What Is the Church?

People have different ideas about the Church. Some see it a building, a holy place. The Church has buildings, but it is not just a building we visit, like the White House. Others see it as an institution with levels of management, workers and clients. The Church has structures, but it is not just an institution or a multi-national corporation like IBM.

The Church is first of all a people:  not a voluntary organization of people who come together to achieve their purposes, like the United Nations. The Church is the People of God, called by Him to be His own. The Scriptures describe us this way: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

The Church is a “race,” a “people,” a “nation” – but not limited to one of those earthly groups we call nations and races. It is a spiritual nation made up of people of every race and culture who believe in Jesus as Lord.

When was the Church started?

The New Testament Church began when Jesus started calling people to follow Him: Andrew the First-Called, Peter, James and John and the rest of the Twelve.

Then He gathered a larger group – the seventy disciples, the myrrh-bearers and some others. He formed them until they were able to say with Peter, “‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’” (Matthew 16:16-19).

This Church was empowered by the gift of the Holy Spirit given after Christ’s resurrection. It then spread from Jerusalem throughout the Roman Empire and beyond, to the ends of the earth.

Is the Church Really Important?

Some people, even some Christians, feel that the Church isn’t that important. Others think that as long as you pray and read the Bible you are a good Christian. But Christ says otherwise. He put the Church as the center of His saving work on earth, giving it the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It is, the Bible says, “the household of God … the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

In this “household of God” we are united to God as His adopted children. This was why, “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:4-6) We have God as our Father and the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. And we are brothers and sisters with all the saints and believers of every age.

Are we really part of the Church or just customers?

Many people today don’t want to belong to any group. They are not patriotic, or even that committed to their families. They try to keep themselves as apart from others as they can. Some Christians are like that too, keeping to the back pews or not getting involved with other parishioners. The picture of the Church in the Bible is very different. The Church is compared to a human body, a living organism with Christ as the Head and all of us as the parts of the body:  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12).

Since God has called us to be part of His household and made us to be one body with Him, we cannot quit the family when things don’t go our way. “If the foot would say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body” (1 Corinthians 12:15). Nor can we exclude others whom He has called from this family: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). We are called to make our Church reflect God’s love in all we do.

What about the Priests and Bishops?

The priests and bishops play important roles in the Church, and it would not be “the Church” without them, but the Church is not the priests and bishops alone. The bishop, assisted by the priests, is the father of our local household of God. The deacons are their helpers, caring for the family’s material needs. We are never so much the Church as when we are gathered with our bishop, priests, deacons and other members of the Church family to worship God or proclaim His works.

We call the bishops “successors of the apostles.” We mean that they stand in the Church as the apostles stood in the first gatherings of believers. Together (as in councils or synods) they are responsible for guiding all the Churches throughout the word. Individually they also may lead the Church in a specific area. Since no bishop can effectively pastor all the people in his care, he sends forth priests to shepherd the scattered parishes of his eparchy. An eparchy is the particular group or area under the guidance of an individual bishop.

How is the Church “one, holy, catholic and apostolic”?

When our Church is united with other Churches throughout the world, it is “one.” When it is united to the life-giving Trinity it is “holy.” It is “catholic” or universal because the full and complete life in Christ is lived in it. The Church is “apostolic” because it’s Holy Tradition goes back unbroken to the Church of the Apostles. 

What is the Church’s most important work?

From its beginning we see the Church teaching, spreading the Gospel to others, encouraging one another and caring for the poor. Most of all, the Church’s most important work is the worship of God, especially at the Divine Liturgy. When the Church gathers at the Liturgy it is not just praying; it is joining Christ in His most important work: offering Himself to the Father. Christ gave Himself for all mankind and it is in the Liturgy that we can join Him in that offering. As the deacon raises the holy gifts, the bishop or priest says in our name, “We offer You Your Own of what is Your own in all and for the sake of all.” What we do at 11 o’clock on a Sunday morning is joined to Christ’s gift, made in “heavenly time” reaching to all eternity.

Why are there so many different Churches?

There are two principal reasons. First, the ancient Churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Assyrian, etc.) reflect the same faith expressed in the Nicene Creed and celebrated in the same holy mysteries, but conveyed in different spiritual and liturgical traditions. Their variety enriches all Christians as each shown a different facet of the eternal truth of Christ. While we have been divided over the centuries, we try to move closer together, work together whenever possible and support one another as much as we can.

There are other Churches and groups which came into being fairly recently in Christian history (for example the Baptists or Evangelicals). Many of them arose thinking that each believer could interpret the Bible for himself and that the ancient Churches had all wandered away from the truth. These groups have divided and re-divided time and again. While we respect their sincerity, we must recognize that they have gone farther and farther away from the apostolic Tradition as we know it.

What about Us Eastern Catholics?

Most Eastern Catholics belong to groups that came out of one of the Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe or the Middle East into union with the Roman Catholic Church of the West. For a long time we followed closely the spirit and thinking of the West, which seemed more vibrant than the Eastern Churches, who were often held back by their Muslim or European overlords.

Many people today see the Eastern Tradition as more dynamic than that of the West. To make sure that that Tradition lives in our communities we see ourselves called to (a) preserve our authentic spiritual tradition as Easterners and recover it wherever it has been lost; (b) witness to it in the West so that those around us may experience those elements of the apostolic Tradition which the East has preserved in an effective and dynamic way. 

Melkite Greek Catholic

Eparchy of Newton

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