Below please find an excellent piece by Fr. Colin about what a parish is, what a Christian is, and how to deal with issues such as the present Ukraine crisis in Parish Life and our Christian Life.
Asking Your Prayers,
Fr. Gregory
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The Orthodox Church is the Body of Christ, established by Christ, and it is through union with this Body that all who were once enslaved to sin and death become one with Christ and receive Life from Him. How does this happen? Our Lord says that the Christian must "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit in itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me" (John 15:4). All who desire to be of Christ must set as the aim of their life Christ, and Christ alone. If we do not have as our aim Christ, we will be "cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15:6). If we do not abide in Christ, and set Him as our hope and desire, we cannot truly be of Him, as our hope and desire will be found elsewhere, where there is no life.
All who desire to live the Christian life must be united in this goal. We are called to come together and struggle for this goal as one body in a parish community, so that we might collectively strive towards union with Christ. This parish life is a struggle of those who live in the world, but Christ says of all who desire union with Him that "they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). The Church is not merely a Human organization, rather it is a Divine Human organism. It is where God dwells among men, where men struggle to unite with God. The unity of the Church is Divine, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit, who unites the Christian with Christ and thus makes all Christians one in Christ.
This union of men with Christ is the saving work of Christ, who saves men from the way of the world, which is death. The way of the world is the way of the devil, the enemy of God, who by deception has sought to ensnare man, God's beloved, to death. It is for this cause that the world hates all who have sought union with Christ in His Church and seeks to bring Christians back into it's clutches. The devil is, according to the Apostle Peter, "a roaring lion… seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8). He does this through various attacks on the Body of Christ that seek to divide it and separate the brethren and thus make their aim not Christ, but that which has divided them.
The world seeks to offer competing ideologies that might unite men and be their aim. These are purely human organizations, the unity of such is a worldly unity unlike the unity of the Church. Being a worldly union its aim is worldly things, and cannot rise above worldly things. This union is a union of death, as it cannot give those united by it what it does not have: Life, which is of God.
The Ukrainian crisis is a tragedy, a war between brothers. This is a prime example of those who should be united in Christ allowing politics, the way of this world, to divide them. Many of us have loved ones on one side of the conflict. Some even have loved ones on both sides of the conflict. Even if we don’t have people directly involved, all of us have on both sides of this brothers and sisters in Christ who are at this time divided by worldly ideologies. This is a tragedy for us as a parish community, but we must not let it be a cause of division amongst us at Saint Vladimir’s. Father Gregory regularly reminds us that our political party is Christ, meaning the aim of our life should be Christ, and everything else should flow from this aim.
If we allow our political convictions to be a cause of division between our parish community, we have as our aim not Christ, but the devil. We are not abiding in Christ, we are abiding in the world, and there cannot be life in us if our source of unity is death. Does this mean we will agree with everyone in our parish community about how our society should be ordered, or how world affairs should be conducted? Certainly not. But these opinions cannot be a cause of division between us. “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (1 John 3:14). Let love be our aim. Let Christ be our hope, not princes or the sons of men. Let us join together as a parish community and pray earnestly for the war in Ukraine, and through our love for one another, collectively abiding in Christ, may we be a light to the world, that they may see true Christian unity shine through the darkness of division and worldly death.
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