Christos Yannaras believes that
the Church’s history is one of failure, since it has been separating itself
constantly since its birth. However, the Church as the Body of Christ, and not
as a historical body, has a different course and understanding. John Meyendorff
claims that:
‘Failures do, of course, occur in
individual lives, and in the lives of whole nations and societies; but the
Church, as a gift of God, cannot be a failure, “for He wished to present it in
splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy
and without blemish”. (Eph. 5:27). The existence of this Church is a perfectly
free gift of God, and its infallibility is in no sense deserved by those who
compose it, but is solely the consequence of the fact that God dwells in her.
All members of the Church, every Christian community, may succumb to sin as
well to error; but through that very fact they cut themselves off from the
Church and must be reunited afresh through penitence’. [1]
Here, here!
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