Christianity or the Church? - St. Hilarion Troitsky (III/III)

Part III of "Christianity or the Church?" Listen to part I here: https://youtu.be/zh2OwJhlxG4Listen to part II here: https://youtu.be/iFxKT-NS5eMRead the text here: http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/sthilarion_church.aspx0:00 St. Irenaeus on how Christ’s incarnation is not about teaching but about man becoming a new creation in Christ1:26 If Christ is only a teacher he is not very original2:18 “The essence of Christ's activities, as we have seen, is not at all in teaching, but in salvation.”4:13 People seeking life from the Bible and not the Church are like Adam and Eve seeking life from the apple and not from the God-Man5:25 Leo Tolstoy, the infamous preacher of churchless Christianity in Russia7:10 Tolstoy also denied the Holy Spirit, calling the Church “the Holy Spirit’s” and not Christ’s8:35 At least Tolstoy showed us the logical conclusion of separating Christ’s salvific acts from his teaching10:00 The example of Tolstoyism shows that churchless Christinaity even destroys Christiniaty itself, but not the Church, refuted by its own lifelessness10:40 What have the Protestants obtained? Hopeless disunity and the destruction of Church life12:46 An Orthodox researcher summarizes the state of Lutheranism13:44 On Protestant student missions to Russia and the chasm between Protestant “Christian” life and true Church life16:28 Appeals to create and obtain a common religion, a “union” of religions under general, abstract theses17:27 Many think the Orthodox teaching on the Church is too lofty and too despotic, but true love requires humility and this is a great burden to egotists19:00 Those who reject and misunderstand the true teaching on the Church may even condemn those who are enthusiastic about the Church and Church life21:37 Churchless Christianity is death22:56 Many are positive toward Christian teaching and even call themselves Christian while disdaining the Church and Church life25:26 Can the Church not excommunicate those who reject Her?28:00 The reason the Church’s right of excommunication from the Church was readily accepted in past times29:58 It seems the Church is in great disorder, what are we to do?31:14 Many today are asking, “Where is the Church?”32:13 Without clear boundaries between the Church and what is outside the Church, those seeking the Church can easily become wanderers and not Orthodox Christians 34:15 Orthodox Christians are responsible for making bright and clear the light of the Church for those seeking Her35:27 “Only one who has come to believe in the Church, …one who has felt a Church life within himself, he and only he is on the correct path.”36:12 One only comes to realize the truth and power of the Church by experience, not scholarly research37:28 Any talk of “reviving the Church” is nonsense to one who lives Church life, for the life of the Church is the Holy Spirit38:33 Church life is fullness of Christ and we must treasure and preach the truth and beauty of Church life39:46 “While believing in the Church, we constantly seem to pardon ourselves for the fact that we still believe in it.”41:08 CONCLUSION - “Thus it must be considered as the most vital necessity of the present time to confess openly that indisputable truth that Christ created precisely the Church and that it is absurd to separate Christianity from the Church and to speak of some sort of Christianity apart from the Holy Orthodox Church of Christ.”42:05 A parable about a bird in storm, the tree he finds in refuge in is the ChurchSt. Hilarion writes:Without even speaking of the most evident contradictions of the churchless quasi-Christianity, it is always possible to see that it is completely void of the genuine Grace of Christian life, and the inspiration and quickening of the Spirit. When people take the Gospel book, forgetting that the Church gave it to them, then it becomes like the Koran, said to have been dropped by Allah from the sky. When they somehow contrive to overlook the teaching about the Church in it, then all that remains of Christianity is the teaching, so powerless to re-create life and man, as is every philosophical system.Our forebears, Adam and Eve, sought to become "like gods" without God, relying on the magical power of the beautiful "apple." This is how many of our contemporaries dream of being saved: with the Gospel, but without the Church and without the God-man. They hope on the book of the Gospel exactly as Adam and Eve hope on the paradise apple.No, it is not the insufficiency of life in the Church which must be spoken of, but of the insufficiency of Church consciousness in us. Many live a Churchly life, not even clearly realizing the fact. Even if we consciously live a Churchly life we preach little about the blessings of this life. With outsiders we usually only debate about Christian truths, forgetting about Church life. We also are sometimes capable of substituting the Church with Christianity, life with abstract theory.