Once you come to understand the authority that Christ gave to His apostles, and what they passed down to those in their time, you will eventually realise how lost many within the Protestant denominations are. This authority was not abstract or theoretical—it was tangible, hierarchical, and preserved within the visible structure of the Church.
Christ said to the apostles, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.” (Luke 10:16) He breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, gave them the power to forgive sins (John 20:22–23), and commissioned them to go forth not simply with a message but with real authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18-19) That authority was never meant to vanish. The apostles laid hands upon bishops and presbyters, entrusting them with the same teaching, sacramental, and disciplinary authority. St. Paul told St. Timothy, “guard the truth that has been entrusted to you by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.” (2 Timothy 1:14). Again, “what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2) This is not democratic interpretation—it is hierarchy and succession. The Protestant break rejected this apostolic succession. It cut itself off from the living continuity of the Church, replacing priesthood with opinion, sacraments with symbolism, and authority with private judgment. Luther and Calvin did not reform—they amputated. They severed themselves from the very Church that gave the world the Bible they claim to revere.
Protestantism, in all its thousands of fragments, has no altar, no priesthood, no Eucharist, and no continuity with the apostles. This is a verifiable, historical reality. When the Protestant reformers broke from the Church, they did not take with them the apostolic ministry. They rejected the sacramental priesthood, denied the grace of Holy Orders, and in doing so, forfeited any claim to apostolic succession.
An altar is not a table for sermons. It is the place of sacrifice. The divine liturgy offered upon the altar is the same Eucharist instituted by Christ at the Mystical Supper, handed down through unbroken succession from the apostles. The Protestant communities, having rejected the very concept of priesthood, cannot offer the same Eucharist, for they have neither the consecrated clergy nor the apostolic lineage required to perform such a mystery. Their “communion services” are nothing more than commemorations, devoid of the real presence of Christ, because they lack both the sacerdotal authority and the sacramental form.
They claim the Bible as their sole authority, yet they have no authoritative interpreter. Each man becomes his own bishop and theologian. Each pastor is self-appointed or elected by a committee. This chaos is evident—there are thousands of denominations, each with conflicting doctrines, all claiming the Holy Spirit, and all in disagreement. Some baptise infants; others forbid it. Some believe in the real presence in some undefined way; others deny it entirely. Some accept women as clergy; others reject it. And all of them claim to follow Christ, while denying the apostolic Church He founded. This is not the faith handed down once for all to the saints (Jude 1:3). This is not the unity Christ prayed for when He said, “that they may be one, as we are one.” (John 17:11) Protestantism is a religion of men—of personal interpretations, emotions, and modern philosophies. It is built on the shifting sands our Lord condemned in Matthew 7:26–27: “And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.”
By severing themselves from the root—the Church—they cut themselves off from the grace of the sacraments, from the authority of the apostles, and from the fullness of the truth. The Orthodox Church has never changed its doctrine, never introduced novelties, never altered the apostolic faith. She alone stands as the ark of salvation, while Protestantism drifts in endless fragmentation, each new sect a monument to pride and disobedience.
The Church is not an invisible club of believers—it is visible, historical, sacramental, and apostolic. This is not optional; it is fundamental. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not establish an abstract idea or a mystical association of well-meaning individuals. He founded a real, structured, and enduring community—the Church—against which He declared, “the gates of Hades will not prevail.” (Matthew 16:18) This Church has bishops, presbyters, deacons, sacraments, doctrine, liturgy, and canonical discipline. It has a memory, a history, and a continuity that can be traced without rupture back to the apostles themselves.
The Protestant assertion that the Church is invisible—comprised only of those who “truly believe”—is an invention. It is a justification for schism. If the Church is invisible, then no one can identify it, no one can hold it accountable, and no one can be certain of where to find the sacraments. This is contrary to the entire witness of Scripture and the early Church. The apostles appointed successors. They ordained bishops in every city (Titus 1:5). They gathered in council (Acts 15). They administered the sacraments with authority and discipline (1 Corinthians 11, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14). None of this suggests an invisible, scattered fellowship. It points to a concrete, recognisable body—the Orthodox Church. It is the Orthodox Church that continues to preserve this reality. It alone has not altered the faith. It has not followed Rome into papal innovations, nor followed the Protestants into doctrinal relativism. It has preserved the same divine liturgy, the same sacramental life, the same theological and moral teachings, the same episcopal succession, and the same ascetical and monastic traditions. No other body on earth can truthfully say this. The Orthodox Church is not one branch among many. It is the Church.
All else is confusion. The Protestant world is a maze of contradictions. By rejecting the Church and her authority, they have placed themselves in an endless cycle of division and doctrinal instability. Every generation produces new splinters. They are united by nothing except the denial of what came before them. And this chaos is not accidental—it is the direct fruit of rebellion. “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” (1 Corinthians 14:33) The confusion of Protestantism is not a mark of God’s work; it is the sign of having departed from Him.
Many within the Protestant world are lost because it has departed from the one holy Church. They possess the Scriptures, but outside the Church, they interpret them unto their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16). They speak of Christ, but they have rejected His Body, which is the Church (Colossians 1:18). They claim the Holy Spirit, but deny the very structure and sacramental order through which the Spirit works. They sing hymns, but offer no sacrifice. They gather in buildings, but they do not dwell in the House of God. And outside the Church, there is no salvation. This is not a threat—it is a sober reality. St. Cyprian of Carthage declared plainly, “He cannot have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.” The Church is not a vehicle of salvation—it is the place of salvation. To be united to Christ is to be united to His Body. Outside of it, the sacraments are invalid and confusion reigns. There is one Ark, as in the days of Noah. Those outside drowned.
The Orthodox Church stands as that Ark—not because of our merit, not because of national pride, intellectual sophistication, or moral superiority, but solely because of Christ’s promise. “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) This is not a promise to scattered individuals or disconnected groups, but to a visible, apostolic body, guarded by the Holy Spirit and sustained by the Eucharist, the Scriptures, the canons, and the episcopacy. It is Christ Who founded the Church. Not Constantine. Not the apostles by their own initiative. Christ Himself. And it is He Who preserves it, not by human strength, but by divine power. “I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) The Orthodox Church did not preserve itself. It has suffered persecution, heresies, betrayals, and imperial collapse. Yet it remains. Why? Because it is Christ’s Body on earth. Because it is the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). And Christ does not abandon His Body.
Everything outside of the Church is broken. This must be stated without hesitation. Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and every sect and movement that has splintered from the apostolic foundation, has introduced novelty, compromise, and error. They have added or taken away from the deposit of faith. The papacy is a man-made distortion of episcopal primacy. Protestantism is an outright revolt against apostolic authority. All these stand outside the Ark and attempt to convince the world that planks floating in the flood are ships of salvation.
The Orthodox Church has changed nothing. It has added nothing to the Creed. It has subtracted nothing from the Sacraments. It has never abolished fasting. It has never permitted innovation in moral teaching. It has never rewritten the Divine Liturgy into theatre. It has never made bishops into monarchs or pastors into entertainers. It stands firm where all others have drifted into modernism, liberalism, or autocracy.
The truth does not dwell in fragmentation. Truth, by nature, is one. It does not manifest as a spectrum of conflicting opinions, nor does it take the shape of contradictory theologies competing for legitimacy. The Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of truth (John 16:13), does not speak out of both sides of the mouth. The Spirit does not tell one group that baptism saves and another that it is symbolic. It does not declare to one sect that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ, and to another that it is a remembrance only. He does not tell one community that the Church must be governed by bishops, and another that all believers are equally pastors. The Holy Spirit does not fracture. He unites. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Ephesians 4:4–5) Yet Protestantism is a religion of fractures. It arose from rebellion against authority, and it has multiplied by division ever since. When one man’s conscience becomes the final authority, schism is inevitable. The Protestant claim that the thousands of denominations are somehow united in “essentials” is dishonest and incoherent. First, there is no common agreement among them on what those “essentials” are. Is baptism essential? Is the Eucharist? Is the Trinity? Is the inerrancy of Scripture? Some say yes, others no. And if one man claims a matter is essential while another denies it, by what authority is the dispute resolved? There is none. Each man becomes a law unto himself, and each congregation a doctrinal island.
Even on the very Gospel itself, the message is mangled. Some say man is justified by faith alone. Others add baptism. Others insist on a sinner’s prayer. Some declare once saved, always saved. Others deny it. This is not unity. It is a cacophony of self-made gospels. “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8). The apostle did not bless innovation. He cursed it.
Novus Ordo Rome, on the other hand, adds to the Gospel. It burdens the faithful with doctrines unknown to the apostles—papal infallibility, the immaculate conception, and so on. None of these can be found in the apostolic witness or the ecumenical councils of the first thousand years. They are inventions—developments which Rome claims were revealed gradually, as though the apostles handed the Church a seedling of truth that would grow into something unrecognisable. But the faith was delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 1:3). It is not an evolving theory. It is a sacred trust to be preserved, not improved upon. On the other side, most Protestants subtract from the Gospel. They deny the sacraments, reject the priesthood, minimise the role of asceticism, and reduce salvation to an emotional or intellectual assent. They rip pages from the Holy Tradition and attempt to reconstruct the faith with only fragments. They elevate the written word of Scripture while despising the Church which gave it birth and determined its canon. And in doing so, they trade fullness for fragments and authority for confusion.
The Orthodox Church has preserved the Gospel—not modified, not diluted, not expanded. It teaches today what the apostles taught. It celebrates the sacraments as they did. It governs by the episcopal structure they ordained. It fasts as they fasted. It prays as they prayed. It confesses as they confessed. The Orthodox Church has neither added novelties nor embraced subtraction. It has remained faithful, not by virtue of human ingenuity, but by divine grace. There is no “essential vs. non-essential” distinction in apostolic doctrine. All of it is essential, because all of it was handed down for the salvation of man. Fragmentation is the death of unity, and unity is a mark of the true Church. The Orthodox Church stands as that unity—doctrinal, liturgical, sacramental, historical. All else is confusion. And God is not the author of confusion.
The Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. One—because Christ has one Body. Holy—because it is set apart by the presence of God in its sacraments. Catholic—because it is whole and lacks nothing. Apostolic—because its bishops are direct successors of the apostles. These marks are not empty titles—they are realities. And they apply fully and exclusively to the Orthodox Church. Not by our own excellence, but because we have not betrayed what was handed down. That Church is Orthodox. Not by a cultural label, but by fidelity to truth. The Orthodox Church alone holds the keys to the Kingdom because it alone continues in the apostolic faith, apostolic worship, and apostolic authority. It alone has the altar of sacrifice, the real Body and Blood of Christ, the absolution of sins, and the anointing of the sick. It alone can say with truth, “Receive the Body of Christ; taste the fountain of immortality.”
Those outside may have zeal, sincerity, even piety. But zeal without truth cannot save. Sincerity is not a substitute for sacramental grace. Good intentions are not the foundation of the Church. The Ark was not built according to the thoughts of men, but by God’s command. And only those inside it were saved. So it is now. The Ark is the ancient Church. Outside it, there is only the flood.
May God bless you +
Fr. Charles
11 April 2025
