[The tennis players dispute] “Out!” “Not out!”
VÁNYA. I saw it …:
During the conversation, men-servants set the table again for tea and coffee.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. You say the Church unites. But, on the contrary, the worst dissensions have always been caused by the Church. “How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chickens.” …
PRIEST. That was until Christ. But Christ did gather them all together.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. Yes, Christ united; but we have divided: because we have understood him the wrong way round. He destroyed all Churches.
PRIEST. Did he not say: “Go, tell the Church.”
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. It is not a question of words! Besides those words don't refer to what we call “Church.” It is the spirit of the teaching that matters. Christ's teaching is universal, and includes all religions, and does not admit of anything exclusive; neither of the Resurrection nor the Divinity of Christ, nor the Sacraments—nor of anything that divides.
PRIEST. That, as a matter of fact, if I may say so, is your own interpretation of Christ's teaching. But Christ's teaching is all founded on His Divinity and Resurrection.
NICHOLAS IVÁNOVICH. That's what is so dreadful about the Churches. They divide by declaring that they possess the full indubitable and infallible truth. They say: “It has pleased us and the Holy Ghost.” That began at the time of the first Council of the Apostles. They then began to maintain that they had the full and exclusive truth. You see, if I say there is a God: the first cause of the Universe, everyone can agree with me; and such an acknowledgment of God will unite us; but if I say there is a God: Brahma, or Jehovah, or a Trinity, such a God divides us. Men wish to unite, and to that end devise all means of union, but neglect the one indubitable means of union—the search for truth! It is as if people in an enormous building, where the light from above shone down into the centre, tried to unite in groups around lamps in different corners, instead of going towards the central light, where they would naturally all be united.