“The church is one, ... according to the teaching of the apostle: For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ (2 Cor. xi. 2). For even as there is but one Christ, even so his spouse can be but one; as it is written in the fourth chapter of the Epistle of S. Paul to the Ephesians (iv. 5, 6): One Lord, one faith, one baptism: there is but one God, the Father of all.”[198]
Nor was the future any more foreseen when, in the catechism of Mgr. Philarete, the unity of the church was defined:[199]
“Q. Why is the church one?
“A. Because she represents one spiritual body, animated by one sole and only divine Spirit, and having one head only, who is Christ.”
Let us now turn away our gaze from the Orthodox Church, in which the terrible declaration of Jesus Christ finds only too fully its accomplishment. Another church appears before us. She is not a divided kingdom: on the contrary, if there be one characteristic mark by which she may be at once recognized by [pg 820] all who seek for her, it is the imposing unity of her exterior organization. The pope forms this unity. Let us ask of history what the pope has done for the church.
And history answers: The pope has saved the church. The pope alone has been able to hinder this church from breaking up, as the Orthodox Church has done, into so many national churches, at first under the protection, then under the authority, and finally under the rod, of sovereigns who were at first kings, then presidents of a republic, sometimes Robespierres. It is the pope, and the pope only, who has maintained, not merely the vague notion, but the living sentiment of Catholic fraternity—a sentiment which inspires the adversaries of the church with a fear which, in spite of themselves, they betray. It is the pope, and the pope alone, who has caused the sap of Christian piety to circulate in the whole Catholic world, by the honors of the altars accorded to the saints of every land, and by those institutions which, originating in one country, belong to all countries, as powerful, in the realization of their vast aspirations, as zeal and charity themselves. It is the pope who makes the treasures of virtue and learning which he discovers in any particular locality the common property of the world—in a word, it is the pope who causes the church always to survive, not only the enemies who desire her death, not only the false prophets who, for centuries past, have gone on announcing this death as imminent, but all kingdoms and all empires, their institutions, and even their remembrance. This is what the pope is for the Catholic Church.
Thus we see, on the one side, division, and, as its consequence, the dissolution foretold by Jesus Christ; on the other side, unity, and, with unity, victory and strength. This is the signification of the church having or not having a pope. Besides, the unity of government is so necessary to arrest the indefinite parcelling out of one church into a number of independent churches, and as a safeguard to the common faith, that each separate branch of the Orthodox Eastern Church has not been able to maintain its integrity without the aid of a supreme and central authority. Instead of the pope, this is a patriarch, or it is a synod, or it is the sovereign of the country, but everywhere and always the very adversaries of the Papacy themselves render an involuntary homage to the Catholic dogma which declares a visible head, a pope, necessary to the church.
Yes, a pope is necessary for the church—necessary to her existence, and necessary for the fulfilment of her mission.
Let us consider it with regard to the most powerful of the various branches of the orthodox communion—the Russian Church. Even could this church (by hypothesis) maintain herself alone, and could she continue her work without the operation of the laws; could she alone combat unbelief, and alone make head against impious governments, the pope would be none the less necessary for her. And why? Because the Russian Church calls herself Catholic; that is, universal. Now, it is not enough for a church which calls itself Catholic, and the one church of the Saviour of all, to be able to maintain her ground in that part of the world in which she is now enclosed; it is not enough that she should combat unbelief in the empire of the czars, nor that she should be able to resist an impious government which may succeed to theirs.
If she is Catholic, she ought, the Russian Church herself, to be equal to penetrating everywhere, and everywhere to maintain herself; to combat everywhere heresy and unbelief, and everywhere to sustain collision with the government. If she is Catholic, let her issue from the limits of the country of the czars, and at least attempt the conquest of Italy, Germany, France, England, all Europe; America, the whole world; let her, in the name of Jesus Christ, utter words of authority to the conquerors of the earth, brave the hatred which the consciousness of her rights would draw upon her, and dare to declare to crowned heads that all Christians belong to her; let her not confine herself to raising in capital cities Russian temples for the use of the Russian embassies, but let her require every government to recognize the orthodox worship; let her missionaries penetrate, whether welcomed or repelled, into all the countries of the earth with the sole credentials of the apostles, and, strong in this single right, let them return whither they are driven out, and sprinkle with their blood the soil wherein they sow the seed of orthodoxy. Then, and only then, will the Russian Church show herself Catholic; that is to say, universal; that is to say, the church of the Saviour of all. Until then in vain may she call herself Catholic while the title is denied by the fact.