For a Christian, there is no matter more important than the salvation of the soul. From the Word of God we know that only those who believe in Christ and are cleansed by His Blood from sin—those who live the sacramental life of the Church—can be saved. Holy Scripture also states clearly that those who remain in heresy shall not inherit the Kingdom of God (Gal. 5:20). Heresy is the distortion of truth. The doctrine concerning the Church of God is inseparable from the doctrine concerning Christ Himself, just as Christ is inseparable from His Body—which the Bible explicitly calls “the Church.”
Dozens of times I have met with Protestants to discuss the question, “What does the Bible say about the Church?” And almost as many times I have encountered their avoidance of this very topic—their shifting to other subjects and unwillingness to discuss it based on Sacred Scripture. Why does this happen? The answer is simple: one cannot argue against the Bible, which speaks of one continuous, indestructible Church founded nearly twenty centuries ago. I sincerely desire salvation for all Protestants, which they may attain by renouncing error and entering the Body of Christ—His Church—through Holy Baptism.
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1. False Love for Christ
Protestants often claim they love Christ Himself, and therefore the question of the Church is not so important to them. Yet Holy Scripture explicitly identifies the Church as the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24). How can they simultaneously claim to love Christ while remaining indifferent to His Body?
The Apostle Paul compares a husband’s love for his wife to Christ’s love for the Church: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church” (Eph. 5:25, 28–29).
Can a husband truly love his wife while despising or ignoring her flesh, which is meant to be united with his own? Certainly not. Likewise, if someone who calls himself a “Christian” claims to love Christ yet shows no interest whatsoever in His Body—the One, Apostolic, Orthodox Church—he reveals either: (1) indifference toward Christ, or (2) belief in an invented, unbiblical christ devoid of a mystical Body.
A loving husband cannot be indifferent to his wife’s body. A true lover of Christ cannot be indifferent to His Body. Protestants may protest, “We do care!”—yet when invited to discuss, based on Scripture, what the Church of Christ actually is, where she is today, and who belongs to her, they quickly change the subject and reiterate, “We love Christ!” And when asked to demonstrate from the Bible how Protestantism—emerging only in the 16th century and thereafter—can possibly belong to the Body of Christ, they usually offer no answer at all, or politely take their leave. Such is their “love” for Christ and for that which is inseparably united to Him.
Orthodox Christians believe in the Christ who inseparably abides in His mystical Body—the Church—which has definite boundaries (for without boundaries, it would not be called a “body”). Protestants believe in a bodiless christ, or perhaps in some amorphous “body” that plays no essential role in human salvation. Can this truly be called faith in the same Christ?
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2. The Saving Blood of Christ
The Word of God does not call the Church “Body” by accident. This helps the truth-seeking person understand certain realities. For example, a body remains alive only while blood circulates within it. If blood departs, the body becomes lifeless. So it is with the Church. She was purchased by the Blood of Christ: “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). By His Blood she is sanctified even today: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy” (Eph. 5:25–26).
We are saved not by faith alone or by good works alone, but by partaking of the Blood shed for us on the Cross. We receive this Blood through the Sacraments, celebrated in the Church since the first century. To partake of Christ’s Blood outside His Body is impossible, for blood resides only within a body. Without communion with the Blood of Christ, salvation is impossible: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).
To believe that salvation is possible apart from the Church is to believe that one can be saved without the Body of Christ—and thus without Christ Himself. This is the logic constructed by Protestant false teachings.
Orthodox Christians believe in the Christ who shed His Blood, founded His Church (His Body) thereby, and saves those who abide within that Body: “Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior” (Eph. 5:23). Protestants believe in an unbiblical christ who saves those who merely “accept Jesus as their personal Savior”—a notion nowhere found in Scripture. Can this truly be called faith in the same Christ?
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3. The Preservation of Truth
One of the least favorite verses among Protestants is the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy: “If I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Here it is plainly stated that the Church—especially in her conciliar mind—upholds and confirms the truth. Thus, during the first seven centuries, the Church gathered in Ecumenical Councils to define and affirm divine truths. All who participated were representatives of the one Church of Christ, already known by then as “Orthodox.”
So where were the Baptists and Pentecostals during these councils? Just as the Holy Spirit guided the Apostles at the first council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), so He guided the Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Their decisions were made under divine inspiration: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28).
An individual patriarch may err; a bishop may err; even a local Church may err. But when doctrines are taught by (1) all the saints, (2) always, and (3) everywhere—precisely the criteria applied at the Ecumenical Councils and accepted by the whole Church—then the Holy Church cannot err, for she is “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” God has never abandoned His one Church, for He promised: “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). Whoever believes otherwise does not trust the Bible.
Orthodox Christians believe in the Christ who preserves in His Body—the Church—the uncorrupted truths delivered once to the Apostles. They believe in the Christ who “gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:26–27).
Protestants, however, believe in a christ who—contrary to Scripture—allowed His Body (the Church) to fall away from truth, lose apostolic teaching, become defiled by falsehood, and fragment into countless competing “bodies.” They believe in a powerless christ unable to govern His own Body. After this, who can honestly claim we believe in the same Christ?
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4. The Importance of Undistorted Faith
What danger lies in a distorted view of Christ? It is this: with a false image of Christ, one may fail to recognize Him even when He stands before them. The Jews knew Scripture well; they believed in the Messiah and awaited Him. Yet because of their erroneous expectations, they failed to recognize Him, spat in His face, and crucified Him. Their misconceptions resemble modern Protestant views of Christ—as a dispenser of earthly prosperity and blessings.
Orthodox hope, however, rests in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
When Christ entered Jerusalem on a donkey, thousands hailed Him, expecting earthly deliverance. But when they realized He had not come to free Israel from Roman rule, they cried, “Crucify Him!” Protestantism offers psychological comfort and worldly well-being; Orthodoxy offers the narrow path of spiritual ascent. Hence, Protestantism lacks the asceticism practiced for nearly twenty centuries by monks, hermits, desert-dwellers, and fools-for-Christ—those who glorified Christ through holiness. When Protestants hear of fasting and other spiritual labors prescribed by the Church, they are bewildered—just as the Jews were, who expected the Messiah to grant them a comfortable life.
Because of their false image of the Messiah, the Jews did not recognize Him. Likewise, Protestants—by rejecting the truth that Christ is inseparable from His Body, the Church—fail to see the real Christ. Thus, based on the historical Person of Christ, they have fashioned an imaginary figure of their own invention, who is not the true Lord Jesus Christ. Jews and Christians do not believe in the same Messiah, though they draw from the same sources. The same holds true for Christians and Protestants.
Not only self-proclaimed “Christians,” but even secular historians, believe in Christ as a historical figure. But to know who Christ truly is, one must turn to the Revelation He gave specifically to His Church. The New Testament is a covenant—not between God and all who merely call themselves “Christians,” but between God and His Church. Therefore, the correct understanding of this Revelation is preserved precisely within the Church with whom the covenant was made.
Consider this analogy: I need to see a doctor—say, a sixty-year-old, gray-haired surgeon named Nikolai Nikolaevich. But someone mistakenly tells me the surgeon is thirty years old and bald. What happens when I meet the real Nikolai Nikolaevich? I will not recognize him, because he does not match the description I was given—even though I stand face to face with him.
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5. Who May Be Called a “Christian”?
Many call themselves “Christians,” yet logic itself dictates that a Christian is one who is in communion with Christ. How does one enter into such communion? God became incarnate; therefore, the path to the Lord is through Christ—through His Body. Mystically, this is the Body called the Church.
Mere belief in Christ is insufficient to be called a “Christian”—even the demons believe (James 2:19). Communion is essential. If faith alone sufficed for union with the Son of God, the Incarnation would have been unnecessary. Through the physical Body in which the Son of God was incarnate, people of His earthly time communed directly with God Himself. Through the mystical Body—the Church, founded by His Blood—people today commune directly with Christ.
Acts 11 records that in Antioch, believers were first called “Christians.” But which believers? Those who belonged to the Church that traced its lineage directly from the Apostles—the same Church that, within a few centuries, came to be known as Orthodox. They were members of that Church which never disappeared (for Christ’s Body cannot vanish) and continues to live today. Nowhere in Scripture are those who form alternative “churches” disconnected from Christ’s Body called “Christians.”
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6. Three Questions for Protestants
Holy Scripture teaches that the Church:
1) is the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24);
2) is one (Matt. 16:18);
3) is indestructible (Matt. 16:18);
4) is continuous (Matt. 28:20);
5) preserves and upholds the truth (1 Tim. 3:15);
6) is holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:27).
Therefore, she descends unbroken from the Apostles, beginning at Pentecost. This raises three questions, to which I would appreciate answers grounded in Holy Scripture:
1. What relationship do Protestant communities—emerging only in the 16th century—have to the Apostolic Church of Christ? Where were Baptists, Pentecostals, and other Protestant groups in the first, second, third, and subsequent centuries?
2. Does it please God that, instead of belonging to His one Body (the Church, Col. 1:24), multitudes create parallel “churches” while distorting apostolic faith?
3. Do Protestants truly trust the Word of God—or do they believe it contains errors, and that the Church founded on Pentecost either ceased to exist or ceased to be “the pillar and foundation of the truth”?
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