The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / MiscellaniesTolstoy, Leo, graf
Religion
The Kingdom of God is Within You / Christianity and Patriotism / Miscellanies
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Russian literature -- Translations into English
The fact that men named what was formed later by the same word
which Christ had used in respect to something else, does in no way
give them the right to assert that Christ established the one, true
church.
Besides, if Christ had really founded such an institution as
the church, on which the whole doctrine and the whole faith are
based, He would most likely have expressed this establishment in
such definite and clear words, and would have given the one, true
church, outside of the stories about the miracles, which are used
in connection with every superstition, such signs as to leave no
doubts concerning its authenticity; there is nothing of the kind,
but there are now, as there have been, all kinds of institutions
which, each of them, call themselves the one, true church.
The Catholic catechism says: "_L'église est la société de fidèles
établie par notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, répandue sur toute la terre
et soumise à l'autorité des pasteurs légitimes, principalement notre
Saint Père--le Pape_," meaning by "_pasteurs légitimes_" a human
institution, which has the Pope at its head and which is composed
of certain persons who are connected among themselves by a certain
organization.
The Orthodox catechism says: "The church is a society, established
by Jesus Christ upon earth, united among themselves into one whole
by the one, divine teaching and the sacraments, under the guidance
and management of the God-established hierarchy," meaning by
"God-established hierarchy" the Greek hierarchy, which is composed
of such and such persons, who are to be found in such and such
places.
The Lutheran catechism says: "The church is holy Christianity,
or an assembly of all believers, under Christ, their chief, in
which the Holy Ghost through the Gospel and the sacraments offers,
communicates, and secures divine salvation," meaning, by this, that
the Catholic Church has gone astray and has fallen away, and that
the true tradition is preserved in Lutheranism.
For the Catholics the divine church coincides with the Roman
hierarchy and the Pope. For the Greek Orthodox the divine church
coincides with the establishment of the Eastern and the Russian
Church.[8] For the Lutherans the divine church coincides with the
assembly of men who recognize the Bible and Luther's catechism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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