Fr. Maximos on Recent Polemics

From the Anastasis Dialogue:

And there we come to the final, though probably the most long winded of the Ochlophobist’s post: his over-iterated apologia for Orthodoxy’s essential perfection. The central idea here is that Orthodoxy has no need of other Christians (can we call them that?) because she really has no need of anyone else. She has the Cross. She has Jesus. What more do you need?

Lurking behind this ecclesiology (and yes, that’s what it is—and not an “undefined” one, as is argued, but an ill-defined one) is, in my view, a kind of crypto-protestant “me and Jesus” attitude. Not everyone who cries, “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Church does not exist solely in relation to Christ; it is also the means by which Christ extends Himself through the Spirit to all creation.

I was going to post something of my own about all of these things, but why bother? Fr. Maximos stated it much better than I ever could. Read the whole post here.