Patristic theology, in its entirety, sets out across countless pages the truth that the Church, which came into being historically at Pentecost through the extension to the Apostles and the first believers of the Spirit-filled Body of Christ the Saviour, has its foundation laid in the Person of Christ the Saviour, through His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension, as the Holy Apostle Paul affirms in his Epistle to the Ephesians: ‘And He has put all things under His feet, and above all things He has appointed Him Head over the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all’ (Ephesians 1:22–23).
The foundation of the Church cannot be identified with a single act within the salvific work of the Lord Christ. The Holy Fathers present in their writings the reality of the Church’s existence prior to the Incarnation of the Son of God. Saint John the Evangelist speaks in the Book of Revelation of ‘the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world’ (Revelation 13:8), the whole of creation being the fruit of sacrificial love. Saint Maximus the Confessor elaborates on these aspects of patristic theology, showing that the Church is ‘the image and icon of the entire cosmos, consisting of visible and invisible beings, possessing the same unity and distinction as the cosmos itself’1). Moreover, says the same Holy Father, ‘The Holy Church is, therefore, a type and icon of God. For the unadulterated union which He maintains, through His infinite power and wisdom, amongst the various beings that exist, uniting them as a Creator in the supreme manner with Himself, is also realised by the Church, uniting the faithful with one another in a unified manner through the grace and unique call of faith; the active and virtuous through the unity of the will; and the contemplative and gnostic through the unbroken and undivided harmony of the mind’2”.
In what follows, we shall explore in greater depth the patristic teaching of the Orthodox Church concerning the Holy Cross and the Sacrifice of Christ the Saviour as the pillar of the Church’s unity.
The very placement of the Holy Cross on the church spire, at its very highest point, demonstrates its importance and that of the Sacrifice of Christ in Orthodox ecclesiology. Its importance is also highlighted in the Synaxarion for Great Saturday, which states: ‘For, just as at the first creation of the world, God, having brought all things into being, and subsequently, on the sixth day, created man, the most distinguished of all creatures, and on the seventh day He rested from all His works and sanctified the day, calling it Saturday, which is interpreted as rest; so too, in the creation of the spiritual world, having accomplished all things in the best possible way, on the sixth day He created once more the fallen man and, renewing him again through the life-giving Cross, He rested once more in perfect rest from all His works, which are life-giving and salvific. The Word of God lay in the tomb in the flesh, whilst with His pure and divine soul He descended into hell. The soul was separated from the body by death and He committed it into the Father’s hands. He also gave His own blood to the Father, without being asked; and His blood was the price of our redemption. The Lord’s soul was not held in hell like the souls of the other saints. How, indeed, could it have been held there, since He bore none of the ancestral sin, unlike the other righteous ones? Nor did our enemy, the devil, take the blood by which we were redeemed, even though we were under his dominion. How, indeed, could he have taken His blood from anywhere other than from God? But could the devil, that thief, have taken God Himself? Our Lord Jesus Christ dwelt bodily in the tomb, together with His Divinity, which was closely united with the body3”. The Cross is thus the only way to enter into the communion of the Church as a foretaste of that in the Kingdom of God: “Rejoice, life-giving Cross, most beautiful paradise of the Church, tree of incorruption”4.
Through the Sacrifice of Christ the Saviour on the Cross, the state of communion between God and man is restored. The Church is thus the place of man’s reunion with God, of the unity between the things above and the things below: “Let heaven and earth praise with one voice, for the most blessed Cross is set before all, upon which, being nailed in the flesh, Christ came to His end’5 The closer a person is to God, the closer they are to their fellow human beings; the further they are from Him, the deeper the rift between them and their neighbour. Only the Risen Christ can keep the faithful steadfast in ‘the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace’ (Ephesians 4:3).
In this regard, Father Dumitru Stăniloae emphasised that ‘Christ extends Himself through His sacrificed and risen Body within us, so as to unite us and make us like Him, filling us with the same love that He has for God the Father and that God the Father has for Him, which is within Him. But this is the Church. And the Church, being filled with this love, also signifies the loving unity amongst its members’6 The entire patristic theology of our Church holds that the Crucified and Risen Body of Christ is the true foundation of the Church’s unity: “As the Cross is lifted up, all creation is moved to praise the most pure Passion of Him Who was lifted up upon it; for in it, by slaying Him who slew us, He raised the slain to life and adorned them, and made them worthy to dwell in heaven, as a merciful One, because of the abundance of His goodness. Therefore, rejoicing, let us exalt His name and magnify His most high holiness”7
Through the Resurrection of Christ the Saviour, the Crucifixion is no longer an event of the past, but the power of the Resurrection from the dead becomes the power of the Cross, according to the testimony of the Apostle to the Gentiles: “And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through Him by the blood of His Cross” (Colossians 1:20).
The unity of the faithful in the Body of Christ is revealed in the Liturgical Prayer, prior to the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, enabling us to clearly understand the connection between the Holy Cross and the unity of the Church: “For their sake I sanctify Myself, so that they too may be sanctified in truth. But I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, so that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me’ (John 17:19–21). The unity of the Persons of the Trinity is not merely a model of ecclesial unity, but the infinite source from which the essential unity of the Church draws its life. “True love cannot exist as a human work or achievement; but it can exist as the fruit of a share in divine love, and this share is possible within the Church, where the faithful offer themselves to Christ and where the One Christ8 and indivisible—dwells in all the faithful: “We, the faithful, must regard all the faithful as one, and see Christ in each of them”9.
Through its two axes, horizontal and vertical, the Holy Cross visibly shows us that the sacrifice of Christ the Saviour encompasses and unites everything within it, both the heavenly and the earthly, God with humankind, and humankind with their fellow human beings, gathering them into the one reality in this world that transcends the world: ‘For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3:26–28). Saint Justin Popovich emphasises this reality of the Church with the words: “Its purpose is supra-rational, ecumenical, pan-human: that of uniting all people in Christ, everyone, without exception on grounds of nationality, race or social class’10
Through its two axes, horizontal and vertical, the Holy Cross visibly shows us that the sacrifice of Christ the Saviour encompasses and unites all things within it: the heavenly with the earthly, God with humankind, and humankind with their fellow human beings.
In the Church, the unity of the faithful in Christ the Lord is realised, a unity which is an icon of the perfect unity between the Persons of the Holy Trinity: ‘And all that is Mine is Yours, and all that is Yours is Mine, and I have been glorified in them’ (John 17:10).
The Church’s mission is “to strengthen its members in immortality and eternity, making them partakers of the nature of God”11). Through His Sacrifice, “He has granted us great and precious promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4). In the Church, primacy belongs to the sacrifice, the crucifixion and service, following the example of Christ the Saviour crucified on the Cross: ‘But whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you must be the servant of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43–45). The world does not tolerate those who bear Christ within them, just as it did not tolerate Christ Himself, and this is because they are not of the world. They are in the world, but not of the world: “If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). The world is a continual sacrifice to Christ, just as it is for those who live in Christ, that is, who make themselves living Churches: “Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In Him, every well-built structure grows to become a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you too are being built together to be a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20–22).
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, commenting on the scriptural text contained in the Gospel according to John, testifies that: “We are sustained in existence, clinging to Him and keeping the holy commandment given to us, striving to preserve the goodness of the nobility we have attained, that is, not to grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, through Whom it is understood that God dwells within us’12 In this sense, the Cross of the Lord becomes for the Christian a source of strength to restore the lost communion. Father Dumitru Stăniloae observes that: “In this way, the Cross of Christ is placed in the Church as in a restored paradise, or as the beginning of its restoration. From it we learn and draw strength to relate to nature not as those who allow themselves to be tempted by the pleasures that may be offered to our bodily senses, which have fallen away from the power of the spirit, but as those who strive to strengthen our spirit through contact with it, in a continuous transcendence towards God, even if this endeavour is accompanied by no small amount of suffering”13 Thus, monasticism becomes the most vivid, the most authentic, expression of the unity of the Church through the Cross of the Lord and as a result of the exhortation of Christ the Saviour: “Whoever wishes to come after Me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow Me” (Mark 8:34).
Saint Athanasius the Great sets out the teaching on the unity of the Church in one of his writings, saying: “Thus He is laid as the foundation according to humanity, so that we too may be built upon Him as precious stones and become a temple of the Spirit who dwells within us (2 Corinthians 16:16). And just as He is the foundation, and we are precious stones built upon Him, so He is again the vine, and we are the branches, united not according to the essence of divinity—for this is impossible—but according to humanity. For the branches must be like the vine, just as we are like Him in the flesh […]. For in this way the foundation is laid for us, as He takes on our nature, so that we, being of a different nature and joining ourselves to Him through the likeness of the body, ‘may attain to the measure of the full stature of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13) and may we remain immortal and incorruptible”14
The unity of the Church is of particular importance within Orthodox theology, for it is only through this that the saving work of the Lord Christ fulfils its purpose, namely to gather us all together in the love of the Father: “Just as the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you; abide in My love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love’ (John 15:9–10). Only obedience to the Word of God entails remaining in the unity of the Church, and the eternal model of such obedience is the Son’s obedience to the Father: ‘I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me’ (John 5:30).
- 1
Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 2017, p. 110.
- 2
Saint Maximus the Confessor, Mystagogy, p. 141.
- 3
Triodul, 8th edition, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1986, p. 580.
- 4
The Triodion, stichera ‘I have cried out to the Lord’, at Vespers on the Saturday of the Third Week of Great Lent, p. 272.
- 5
The Triodion, Hymn I of Matins for Sunday in the Third Week of Great Lent, p. 273.
- 6
Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. II, IBMBOR, Bucharest, 2003, pp. 263–264.
- 7
The September Minei, 5th edition, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1986, stichera ‘O Lord, I have cried out to You’, for Vespers on the fourteenth day, p. 186.
- 8
Georgios Mantzaridis, Christian Morality, Vol. II, translated by Deacon Cornel Coman, Bizantină Publishing House, Bucharest, 2006, p. 111.
- 9
Saint Symeon the New Theologian, The 225 Theological and Moral Chapters 3, in The Philokalia, vol. VI, Bucharest, 1997, p. 57.
- 10
Saint Justin Popovich, The Man and the God-Man. The Depths and Heights of Philosophy, Sophia Publishing House – The Orthodox Book, Bucharest, 2010, p. 94.
- 11
Saint Justin Popovich, The Man and the God-Man..., p. 93.
- 12
Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, X, 2, translation, introduction and notes by Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae, in PSB, vol. 41, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 2000, p. 640.
- 13
Rev. Prof. D. Stăniloae, ‘The Cross in the Theology and Worship of the Orthodox Church’
- 14
Saint Athanasius the Great, Second Oration against the Arians, LXXIV, in Writings. Part One, translated by Rev. Prof. Dr Dumitru Stăniloae, in PSB, vol. 15, published by IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1987, pp. 314–315.