiasm. The scribes and the Pharisees of all epochs would transform tradition into dead archaeology, or into an exterior law, into the letter that kills. But the power of tradition is not at all in such a spirit (even in the instances where the law demands that tradition be submitted to): to accept tradition interiorly, to receive it in one's heart — that is what makes the force of tradition. Nothing is more false than the idea, prevalent in the West, of the Eastern Church as the Church of tradition, a church frozen into an immobility of ritualism and traditionalism. If such a spirit exists anywhere, it is only a proof of partial feebleness, of local decadence, it corresponds not at all to the very essence of tradition which is the inexhaustible torrent of the life of the Church, to be understood only by a life of creative effort.

In this sense tradition must be creative; it cannot be otherwise, for the creative effort of our life revives in us all the strength and all the depth of tradition. This act of creation is not personal, individualistic — but it is the act of the Church, a Catholic act, it is the very witness of the Spirit Who lives in the Church.

Infallibility of the Church, then, is not theoretical and abstract; it is not the criterion of knowledge, but is a testimony borne to truth of life, practical truth from which flows the truth of dogma as the object of knowledge. Primum vivere deinde philosophari. In this sense, all the life of the Church is one and the same truth, in spite of differences in its dogmatic formulae. It was the same in the time of primitive Christianity, when all the dogma of the Church was comprised in the profession of faith, and at the time of the ecumenical councils with their rich theology. Heresy is not only a dogmatic error, but a corruption of that true life, from which follows a falling-away from the unity of the Church in dogmatic consciousness, as well. The sufficiency or fullness of Church tradition does not mean that, as something finished, complete, it cannot be added to, but that the doctrine taught by the Church is always sufficient for true life, for salvation. Each epoch of Church history is complete for itself, not defective, feels no need of any additions to enable its life in God. And fullness and infallibility are only other ways of stating the fact that the Church contains the true life, is the pillar and confirmation of the truth. Unity of tradition is established by unity of life, and unity of tradition establishes unity of faith which is witness to the unity of the Church. What connection is there between the profession of faith and all ecclesiastical tradition? The profession of faith is a brief expression of the content of tradition. This expression is made effective by the organs of the Church, the ecclesiastical councils or the organs of Episcopal authority; it takes, then, the power of an ecclesiastical definition; the infallibility and the changelessness inherent in the Church become characteristic of it. How that profession is determined is a question of fact. We have here to elucidate a question of principle, what is the organ of this infallible judgment? Does it exist in the Church? This leads us to study the question of the hierarchy in the Church.

St. Paul (I Cor. 12) develops the thought that the Church is the body of Christ, composed of different members. All these members, while of equal value, like the members of the same body, differ as to their place and function; hence gifts differ, and ministries, but the Spirit is one. In these words St. Paul announces the general principles of the hierarchic and ecclesiastical construction of society. The hierarchical basis, not denying but rather realizing general equality of all, in the presence of natural and spiritual differentiation, is natural to every society with spiritual purposes. All the more, then, is it natural to the society which is the Church. The Orthodox Church was hierarchical in different aspects; the Lord Himself laid the foundations of the hierarchy of the New Alliance, when He called the Twelve Apostles, when He initiated them into the mysteries of His teaching and made them witnesses of His life. Each Apostle was called personally by Our Lord to the apostolic ministry. By this fact each received the apostolic dignity, but, at the same time, the Twelve together formed a certain unity — the assembly of the Apostles-which, after the fall of Judas, was re-established by a new election (Acts 1:15-26). Within the limits of the Twelve Our Lord sometimes made distinctions, choosing three or four Apostles (Peter, James, John and sometimes Andrew) to be present on the Mount of the Transfiguration or at the place of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Their prominence brings a principle of organization into the mutual relationships of the apostolic group, gives a hieratic constitution to the apostolic hierarchy itself, which, in turn, serves as prototype for the hieratic relations between equal bishops. This may be observed again in the distinction of James, Cephas and John, considered as pillars by St. Paul. The constitution of the assembly of the Apostles, in spite of the equality of its members, may be compared to the universal Episcopate: in this, side by side with bishops, there are patriarchs, and among these certain priorities exist, or even a unique priority — priority of honor and not of rank, certainly. Our Lord not only singled out the Apostles by their calling, He especially consecrated them by His priestly prayer (John 17), by sending them the Holy Spirit, by His breath. He gave them power to remit sins (John 20:22). But their real consecration was accomplished by the descent of the Holy Spirit in the shape of tongues of fire, which "rested on each of them" (Acts 2:3).

In the Apostles Our Lord laid the foundation of the hierarchy; to deny this would be to oppose the will of the Lord. Of course the Apostles, by their consecration, did not become equal to or like Our Lord, "vicars of Christ," or substitutes for Christ, neither in the person of St. Peter, nor in the persons of the Twelve taken collectively. Our Lord Himself lives invisibly in the Church, as its head; since His Ascension, He lives in the Church "always, now and forever and to eternity"; the hierarchy of the Apostles did not receive the power to become vicars of Christ, but that of communicating the gifts necessary to the life of the Church. In other words, the apostolic hierarchy was instituted by the power and the will of Christ, but neither in the person of a prime hierarch (the Pope), nor in that of the entire apostolic assembly, does it take the place of Christ on earth. To the hierarchy belongs the authority to be mediators, servants of Christ, from whom they received full power for their ministry.

This ministry consists above all in preaching "as eyewitnesses of the Word," "as witnesses" (Acts 1:8) of the Incarnation; in conferring the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the newly baptized and in ordaining others to perform priestly functions, whatever they may be. In a word, the Apostles were given power to organize the life of the Church, and at the same time they were charismatics who united in themselves the gift of the administration of the sacraments with those of prophecy and of teaching. Associated with the Twelve were other Apostles, not of the same dignity — as it were, inferior. These were the 70 Apostles or disciples spoken of in the Gospel, and the Apostles (other than the Twelve) mentioned in the apostolic epistles. First place here belongs certainly to St. Paul, whose superior dignity, equal to that of the original group, is testified to by himself and recognized by the others. To this same group belong, further, all those who saw the risen Lord (I Cor. 15:5-8), for example, James (de "brother" of Jesus), Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Apollos, Andronicus, and Junius. But this apostolate (see the "Didache" document of the end of the first century) differed essentially from the proto-apostolate, the apostolate of the Twelve, who possessed the plenitude of gifts, who were invested with full power by Christ, and sent by Him to "bear witness."

These twelve Apostles, called by Our Lord, died before the end of the first century. In the East, there remained only the "old man" John, who outlived all the others. Did the power of the apostolic ministry in the Church end after the death of the Apostles? In a certain sense, it did. It ended after its mission was accomplished, after having laid the foundation for the Church of the New Covenant and having preached the Gospel to all the world. The apostolate in the plenitude of its spiritual gifts has not and cannot have personal continuity, and the Roman idea that the Apostle Peter continues to exist, in the person of the Pope, is a heretical invention. The apostolic gifts and powers were personal; Our Lord gave them to the Apostles in calling them by name. Besides, the apostolate is a synthesis of different charismatic gifts, a synthesis which we do not find in any of the hieratic powers of their followers in the apostolic succession. Nevertheless, the Apostles did not leave the world without bequeathing a heritage, a continuation of their ministry. The Apostles transmitted what had to be received by their successors. Outside the personal apostolic dignity, which could not be transmitted, they gave those gifts which belong either to Christians individually or to the Church as a society. They gave to all believers the gifts of grace of the Holy Spirit, which, conferred by the laying-on of hands, make those believers an elect body, a "royal priesthood," a "holy nation" (I Peter 2:9), but they agreed that these gifts should be communicated by means of a hierarchy, instituted by them, whose authority exists by virtue of direct and uninterrupted succession from the Apostles.

After the Apostles the communication of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church became the prerogative of the hierarchy, that is of the episcopate, with its presbyters and deacons. Beginning from the end of the first and the outset of the second centuries, in the works of St. Ignatius, of St. Irenæus of Lyon, of Tertullian, and later, in the third century, in the works of St. Cyprian, the idea is developed that the Church is centered about the bishop, and that the bishop exists by virtue of the apostolic succession, which is a divine institution. In certain cases, examples are indicated of that succession interrupted (as in the sees of Rome, of Ephesus, of Jerusalem). It is impossible to state, historically, the place, the time and the manner of the institution by the Apostles of the hierarchy in its present form, that is in the three orders: bishops, presbyters, deacons. The documents of the beginning of the first century are silent on this point. Or indeed, if we find suggestions about the hieratic dignities it is evident that the orders there have another meaning than that of our day, or that the distinction and the correlation between the three degrees, very clear today, at that time lacked precision (Acts 20:17-28; Titus 1:5-7; I Tim. 3:2, 5, 7; I Peter 5:1). In any case, if we find in the writings of the Apostles indications about bishops and presbyters, these indications cannot be considered direct proofs of the existence of the three degrees of priesthood in the sense we give them now.

To prove that in the first century there existed a hierarchy with three orders, in the sense accepted today, is hardly possible, and scarcely necessary. The picture given in I Cor. 12:14 corresponds rather with a life not yet well organized, but rich in inspiration and characterized by a diffusion of spiritual gifts. The charismatics naturally found leadership and direction in the Apostles. Doubtless also the Apostles instituted, by the imposition of hands, leaders among the groups, who were named bishops or presbyters, or angels of the Church (Apocalypse), not to mention ministers and deacons. What is indisputable is the presence of the hierarchy about the Apostles, by the side of the Apostles, and it cannot be admitted that the formation of that hierarchy is the result only of a natural development of communal organization and that it was not also the realization of the direct will of Our Lord. In this connection we note that in Asia Minor (Epistle of St. Ignatius) and in Rome (Epistles of Pope Clement, work of St. Irenæus) towards the beginning of the second century, there existed a "monarchical" episcopate; that is, local churches having as heads bishops, as sole true charismatics, about whom presbyters and deacons are gathered. At that period the dogmatic expression of this system is still unstable and intermittent (as in the epistle of St. Ignatius the "Théophore"), but the custom, as well as the consciousness of it, is already present.

This transition from an unordered general "charismatism" to a closed clergy with an episcopate at its head remains a puzzle for the historian. It is sometimes understood by Protestants to have been a sort of spiritual catastrophe or general falling into sin, as a result of which amorphous communities everywhere became infected with institutionalism, adopted the forms of the organization of the State, and thus gave rise to "ecclesiastical law." This is an instance of the lack of feeling, so characteristic of Protestantism, for the oneness of the Church and its tradition, because of which much apparent difficulty and uncertainty arise. This leads to the idea that inwardly there is a break between the first and second centuries, an idea which leads to an absurdity — namely, that the Church could continue its existence in the true sense, free from hierarchical organization, only a few decades, after which the Church suddenly became afflicted with the hierarchic leprosy, and for 1,500 years ceased to be itself, until, suddenly, the Church was "healed" of this ailment and again became sound in anti-hierarchical Protestantism.

The hierarchy, in Episcopal form, with presbyters and deacons dependent on it, responds to a natural necessity in the Church. Nothing is more natural than the need for such an hierarchy. The grace of the Holy Spirit given to the Church is not a personal, subjective inspiration of one or another person, which may exist or not; it is rather an objective fact in the life of the Church, it is the power of an universal Pentecost continuously active. The tongues of fire of Pentecost, sent down on the Apostles, live in the world and are communicated by the Apostles to their successors. The assembly of the Apostles was the hieratic receptacle and the tongues of fire the method of transmission of the gifts of grace of the Church. In view of this, the charismatic succession of the Apostles became necessary and inevitable. But this had to happen in a well defined manner, valid for all, and not accidental; that is, by the regular succession of the hierarchy, which — to put it in terms of sacramental theology — must operate not "opere operantis" but "opere operato." A form for this succession, prepared and instituted by God, was in existence: that of the priest of Old Testament, which, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, was the prototype of the priesthood of the New Testament. Nevertheless, this latter was not simply a continuation of the old. It was a new creation proceeding from the great High Priest, not after the order of Aaron, but after that of Melchisedec. This High Priest is Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who sacrifices to the Father not the blood of lambs, but His own blood, at once the priest and the sacrifice. The presence of Christ on earth naturally rendered superfluous and impossible the existence of a hierarchy outside Himself, but the formation of a hierarchy is also impossible without Our Lord, without His command. And the Apostles, as proto-hierarchs, transmitted to their successors their hieratic powers, but certainly not their personal gifts, in full plenitude.

We cannot affirm that the Apostles instituted this succession immediately, but the fact of such institution cannot be denied. After some fluctuations in terminology, the hierarchy was sell defined in the second century, after the type of the priesthood of the Old Testament; yet always with a difference. For the Church which lives in the unity of tradition, the institution of the apostolic succession of the hierarchy is axiomatic. Tradition remains the same, always possessed of the same power, whether a certain form or institution appears in the first or the second or the twentieth century, if only the new form contains, not a denial, but a completion of what has previously been contained in the substance of tradition. The destruction or the denial of the content of tradition of the Church is a break and a spiritual catastrophe which impoverishes and deforms the life of a Christian group by taking from it the fullness of its inheritance.

Such is the effect of the abolition of the apostolic succession in Protestantism. It has deprived the Protestant world of the gifts of Pentecost, transmitted in the Sacraments and the cult of the Church by the hierarchy, which received its power from the Apostles and their successors. The Protestant world thus became like Christians who, although baptized "in the name of the Lord Jesus," have not received the Holy Spirit transmitted by the hands of the Apostles (Acts 19:5-6).

The fact of Apostolic succession, and the continuity of the laying on of hands, which cannot be disputed, especially from the beginning of the second century, is in itself sufficient evidence of its divine institution. This applies equally to the Eastern and the Western Churches. Of course, this laying-on of hands is not to be conceived as some form of magic, and the priesthood is valid only in union with the Church. The fact that all Orthodox Christians possess grace and that in a certain sense a universal priesthood exists, in no way contradicts the existence of a special priesthood, the hierarchy. The universal priesthood is not only compatible with the hierarchy, but is even a condition of the existence of the latter. For certainly the hierarchy cannot come into being and continue in a society deprived of grace; on the contrary, in such societies the hierarchy loses its power, as is the case in groups become entirely heretical or schismatic. But both gifts and ministries vary. While there may be different degrees of priesthood in the limits of the same hierarchy, there ought to be a difference between the hierarchy and the laity, even granted a universal priesthood. The election by communal choice, while a preliminary condition, is entirely compatible with the decisive value of the laying-on of hands by Bishops. Human will and choice cannot alone take the place of the divine act of imposition. And the officer elected by the group does not by that election become either a hierarch or a charismatic. The hierarchy is the only charismatic ministry of the Church having permanent value; it takes the place of a vanished special "charismatism." Generally speaking, this is the explanation of the historic fact that the unregulated charismatism of the primitive Church was replaced in the time of the Apostles by the apostolic succession.

The hierarchy must be understood as a regular, legal charismatism for a special purpose. Partly for the mystical transmission of the gifts of grace, the succession of life in grace. As a result of this regulation, bound up with the external fact of the hierarchical succession, the hierarchy, not losing its charismatism, becomes an institution, and thus into the life of the Church is introduced institutionalism, canonical law. But this institutionalism is of a very special nature, of which we must here take account.

Above all, and this is the most essential thing, the hierarchy is the power for administering the sacraments; consequently the hierarchy carries in itself that mysterious power, superhuman and supernatural. According to the testimony of ancient writings (Apostolic Fathers such as St. Ignatius the Théophore) the bishop is he who celebrates the Eucharist, and only the Eucharist celebrated by a bishop is valid. The sacrament of the breaking of bread occupied at once the most important place in the Christian life; it became the organizing force in the Church and especially for the hierarchy. After Pentecost, the believers "persevered in the doctrine of the Apostles, in the breaking of bread and in prayer" (Acts 2:42). The central significance of the Eucharist in the life of the Church is attested by many documents of the first and second centuries. It was natural that, at first, the Eucharist should be celebrated by the Apostles, also by the charismatics (prophets of the Didache) instituted by the Apostles. But in post-apostolic times the administration of the sacrament of the Body and Blood fell to bishops alone. Little by little, in the usage of the Church, other sacraments were joined to the first. Then the hierarchy, that is the bishops and the clergy dependent on them, immediately joined together for the administering of the sacraments as a consequence of the sacramental "charismatism." This latter, being the foundation of the mystic life, of the life of grace in the Church, had to have permanent representatives. The bishop, possessed of the fullness of charismatic power, naturally and inevitably became the centre around whom revolved all the ecclesiastical community, which depended essentially upon him.

It is thus easy to understand the logic of Christian thought of the first centuries, from St. Ignatius to St. Cyprian. According to them, "episcopum in ecclesia esse et ecclesiam in episcopo." From this general charismatic foundation there came, later in the history of the Church, the development of canonical law which defined the rights of the bishops, and still later the relations among the bishops. In the course of the centuries, local and ecumenical councils regulated these mutual relations, which give evidence of the complexity of the situation at that time. The essential point is that the bishops, notwithstanding administrative differences due to circumstances, are entirely equal from the charismatic viewpoint: among them there never was a super-bishop, "episcopus episcoporum," never a pope.

To appreciate properly the nature of the Episcopal authority we must bear in mind its special features, arising from the nature of communion in the Church. It must be noted that in spite of its being often labeled "monarchical," the authority of the Church is of quite a different nature from that of the state. It is a spiritual authority, which is above all a form of service (Luke 22:26). In the use of his power the bishop works with the Church, but never above the Church, which is a spiritual organism, one of love. Agreement with the Church, and union with it, is the very condition of the existence of the bishop. This union cannot be expressed in terms of constitutional right, such as those of democracy or of limited monarchical power, because these categories of right are not applicable here. If the Church law has authority at all, it is always an authority sui generis. The Episcopal power may be even more absolute than that of an absolute monarch and still remain entirely latent and diffused in the union of the bishop with his people.

The example of the Church in Jerusalem, its relations with the Apostles, as the first bishops, serves as a guiding rule in this connection. Notwithstanding all the plenitude of their power, really "super-episcopal" (for over and above the plenitude of Episcopal power they had also full apostolic authority personally), the Apostles decided all essential questions in union with the people (see Acts 1:15-26; 6:2-6; 11:23; 15:6, 25). And if history tells us that the ecumenical as well as many local councils were usually composed of bishops alone, this fact should not be interpreted as a new canon law abrogating the council of the Apostles and giving to the rank of bishop, as such, power over the Christians, valid without their participation. This fact must be understood not as an expression of the power of the bishops over the Church, but rather as a representation by the bishops of the churches of which they are the heads and with which they remain united. That the "elders and the brothers" of the council of Jerusalem were not actually present at all subsequent councils was the result of practical considerations or technical convenience. As a matter of fact, the all-Russian Council in Moscow, 1917-18, consisted of diocesan bishops, together with their flocks, priests and laymen. Thus organized, the council of Moscow followed more exactly than the ecumenical councils the canon law of Jerusalem. The difficulties of travel, due to contemporary means of communication, sufficiently explain the solely hierarchic composition of the councils. It may also be held that the people of the Church were represented by the Emperor and his functionaries.

It is true that in Roman Catholicism the presence of bishops alone has become a general rule, for the hierarchy has been understood rather as authority over the Church, a power of which the Pope-monarch is the head. But we do not know, in the history of apostolic times, one single instance of the Apostles having acted as a personal authority over the Church, independent of it. As to the personal gifts of the Apostles -for example, that of performing miracles — these were not allied to their prerogatives as representatives of ecclesiastical power, but belonged to them as one of the "gifts" of their apostolic ministry. This is why, up to the present time, the people of the Church have the right to a voice in the choice of bishops; the people join even in ordination, when performed by bishops, for, at a certain moment, the people must announce if the elect is worthy — "αξιος” — or unworthy. "Let no one be ordained," wrote Pope Leo the Great, "contrary to the consent and will of the people, for fear lest the people, having been forced, begin to hate and to despise the undesirable bishop" (Epist. ad Anast. 84).

To understand thoroughly the hieratic principle of the Church, we must think not only of the unquestionable prerogatives of the hierarchy, but also of those, no less unquestionable, of the laity. The laity are not merely passive subjects with their only obligation that of obeying the hierarchy; they are not in any way vessels empty of "charism" to be filled by the hierarchy. The lay state should be considered as a sacred dignity; the name Christian has made "a people of God, a royal priesthood." The significance of this idea, although it is sometimes exaggerated in Protestantism, even to the complete denial of the hierarchy, must never be minimized. As a Christian having received baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit through anointing, which may be conceived as a sort of ordination to the calling of Christian, the, laity is also charismatic, though in a limited sense, especially in connection with the celebration of the liturgy and the administration of the sacraments. They can, in case of need, administer baptism. Finally, in the sacraments whose administration is reserved to priests alone, particularly the Eucharist, even here the laity have a certain share; the priest, strictly speaking, cannot complete the sacrament alone, without the people. In other words, he administers the sacraments with the people, and the laity are co-administrators with him. In the spiritual organism which is the Church everything takes place in the unity of love, and not one organ can exist without the others. Nonne et laici sacerdotes sumus? Up to a certain point the words of Tertullian are applicable here.

Although the New Testament has no direct instances of the hierarchy in its now accepted three degrees, deacons, priests and bishops, yet on the other hand there is no evidence of a completely unorganized administration of the sacraments: this function seems always to belong either to the Apostles or to other individuals specially appointed. The hierarchy, in direct succession from the Apostles, and the One Who appointed them, is Christ Himself, acting in the Church. There can be no greater misfortune in the Church than that great movement beginning in the sixteenth century, by which whole congregations, whole nations, deprived themselves of the hierarchy. This is a deep sorrow of the Church today, and we must all pray for a time when our Protestant brothers should again seek and again receive a hierarchy.

Protestants find an opposition between prophecy and institutionalism. They think that the hieratic principle is antagonistic to the gift of prophecy which abounds in the Church when the hierarchy is eliminated. This opposition, which is justified in a certain degree by the excesses of Romanism, rests on a fundamental misunderstanding. In the beginning, at the time of the Apostles and in the primitive Church, different gifts existed, among them that of prophecy. St. Paul encouraged this: "I wish . . . that you might prophesy" . . . "aspire to the gift of prophecy" (I Cor. 14:5, 39). On the one hand the Apostle wished to safeguard prophecy for fear it would be extinguished ("Quench not the spirit, despise not prophecy"), but at the same time, he develops the idea of a body with divers members. And although prophecy was widespread in the Church in Apostolic times, it was not opposed to the "institutionalism" of the Episcopate, the presbyteriate and the diaconate, which we find existing in the Apostolic epistles and in the Acts.

The hieratic principle has as much value for the Church as that of prophecy. The acquisition of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the end of the Christian life, according to the definition of St. Seraphim, the greatest Russian saint of the nineteenth century. The first Christian preaching of St. Peter contained the prophetic words of Joel, applied to the Christian Church: "I will fill with my spirit every creature, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" (Acts 2:17), and that Pentecostal word is always to be heard in the Church. The Orthodox Church repeats here the words of Moses: "Would that all Jehovah's people were prophets" (Num. 11:29). But this idea of general prophecy, the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, which the Church encourages, may become an illusory pretension when it denies the hierarchy in the name of a universal priesthood; prophecy then transforms itself into a pseudo-prophetic excitement. This latter was overcome in the Church in "montanism," and the Church continues to prevail over all such successive heresies. Such an error leads, besides, to a ritual officialdom, devoid of grace, as in the case of ministers elected but not consecrated, who claim to replace the divinely instituted hierarchy. They pretend to concentrate in themselves the general gift of prophecy, thus depriving their flock of it. Is this not "institutionalism," bureaucratic instead of hierarchic, when the latter is eliminated by the former?

The priestly service, as a charismatic mediation, cannot be merely mechanical or magical: it presupposes the spiritual participation of the person who serves as a living mediator. In acting as mediator between God and man in the sacrament, in causing the descent of the Holy Spirit, the priest makes himself the instrument of that descent; he renounces his own individuality, he dies with the victim, he is at the same time sacrificed and sacrificer, he who offers and that which is offered" in the image of Christ, the High Priest. This death is renunciation of self; the minister of the hierarchy is the minister of love. The connection between the clergy and the laity does not consist in the authority of the former over the latter, but in their mutual love. The pastors receive the special gift of compassionate love. The sufferings and the faults of others become theirs. They care for souls in applying to them acts of love and of pardon, as well as the corrections of discipline. The clergy are charged with an especial responsibility toward their flocks, a responsibility non-existent for the laity; the latter repay their pastors by loving and honoring them. The flock groups itself naturally around the shepherds, and the Church is thus composed of hieratically organized communities.

The hierarchy is a sort of skeleton of the body of the Church. Certainly if at any time there appears in the Church a manifestation of the Spirit and its power — through any man whatsoever — all ecclesiastical society relates itself to this "prophetic" minister, pastors and flocks, regardless of hieratic difference, follow the prophet. The personal authority of St. Seraphim of Sarov, or of Father John of Kronstadt, or of the "startsi" (elders) of the monastery of Optina (Fr. Ambrose and others), was greater than that of any hierarch. But this authority never encroached upon the prerogatives of the hierarchy. It kept within its limitations and by no means abolished them. This fact confirms once more the compatibility between prophecy and hierarchy.

The duties of the shepherd include the duty of instruction in the Church. This duty is joined so naturally to the priesthood that it would seem strange to have it otherwise. Not only the reading but also the preaching of the word of God, direct instruction, form part of the pastoral ministry. The words of the pastor, independent of their greater or less value, have an importance deriving from the place and time where they are spoken, for they form a part of the divine service. In this role of doctor of the Church the pastor can neither be replaced nor supplanted.

But the duties of the doctor are not limited to preaching in the temple. Hence the right and the duty of the hierarchy to preserve intact the teaching transmitted by the Church, protecting it from deformation and announcing to believers the basis of true doctrine. The maintenance of this basis is assured by various appropriate measures, belonging to the ecclesiastical calling; even to excommunication. Within the limits of his diocese, the bishop guards the purity of the doctrines taught and pronounced; the council of bishops of a regional Church, or even, in cases of more general importance, the council of bishops of the ecumenical Church, define ecclesiastical truth which has been obscured or has never been made clear in the mind of the Church.

If it is remembered that priests must not only preach in the temple but teach elsewhere, then the general question arises concerning the nature of that teaching, in so far as it belongs to the hierarchy alone. Here enters the question of infallibility. In the Church there are shepherds and the flock; there are then two parts, those who teach and those who are taught. The teaching authority of the Church cannot be diminished with impunity. But this does not at all mean that all teaching belongs to the pastors and that the laity are entirely without this function, having only the duty of passive acceptance of doctrines taught. Such a point of view, which sharply divides ecclesiastical society into two parts, the active and the passive, does not agree with the true inwardness of Christianity, and we must contrast this idea with that of the universal priesthood, of the anointing of the people of God. It is to the people, to all believers.

If the administration of the sacraments, if, especially, the imposition of hands was the prerogative of the Apostles (and later of the hierarchy instituted by them) the preaching of the Gospel was to a certain degree considered the duty of all believers, for every believer is called by Our Lord Himself to confess (and thus to preach) before men (Math. 10:32-3; Luke 18:9). And truly we see that the preaching of Christ was the work, from the beginning, not only of the Apostles, but of believers in general (Acts 6:5; 8:5-36); and not only by men, but also by women of whom some were glorified by the Church as equal to the Apostles because of their preaching of the Gospel (St. Mary Magdalene, St. Nina, apostle of Georgia, St. Thecla the Martyr, and others). The Christian mission is not limited to the hierarchy, but is the duty of each Christian, who says "I believe and I confess," and who, in so doing, becomes a preacher. The great deeds of the martyrs, who confessed their faith, are the best sermons.

If, further, we consider preaching, not only among unbelievers, but among Christians, we find in Scripture numerous witnesses to the active role of the laity. Note also that the Scriptures do not know the word "laity," but that the New Testament calls Christians simply "believers," "disciples," "brothers," etc. The laity then share in the gift of teaching, thus proving the existence of a special gift of teaching (James 5:19-20; I Thess. 5:11; Hebrews 3:13; Gal. 6:1; I Cor. 14:26; Col. 3:16; I Tim. 1:7, 3:2, 17; I Peter 4:10-11). But if the laity have not the right to preach during services (as they have not the power to celebrate the mysteries during which the word is preached) they are not deprived of the right to preach apart from the service, and, still more, to preach outside the temple. A certain limitation of the right of the laity to preach was introduced for practical and disciplinary reasons, but not at all because of charismatic inferiority, or of the incompatibility of the right of preaching with the status of the laity. In the Church there is no place for speechlessness and for blind obedience, as the Apostle says in Gal. 5:1.

But, if this is true of the work of edification in the Church, still less can the laity be denied the right to scientific study of doctrinal problems, or even to be theologians. At all events in our day, by the very force of circumstance, such occupation is equivalent to teaching. The exercise of this right may be regulated by the hierarchy, but not abolished. Theological thought is the conscience of the Church; it is its very breath of life which cannot be controlled externally. Besides the general grace given to Christians by the Holy Spirit, there can be a special election, formerly termed the prophetic ministry, which must not be overlooked. Because of a certain timidity and the difficulty of recognizing this election, it is seldom designated as prophecy; but certainly the springs of this gift in the Church have not dried up.

In our time the terms "prophet" and "prophecy" have become rather literary epithets. But these words ought to express our religious conviction that prophecy has not ceased and cannot cease in the Church. The Apostle expressly forbade the scorning of prophecies and the extinction of the spirit (I Thess. 5:19-20). But the spirit bloweth where it listeth; the gift of prophecy by the Holy Spirit is not connected with the hieratic ministry, though it may be united with it. It is true that discrimination between spirits and the recognition of authentic prophecy is a difficult task for the Church, for there is always the danger of error. Hence the Apostle Paul says: "Prove all things and hold to that which is good" (I Thess. 5:21). Nevertheless he himself warns us not to quench the spirit. Such an extinction would occur if the laity were forbidden to be theologians. To be sincere one must be free; freedom does not mean "free thought" but freedom of thought; it is neither simple ignorance of traditional ecclesiastical doctrine nor license. Freedom is a true and personal inspiration, penetration into the depth of what is crystallized in the Church, a desire to make real the experience of the Church in the realm of personal feeling and thought. This latter corresponds with fundamental reality, for the tradition of the Church is also personal experience realized in individuals. This domain of free inspiration in the Church, and also that of scientific study, is preferably the domain of "prophecy." But this domain is not the exclusive privilege of the hierarchy. It belongs to the Church.

Does any member of the Church possess of himself personal infallibility in his judgment of dogma? No, he does not — even when he speaks "ex cathedra." Every member, every hierarch of the Church is liable to error and to the introduction of his own limitations. The history of the Church bears witness in this regard that no hieratic position, however exalted, secures one against the danger of error. There were heretic popes (Liberius and Honorius), not to mention the frequent divergencies of ideas between certain popes, implying certainly that one or the other was wrong. There have been patriarchs (of Constantinople and Alexandria), bishops, priests and laity, who were condemned as heretics. No one can pretend to personal infallibility in theological matters, and such infallibility attaches to no single office. This holds for all hierarchs taken separately, and even as a whole — when they are subject to external pressures.

The ecclesiastical authors, St. Ignatius the Théophore, St. Irenæus, St. Cyprian, admonish believers to gather around their bishops, and the teaching of the bishop is considered the norm of the truth of the Church, the criterion of tradition. This special authority of judgment, allied to his office, belongs to a bishop as such, and even more rightly to the head of a particular Church, joined with him in unity of life and grace, of love and thought. The bishop who confesses the faith, in the name of his Church and as its mouthpiece, is joined with it in union of love and in conformity of thought, in the spirit of the words preceding the recitation of the creed in the Orthodox liturgy: "Let us love one another that we may in the same spirit confess . . ." In other words, the right to voice the doctrine of the Church belongs to the bishop, as someone not above but in the community of which he is the head. In the same way the assembly of bishops, the Episcopate of a church ecumenical or local, united in special council, or living in union and in connection, either by correspondence or by means of intermediaries, does not possess the necessary supreme authority to expound doctrine except in union with the Church and in harmony with it. The Episcopate neither legislates for, nor commands the Church independently of that organization, but is its specially endowed representative. The authority of the bishop is fundamentally the authority of the Church; as the latter is constituted hierarchically it expresses itself by the mouth of the episcopate.

Since the episcopate are the final authority for the administration of the sacraments, it is clear that their doctrinal decisions have sacramental authority. These decisions are canons or ecclesiastical laws which must be obeyed, since the Church must be obeyed. Thus it follows that the hierarchy, represented by the episcopate, becomes a sort of external doctrinal authority which regulates and defines the dogmatic teaching of the Church. Certainly such doctrinal definitions by a hierarch or by the whole episcopate invested with ecclesiastical authority must be distinguished from personal theological opinions of some bishops, considered as private theologians or authors. These private opinions are by no means obligatory for their flocks. These opinions vary with the personal capacities of their authors. Only those acts done in accordance with the pastoral ministry have the force of law for the flock.

Inasmuch as the Church is a unity of faith and belief, bound together by the hierarchic succession, it must have its doctrinal definitions supported by the whole power of the Church. In the process of determining these truths the episcopate gets together with the laity, and appears as representative of the latter. Hence the authority of the bishops to announce doctrinal truths and demand adherence to them.

According to the Ruman-catholic teaching, truth is held to be a sort of external knowledge belonging only to one person, the Pope, and communicated by him to others. Here we have a clear division of the Church into the teachers and the taught, which is directly opposed to the words of the Savior to His disciples, among whom was Peter. "But be ye not called teachers for one is your teacher . . . the Christ" (Matt. 23:8-10).

Whatever the organ of ecclesiastical infallibility which announces dogmatic truth to the Church, whether it be individual or collective, it equally deprives the Church of the general gift of teaching and of integral infallibility. Our Lord spoke only of Himself as pastor of the sheep. This means that the Church, the body of Christ, has Christ as its head. He is the Truth, and the Church is the support of the Truth. In relation to Him, the Church can have only a passive being, the "flock of Christ." It is vain for the bishops of Rome to attribute to themselves the power of Christ over the Church. As "successor" of Peter, the Pope wishes to be the vicar of Christ on earth, but Christ left no vicar after Him. He lives, Himself, in the Church, "now, always and forever." The Church is infallible as such, in its being as a Church. Each member of the Church, inasmuch as he shares in the life of the Church, lives in the truth; this is why infallibility belongs to the whole Church. "With us the guardian of piety is the very body of the Church, that is, the people themselves, who will always preserve their faith unchanged" (Epistle of the Eastern patriarchs, 1849).

It is unthinkable that the mind of the Church, its very conscience, should belong to one only among its members, to a hierarch placed above the body of the Church and announcing to it the truth. A hierarchy placed above the people, that is, outside them, separated from them, is no more capable of proclaiming the truth of the Church, than the people separated from the hierarchy or than a single individual. In this separation from the Church and this opposition to it (ex sese) the hierarchy would be outside the Church and deprived of its spirit, for this spirit is union in love, and truth in the Church is given only in the measure of that unity. The pretension of the Pope to be the voice of the truth destroys the unity of the Church; it puts the Pope in the place of the Church; "l'église c'est moi."

The same is true of the hierarchy considered as the collective episcopate. A guiding dogmatic principle is offered here by the Jerusalem council of the Apostles from whom the hierarchy, in the measure of their service, continue the succession. Strictly speaking, the succession of gifts of the Holy Spirit, given to the Church at the time of Pentecost and descending by the Apostles and their followers, extends to the whole Church. We see this exemplified in the Council of Jerusalem where there were assembled "the Apostles and with them the elders," that is, the older members of the community, people devoid of hieratic character. "Apostles and elders and brothers" (Acts 15:23), that is proto-hierarchs, the holy Apostles, in union with elders and brothers, decided and gave their pronouncements together. The fact is significant, for here is exemplified all the positive force of the unity of the Church, and, in accordance with that union, the assembly proclaimed: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28), in other words, to the Holy Spirit which lives in us.

Hence the question of an single organ of infallibility in the Church is erroneous: the idea of the Church — a spiritual organism whose life is unity in love — is replaced by the principle of a concentrated spiritual power. This is heresy!

Here we touch the very essence of the Orthodox doctrine of the Church. All the power of Orthodox ecclesiology is concentrated on this point. Without understanding this question it is impossible to understand Orthodoxy; it becomes an eclectic compromise, a middle way between the Roman and Protestant viewpoints. The soul of Orthodoxy is sobórnost according to the perfect definition of Khomiakov; in this one word of his there is contained a whole confession of faith. Russian ecclesiastical language and theology use this term in a large sense which no other language possesses; by it is expressed the power and the spirit of the Orthodox Church.

What then is sobórnost?

The word is derived from the verb "sobirat," to reunite, to assemble. From this comes the word "sobor," which, by a remarkable coincidence, means both "council" and "cathedral." Sobornost is the state of being together. The Slavonic text of the Nicene creed translates the epithet καθολική, when applied to the Church, as "sobórnaia," an adjective which may be understood in two ways, each equally exact. To believe in a "sobórnaia" church is to believe in a Catholic Church, in the original sense of the word, in a Church that assembles and unites: it is also to believe in a conciliar Church in the sense Orthodoxy gives to the term, that is in a Church of the ecumenical councils, as opposed to a purely monarchical ecclesiology. To translate "sobórnost," I have ventured to use the French word "conciliarité, which must be used both in a restricted sense (the Church of the Councils) and in a larger sense (the Church Catholic, ecumenical). Sobórnost may also be translated as "harmony," "unanimity." Orthodoxy, says Khomiakov, is opposed both to authoritarianism and to individualism, it is a unanimity, a synthesis of authority. It is the liberty in love which unites believers. The word "sobórnost" expresses all that.

This term evokes the ideas of catholicity and of ecumenicity, ideas connected but distinct. Ecumenicity means that the Church includes all peoples and all parts of the earth. This is the meaning that Roman Catholics generally give to the word "catholicity." A rather quantitative conception of catholicity (universal diffusion) has predominated in the West since Optat de Miletus (De schism. donat II, 2) and especially since Augustine (De unit. eccles. 2).

In the East, on the contrary, catholicity is understood in a sense rather qualitative (cf. Clement of Alexandria, Strom., vii. 17, and above all St. Ignatius: "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Smyrn. 8). Catholicity or sobórnost may be defined qualitatively. That corresponds to the true meaning of this concept in the history of philosophy, notably according to Aristotle, where τς kαθ’oλον means “that which is common,” while τς kαθ’ekαστον, means, "that which exists as a particular phenomenon." Here is a "Platonic" idea, according to Aristotle, an idea which exists, not at all above things, or, in a certain sense, before things (as in Plato), but in things, as their foundation and their truth. In this sense the Catholic Church means that which is in the truth, which shares the truth, which lives the true life. Then the definition τς kαθ’oλον, that is, "agreeing with all," "in entirety," shows in what this truth consists. It consists in the union of all (oλον) in one faith and in one tradition.

In "sobórnost" understood as "catholicity" each member of the Church, equally with the assembly of the members, lives in union with the entire Church, with the Church invisible, which is itself an uninterrupted union with the Church visible and forms its foundation. Then the idea of catholicity, in this sense, is turned inward and not outward. And each member of the Church is "Catholic" inasmuch as he is in union with the Church invisible, in the truth. Both the anchorite and those who live in the midst of the world, the elect who remain faithful to the truth in the midst of irreligion and general heresy, may be "Catholic." In this sense catholicity is the mystic and metaphysical depth of the Church and not at all its outward diffusion. Catholicity has neither external, geographical attributes, nor empirical manifestations. It is perceived by the spirit which lives in the Church and which searches our hearts. But it must be connected with the empirical world, with the Church visible. Catholicity is also conciliarity, in the sense of active accord, a participation in the integral life of the Church, in holding the original truth.

But why is catholicity, in the sense of external Ecumenicity, most often indicated as among the attributes of the true Church by the some Fathers like St. Cyprian and St. Augustine? They affirm that the Church is not limited to one place or one nation, but that it is everywhere and for all peoples; it is not the Church of a narrow circle, a sect, but it is the Church for all humanity. There is a direct and positive relation between catholicity in the external sense and ecumenicity, the same relation as between the idea and the manifestation — noumenon and phenomenon. The things which are most profound and most interior are just those which belong to all men, for they reunite humanity, which is divided. These things have a tendency to spread as fully and largely as possible, although this is hindered by opposing forces: sin, common to humanity, and temptation. Certainly, as both the words of Our Lord Himself and other eschatological indications in the Bible tell us, only the elect will remain faithful in the latter days in the midst of temptations ("and if these days are not shortened, no creature will be saved").

There are, then, many positive reasons why the universal truth should become the truth for all, but because of negative factors opposing that universality, the truth is realized only in limited fashion. Thus a quantitative criterion, only, of truth is insufficient, and the rule of Vincent of Lérins: quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est is more an ideal than a reality; it is difficult to find a single epoch in the history of the Church when this principle was completely realized.

Ecumenicity, like the truth, like catholicity, is not dependent upon the quantitative, for "where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them."

Integral conciliarity is not quantity but quality; it is partic