What if God told the truth?
In the second edition of the book "Outside the Church there is no salvation," I would like to first offer this article to the attention of readers, which, in my opinion, serves as a good introduction to the issue of modern distortions of the teaching on salvation.
Part 1. On the article by Khudiev
Some time ago, Sergei Khudiev published an article on the website "Pravmir" entitled "Does Christ Reject roman catholics?" I would like to comment on it, and on the topic addressed therein more broadly.
Allow me to provide an extensive quote. Sergei Lvovich writes that the famous 19th-century physician, the roman catholic Friedrich Haaz, "believed in Christ as God and Savior, placed his hope of salvation in Him, and demonstrated his devotion to Him through zealous works of mercy. Now I read that he, along with other roman catholics, must be denied salvation – because there is a corresponding set of quotations from the saints to that effect. That is, I am supposed to imagine Friedrich Haaz standing before Christ, and Christ saying to him: 'I was hungry and you gave Me food; naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and in prison – and you came to Me; but because you held an incorrect opinion about the primacy of the Roman bishop, depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' The Gospel says that one must believe, keep the commandments, and partake of the sacraments. But, it turns out, there is some fine print attached to Christ's promises: even if a person did all this with all possible diligence, yet holds an erroneous opinion on some matters of church governance and belongs through this to the wrong community, he will still be sent to the devil and his angels."
The author’s thought is clear: if a person believed in Christ as God, and moreover did good deeds, then Christ is obliged to save him and bring him into paradise, despite any heresies that person confessed, and even despite the fact that he consciously did not want to enter His Church (Doctor Haaz lived in Russia and was well informed about Orthodoxy). And if some “set of quotations from the saints” contradicts this, then so much the worse for those saints. So, the thought is clear and very appealing to many of our contemporaries.
However, when we open the Gospel and read the very words of Christ, we unexpectedly encounter the following: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven… Many will say to Me in that day: ‘Lord! Lord! have we not prophesied in Your name? And in Your name have we not cast out demons?’ And then I will declare to them: ‘I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:21–23).
That is, “Khudiev’s revelation” teaches that Christ will not reject someone who acknowledges Christ as Lord and does good deeds. But Christ Himself in the Gospel describes precisely a situation where He rejects those who both acknowledged Him as Lord and did good deeds during their lives – for freeing a demoniac from the power of a demon is, undoubtedly, a good deed.
Surely these words are not written in fine print in the edition of the Bible that Sergei Lvovich uses? So fine that he could not read them?
And there are other words in the New Testament as well: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we have said before, so now I say again: if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be anathema” (Galatians 1:8–9).
Is this not what the holy fathers did with respect to roman catholics? When the primates of the Roman Church began to preach a gospel other than that preached by the apostles – in particular, the error about the Trinity (filioque), the error about the Body of Christ – the Church (that she supposedly has as head not Christ, but a mortal man – the Pope of Rome) and other errors – they were cut off from communion as heretics. Lest I seem to be making unsubstantiated claims, I will offer just one quotation as confirmation.
This is from the Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1848: “The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church… now again proclaims conciliarly that the opinion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is a real heresy, and its followers, whoever they may be, are heretics.”
Meanwhile, the Apostle Paul clearly writes: "the one giving himself over to heresy... will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:21–22). Is this also printed in fine print in Khudiev’s Bible? No matter how many editions of the New Testament I have looked at, the aforementioned words are printed everywhere in the same typeface as everything else.
Sergei Lvovich writes that supposedly "every error is regrettable, but not all errors are equally pernicious. There is a difference between whether a person errs concerning the person and deeds of the Savior or whether he errs concerning the authority of the Pope of Rome."
It seems that, for the sake of a manipulative effect, the respected author has deliberately distorted the essence of the difference between Orthodoxy and roman catholicism on this matter. Roman catholics err not "concerning the authority of the Pope of Rome," but concerning the teaching of the Church as the Body of Christ. And also concerning the teaching on the Trinity. On what basis does he decide that errors on these points of Church teaching are not pernicious?
It is just as if someone were to say to a novice navigator before setting sail: "You only need to worry if the ship deviates from its course by 50%, but if it is only 5%, that is nothing. It won’t affect reaching the destination." Of course it will — even a deviation of just 1% from the course will ultimately take the ship far away from its destination. Likewise, whether a person gets all the digits of a safe’s combination wrong or just one — in any case, he will not be able to open the safe.
If even in earthly matters precision is so important for success, why does Mr. Khudiev decide that it is unimportant in matters of doctrine?
At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, one of the participants asked: "Is the heresy that has newly appeared now lesser than those that came before, or greater?" Saint Tarasius of Constantinople replied: "Evil is just evil, especially in ecclesiastical matters; concerning dogmas, whether one errs in small things or in great things — it is all the same; because in both cases the law of God is violated." [1]
Part 2. How one becomes a "fundamentalist"
In this manner, I intended to analyze the entire article by Mr. Khudiev, but then I realized it was pointless. I will try to explain why.
When I say that all who did not belong to the Orthodox Church during their lifetime have no hope of salvation, I am fully aware of how unpopular an idea I am voicing. Nowadays, not only among modernists and liberals, but even among those who consider themselves zealots of the faith and denounce ecumenism, there are many who, upon hearing this idea, begin to grimace and say, "Well, that's going too far!"
In the eyes of contemporary man, the idea that outside the Church there is no salvation looks like a dangerous relic of the gloomy Middle Ages, something in the same category as burning witches and impaling heretics. To say such a thing automatically brings down upon oneself the labels of "proud," "hater of humanity," "fanatic," "fundamentalist," and even "extremist."
And therefore, no matter how convincing the arguments I present, my position is media-wise doomed to defeat, because I am frankly expressing a rather odious and uncomfortable idea for my contemporaries. And my opponents, for example, Sergei Khudiev, are media-wise doomed to victory, even without any arguments, if they simply preach what the contemporary person already likes.
But if I am not fated to convince the reader, I will at least try to explain "how I got to be this way." Perhaps it will become clearer to some very modern Orthodox Christians what drives people who say that the non-Orthodox will not be saved.
If someone twenty-five years ago, at the dawn of my coming to church, had asked me, "Will roman catholics be saved?", I would have answered the same way Mr. Khudiev answers now. But my coming to church took place while reading the ancient Church Fathers. I loved them and trusted them. From them I learned what Christianity is, how to believe correctly, how to pray, how to live.
I remember that at the same time I came across a book by some Russian Baptist. And it casually stated the following: the true Church existed during the time of the apostles, but already in the next generation, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and others distorted the pure biblical teaching and introduced many false teachings.
I was shocked; I could not wrap my head around it – how could one think that you, sitting in an office in one of the high-rise buildings of a 20th‑century metropolis, understand the New Testament better than people who were disciples of the apostles, who personally saw and heard them, who spoke and thought in the same language, lived in the same environment, suffered and died for Christ?
Perhaps to very modern Orthodox Christians this will seem naive, but I truly trusted fully what I read in the holy fathers. And so I saw that the disciple of the Apostle John, the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God‑Bearer, as he was going to his execution, considered it important to warn: "Do not be deceived, my brethren! Those who corrupt the house of God will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But if those who do this with respect to the flesh suffer death, how much more shall anyone who corrupts the faith of God by evil teaching, for which Jesus Christ was crucified? Such a person, as being defiled, will go into the unquenchable fire, and likewise anyone who listens to him." [2]
Encountering this, I decided: "So I was wrong when I thought that the heterodox could be saved – for a disciple of the apostle writes that not only the heresiarch, but also those who listen to him will go to hell." Thus, trusting the holy fathers, I changed my views on this and other matters.
Continuing my reading, I became convinced that the saints of subsequent centuries taught the same truth. When I reached the fathers of the third century, I read in the Hieromartyr Cyprian of Carthage: "Outside the Church there is no life: there is one house of God, and no one can be saved anywhere except in the Church." [3]
And later I saw the same teaching in St. John Chrysostom: "We know that salvation is the portion of the One Church alone, and that no one outside the Catholic Church and the faith can have any part in Christ or be saved... we do not allow heresies to have any hope of salvation, but we place them completely outside this hope, since they have no communion whatsoever with Christ." [4]
And I have encountered this teaching among many saints, right up to John of Kronstadt, who wrote: "Muslims will not enter, Jews, idolaters, heretics will not enter, sectarians will not enter, fornicators… and other wicked ones will not enter and will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Only by true faith in Christ and in His Church will we be saved, together with works of love." [5]
What is most amusing is that for a long time I thought that I alone was such a fool, believing that heretics might be saved – while all other Orthodox, of course, believe as the Holy Fathers do and would never make such a mistake. After all, they have read the same saints, and many began reading before I did.
The revelation came suddenly.
It happened under the following circumstances. I was invited to a seminary to give a lecture for students who were soon to be sent on a short-term missionary trip somewhere up north. I gave a lecture on missiology with a practical focus. At the end, I left time for questions, and while answering one question, I mentioned, as something self-evident, that outside the Church there is no salvation. Suddenly, a student objected to me. We started discussing it, other seminarians joined in, and suddenly I realized that a significant portion of them, if not all, are convinced that one can be saved without Christianity as well. I sat there as if struck by thunder. "Why then are you planning to go on a mission?" I asked. "Why will you preach Orthodoxy if you believe that one can be saved without it? Leave people alone, then, let them live as they wish and be saved by good deeds, since you believe that it is they, and not Christ, who save a person."
The seminarians gave me no answer to that; likely, they themselves were not particularly eager to go on the mission – it was the initiative of the administration. I realized that I had given my entire lecture in vain. I should have first clarified the question of the sole salvific nature of the Church, and only then spoken about mission. After that time, I have tried to address this question in my lectures. And from the reaction of the listeners, I saw how widespread the teaching that there is salvation outside the Church has become among contemporary Orthodox believers. Not only regarding roman catholics – the unbaptized should also be saved – "good Muslims," "good idolaters," and even "good atheists." The main thing is that a person does good deeds; whether he believes in God, whether he was baptized – these are trifles that do not affect salvation.
When I tried to point out that the holy fathers teach something completely different, I saw with amazement in these very modern Orthodox Christians a cold contempt for the patristic witness. Like with Khudiev – as if to say, "so what, just some 'set of quotations from the saints,' and should I now abandon MY own opinion because of them?"
I confess, encountering such a reaction, I still feel the same bewilderment and confusion that I felt when reading the aforementioned Baptist.
How can one not believe the witness of the saints? Our dogmatic books were written by the holy fathers. Our divine services were written by the holy fathers. Our prayers were written by them. The moral and ascetic teaching – in short, everything we have received in the Church is a gift from God, which He gave us through His saints.
And if I am not to believe the holy fathers, who taught that heretics will perish, then whom should I believe? Why, for example, should I believe Khudiev and Osipov more than the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer and St. John Chrysostom? I seek a reason and do not find one – except perhaps this: that the former say what I like better. But God is as He is, not as I would like to invent Him. He is by no means obliged to adapt Himself to the tastes and fantasies of sinful people. And God acts as He has decided, not as I think it would be better for Him to act. I may think all I want that a green sky would look better, but the sky will not turn green because of that.
I have always been more interested in how things really are than in what I can dream up for myself. And that is why I do not understand those who find their own fantasies more interesting than the truth.
I have non-Orthodox friends whom I love and about whom I worry that they are outside the ark of salvation. But this is their choice. I have close relatives who died outside the Church. I grieve over their fate, but it is their choice, and false fantasies that they will somehow be in paradise cannot help them.
I recall the story of one Orthodox woman. Her son committed suicide. I imagine nothing could be worse than this for a believing parent, and one can understand her feelings when she began to convince herself that salvation was nevertheless possible for him. Soon she met another woman who assured her that all this was nonsense, that suicides supposedly go to hell, but in fact God loves everyone, so of course He must save suicides as well. So this mother seemingly heard what she so wanted to hear—confirmation of her hope. But she also decided to pray that the Lord would reveal to her where her son now was. And that very night she saw in a dream that her son was in hell, and it was so horrific that, upon waking, she began to beg the Lord never to show her that again.
Part 3. Problems
If I am to believe the idea that one can be saved even without the Church, this creates problems not only in my relationship with the holy fathers, but first and foremost in my relationship with God. For then, when reading the words of Christ that "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (John 3:5), I would have to mentally correct Him: "Lord, You forgot that there are good idolaters and good atheists—You must also bring them into Your Kingdom." And when reading the above-quoted words from the apostolic epistle, I would have to mentally object: "What are you saying, Paul? What 'anathema,' when among the heterodox there are so many good people! So what if they are preaching something other than what you preached two thousand years ago? The main thing is that the person is good."
Honestly, I would find it strange to be in such a "schizophrenic" state, simultaneously considering myself a believer in God and not believing God in what He says.
It is worth mentioning the arguments of opponents. If Sergei Lvovich does not cite them, that does not mean they do not exist. Over the years, I have managed to study them well, and also to weigh them and find them lightweight. A significant portion of them is examined in my book "Outside the Church there is no salvation" (presented below – Fr. G.M.).
I will analyze one more here. Among adherents of this worldview, the favorite verbal club with which to beat so‑called "fanatics" in an argument is – "you don't love people!" The same can be read between the lines in Khudiev – look, what a wonderful man Friedrich Haaz was, yet you are planning to send him to hell! How unmerciful! Is that love? They often state outright that whoever believes the non‑Orthodox will perish has a poor understanding of love.
But when I hear this, I am reminded of Saint John of Kronstadt himself, and I ask myself: was he the one who did not love people? Then why do I not see in our opponents, who speak of love, even a tenth of the self‑sacrifice for one's neighbor that Saint John showed through his life? Or, perhaps, was Saint John Chrysostom deficient in his understanding of love? Or the other saints?
Readers of Pravmir may reproach me: there you go again with your holy fathers! Can you not say something without appealing to them? Very well, let me try to add an example from life. Or rather, a parable about two doctors.
The first doctor, when receiving patients who have been diagnosed with cancer or tuberculosis at an early stage, smiles at them, offers them candy, and says: "everything is fine, you are healthy! Of course, there are some deviations from the norm, but nothing serious. This will not affect your future life at all." The satisfied patients leave, touched by such a smiling and courteous doctor. Without treatment, their disease progresses, and they die.
The second doctor, receiving such patients, without any smiles tells them: "You have a dangerous disease; if urgent measures are not taken, you will die!" He insists on treatment, and the patients, taking their situation seriously, undergo treatment and recover.
What do you think: which of the two doctors truly loves his patients? And will the first doctor's patients and their relatives ultimately be grateful to him?
If heresy truly destroys the soul for eternity, then it becomes clear why the holy fathers wrote about this, and also why they acted so irreconcilably in the fight against heresies. They were moved by love for the perishing. The entire history of the Church becomes clear to us; conversely, if we believe that heresy does not deprive a person of the possibility of salvation, the history of the Church becomes incomprehensible. If heresy deprives one of salvation, then it is clear that it was precisely love for the perishing that guided, for example, Saint Maximus the Confessor when he irreconcilably denounced heresy. But if it does not deprive a person of salvation, then everything reduces merely to a temporary difference in wording, and then we must agree with those who cut out St. Maximus's tongue and hand, so that he would cease, both orally and in writing, to denounce the authorities and thereby sow confusion among the people over a question that does not affect salvation.
Let me give an example here as well. Imagine a woman whose husband has fallen ill with tuberculosis but does not consider it a dangerous disease, attributing the symptoms to his individual characteristics. He walks around the apartment, plays with the children, coughs here and there, and refuses to undergo treatment. The wife takes the children and leaves him, saying that they can only be together after he has undergone treatment.
Our understanding of this woman's actions depends on whether we recognize tuberculosis as a deadly disease. If yes, then the woman's behavior becomes understandable to us as a manifestation of her love both for the children and for the husband himself, whom she wishes through this to push toward an awareness of the seriousness of the situation and the start of treatment. If we believe that there is no tuberculosis at all, or that it does no harm to health whatsoever, then the woman's behavior seems to us irrational, even bordering on madness.
The same goes for the history of the Church.
And not only that. If one believes that salvation is possible outside the Orthodox Church, then what Sergei Khudiev is trying to frighten readers with also loses its meaning. He claims that belief in the exclusive saving power of one's own Church leads to schisms. But if one believes the main idea of Sergei Lvovich, then it becomes unclear what is so terrible about that? If salvation is possible outside the Church, then it is possible in schism as well. One could address the author with his own pathetic question: does Christ reject schismatics? For in terms of dogma, they do not even have the errors that he acknowledges in roman catholics, and they also do good deeds. Schismatics no less than roman catholics "believe, keep the commandments, and partake of the sacraments," which means, according to Khudiev's thinking, they should go straight to heaven in the company of Dr. Haaz.
And if schism does not threaten salvation, then why not go into schism? If it does not threaten salvation, then in that case it is merely an administrative division, no more than a ripple on the surface of history, and in the end we will all end up in paradise.
As we can see, in reality, it is precisely the ideas professed by Mr. Khudiev that lead to schisms, and not those with which he is trying to argue.
Part 4. Conclusion
The ideology we are discussing is not actually Christianity – it is humanism with a small Orthodox décor.
I remember when I was studying ancient pagan religions, it struck me that people who lived before Christ understood that nothing good awaited them after death. Both the Sumerian Kur and the ancient Greek Hades were very joyless places. And that was what was intended for all the dead. Something higher and better, if it could be handed down from the bounteous table of the gods, was, in the opinion of the pagans, only an exception for very few, sometimes even isolated individuals. Ancient people realized that the higher powers owed them nothing and were not obliged to save them. In such an environment, the evangelical preaching of the blessed Kingdom of Heaven, which is open to all who come to Christ, sounded truly as good news, filling the listeners with a sense of deep gratitude for such a priceless gift.
But in our time, thanks to the dominance of humanism, which has placed man at the center of the world, the message of salvation, won for us by Christ on the cross, has been completely devalued. Modern people, including very modern Orthodox Christians, take this for granted. There is a pervasive, subconscious conviction that God is obliged to save man simply because "man – that sounds proud." Even if exceptions are made for some monsters like Hitler or Chikatilo, it is because through their atrocities they "have forfeited the right to be called human." But otherwise, God is simply supposed to bring man into paradise just because he is a human being. That is, as it were, God's job.
To everyone who thinks in this way, I suggest asking themselves one simple question: "What if it's not like that? What if God, after all, was not joking, and told the truth when He warned that the unbaptized and heretics will not enter His Kingdom, that whoever does not believe in the Gospel will be condemned (Mark 16:16), that the fate of unbelievers is in the lake of fire? (Rev. 21:8)."
I have met people who said, "If that is so, then I don't want to believe in such a God! I don't need such a Christ!"
So, following the example of the title question of Mr. Khudiev's article, "Does Christ Reject roman catholics," I would like to ask: would Mr. Khudiev reject Christ if it turned out that He truly will not let roman catholics, including Friedrich Haaz, into paradise?
I hope that he would not reject Him after all, and I sincerely wish that Sergei Lvovich would abandon false fantasies for the sake of eternal truth. Because with false fantasies we will not help Friedrich Haaz anyway, but we will harm ourselves.
The idea of ultimate responsibility for the choices one makes is very unpopular among modern people. Therefore, some fantasize about reincarnation as an unlimited number of "second chances for correction" in the future, while others fantasize about universal or nearly universal salvation. Anything to avoid acknowledging the utmost seriousness and responsibility of the choice.
But look at the earth, at how magnificent our planet is and what is above it. Look at the starry sky above your head. Even a minute of contemplation will convince you: He who created all this is utterly serious about what He does. And He is especially serious about our choice: "I call heaven and earth as witnesses before you today: I have set before you life and death... Choose life" (Deut. 30:19).
Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6) and "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). Therefore, whoever does not believe in Christ and whoever does not receive communion in His true Church makes a choice that does not lead to eternal life. And the Savior warned: "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and withers; and such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire" (John 15:6).
Thus said the eternal God, the creator of the universe. "Has He said, and will He not do it? Has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?" (Numbers 23:19).
Outside the Church there is no salvation
Introduction
"The Christian faith… is the only path to true blessedness, revealed by God to men. And as the Savior declares that He is the door to the Father, that He is the way, the truth, and the life… then there is no salvation outside the crucified Jesus Christ; and without faith in His Name as the true God, who appeared in the flesh, no one can be cleansed from sin, be enlightened, and enter the Heavenly Kingdom." [6]
Thus Venerable Macarius (Glukharev) expressed that holy truth that salvation is possible only in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is also attested by the words of Christ Himself, spoken concerning the preaching of the Gospel, that "he who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mark 16:16), and the words that "unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God" (John 3:5), and the words of the Apostle Peter, testifying that apart from the name of Jesus Christ "there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved… nor is there salvation in any other" (Acts 4:11–12).
This truth is also confirmed by official church decrees. In particular, the decree of the Council of Jerusalem of 1672, reproduced in the Epistle of the Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith of 1723, proclaims: "We believe that Holy Baptism, commanded by the Lord and performed in the name of the Holy Trinity, is necessary. For without it no one can be saved, as the Lord says: 'Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God' (John 3:5)… And the Lord, showing this, spoke without any exception, simply: 'Whoever is not born…' that is, after the coming of Christ the Savior, all who are to enter the Heavenly Kingdom must be reborn… And those who are not reborn and therefore have not received remission of ancestral sin are necessarily subject to eternal punishment for this sin, and consequently are not saved."
Moreover, the order of service for the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the text of which was adopted by the Holy Synod in 1764, clearly proclaims: "Those who do not accept the grace of redemption proclaimed by the Gospel as the sole means of our justification before God – Anathema!" That is, the Church has officially declared the condemnation of those who do not accept the Gospel teaching that salvation is possible only through the redemptive sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And regarding who can be saved, another famous Altai missionary, Saint Macarius (Nevsky), speaks well: "Despite the fact that the redemptive sacrifice was offered by Christ the Savior for all people, only those who believe in Christ and belong to the Body created by Him – the one, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church – can partake of its fruits, those who have entered into communion with Christ through partaking of His Body and Blood.
Therefore, those who do not believe in Christ and do not belong to the holy Orthodox Church cannot partake of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. And there remain many such people throughout the whole earth and in our fatherland… All of them are in need of the preaching about Christ and about the Church established by Him." [7]
The Church was created by Christ as an ark of salvation. That is why in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles it is said that "the Lord added to the Church those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47), and nowhere in Scripture will we find words that He leads those who are being saved to anywhere else besides the Church.
Despite all this, unfortunately, in our time, a delusion has taken root among many Orthodox people that one can be saved even outside the Church established by the Lord, without baptism, without faith in the Gospel – it does not matter whether you believe in God or not, whether you acknowledge Christ as Savior or not, whether you live according to the Gospel or not; the main thing is to be a relatively decent person, do good deeds, and the Lord will save you for it. Denouncing this terrible delusion, Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) said that "he who acknowledges the possibility of salvation without faith in Christ renounces Christ and, perhaps involuntarily, falls into the grave sin of blasphemy." [8]
It is no wonder that Saint Ignatius called the thought that one can be saved without Christ a renunciation of Christ. For if one can be saved without Christ, then one could have been saved even before Christ. If one could have been saved before Christ, then Christ came in vain, meaning Christ is not the Savior, even though the very name "Jesus" translates as "God saves," and was given precisely because "He will save His people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21), and He Himself said that He came "to save human souls" (Luke 9:56), and that "he who enters through Me will be saved" (John 10:9).
I did not begin this section with a quote from one of the outstanding Orthodox saint-missionaries by accident. Realizing that the question of accepting or not accepting Christ is a matter of life and death, venerable Macarius, as well as other holy missionaries [9], could not remain indifferent and, sacrificing themselves, set off for distant lands to serve the salvation of the heterodox living there.
Conversely, the conviction that "good heterodox" will be saved even without faith in Christ, among other destructive effects on the souls of those who profess it, paralyzes every desire to become preachers of the Word of God, and instills in the hearts of such people indifference to the work of preaching, because if one can be saved without the Church, then why invite anyone into the Church? Why exert oneself, take risks, sacrifice oneself? Bad heterodox would not listen anyway, and good heterodox will be saved anyway on account of their good deeds.
But this is a lie. The Apostle Paul said: "if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for no purpose" (Gal. 2:21). And the apostle says this not merely about unbelief, not merely about other religions, but about the divinely revealed Old Law – it was impossible even for them to be saved by it, although God Himself gave it. That is why after death the souls of the ancient righteous descended into hell, from where the Lord brought them out, having descended after the crucifixion into that gloomy place in His Spirit, "by which also He went and preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Pet. 3:19). And if, contrary to the truth, one were to acknowledge that by keeping the Law one could be saved, then the death of Christ would be in vain, for then everything He accomplished was done not for our salvation, which we could have achieved by observing the Law as well.
And if even the acknowledgment and observance of the law given by God could not save us, then what can be said about other religions, whose source is not God, but man and the devil? Or about the idea that an unbeliever can be saved by good deeds?
As is well known, in apostolic times almost all of humanity, with the exception of a tiny minority of Christians and Jews, was immersed in idolatry. Of course, among those idolaters there were those who performed good deeds. Both before Christ people performed good deeds, and after Him pagans did not cease to do them. However, this did not prevent the Apostle Paul from testifying that those who give themselves to idolatry "shall not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Gal. 5:20–21), that "the Gentiles, when they offer sacrifices, offer them to demons, not to God" (1 Cor. 10:20), nor did it prevent the Apostle John from recording that "idolaters and all liars will have their place in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone" (Rev. 21:8).
It is very important to remember that the Lord humbled Himself and became as one of us, and went to great suffering for our sake, He Himself being sinless, and laid down His life for us – and He did all of this precisely because neither our good deeds, nor our knowledge of God, nor anything else could or can save us.
But since the aforementioned error is now very widespread [10], we should examine the most typical arguments that are put forward in its defense.
1. But what about those who were born and died in non-Orthodox countries and who objectively had no opportunity to learn about Orthodoxy?
First of all, it is worth noting that the very framing of this question implies that God does not exist in our world. At best, He appears only after our death, in the afterlife, while here, on earth, we live on our own, and therefore whether a person living in a non-Orthodox country receives the opportunity to enter the Orthodox Church depends on our actions. If our missionaries reach New Caledonia – then the Church will appear there; if they do not reach it – for example, due to shipwreck, expensive tickets, or simple laziness – then the Church will not appear there. That is, everything is determined by our actions and chance, and if we cannot bring the gospel to some land, then God can only wring His hands powerlessly and seek a way to save the poor New Caledonians after death.
It is only from such a perspective that the above question can arise. But this perspective has nothing in common with the Orthodox faith in God the Almighty and Provident, Who "has charge of the earth… and rules over the whole world" (Job 34:13). Would God, who cares even to send food to the raven or to adorn a lily with a flower (see Lk 12:24, 27), not care to save a person who is "how much more valuable than the birds" (Lk 12:24)?
We know that "the Lord is good" (Ps 134:3), that He "desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim 2:4). He is all-powerful, therefore He said of Himself: "I am God Almighty" (Gen 17:1; 35:11). He knows all things (Gen 15:15; Esther 4:17); what happens in the minds and hearts of people is open to Him: "the Lord searches all hearts and understands every intent of the thoughts" (1 Chron 28:9), "He knows the secrets of the heart" (Ps 43:22). Therefore Scripture calls God the "Heart‑knower" (Acts 1:24; 15:8).
But if God is exactly like that, then it is impossible that He would not lead to Himself, into the Orthodox Church which He established, a person who sincerely seeks Him and whose heart is open to truth and love for God.
But if we nevertheless begin to argue and decide to affirm that God leaves unheeded the hands of truth-lovers raised to Him, that He abandons to perish in the sea of sin and falsehood the souls of those who would have become sincere Orthodox if an Orthodox missionary had reached them and told them about Christ – then we face the question: why does God act this way? Why did He not send a missionary to that person? And in answering this question, we run into a trilemma:
Either God knows that among some non-Orthodox people there is a person whose heart is open and ready to receive Him, He wants to save this person, but cannot – and then He is not omnipotent.
Or God can save such a person, He desires to save him, but does not know where the person's heart inclines and is unable to discern which people are open to the truth – and then He is not omniscient.
Or God knows that there is a person open to truth and thirsting for it, He can save him, but He does not want to save him – and then He is not all-good.
Any one of these solutions leads to that very blasphemy of which Saint Ignatius speaks.
But there is also a fourth solution. The only one in which there is no blasphemy. It appears when we discard the fantasy, based on no one knows what, that supposedly among this heterodox people there live people who love the truth and are ready to receive God into their hearts, but God for some reason either does not know, or cannot, or does not want to save them, and we come to the question: what if the reason is something else? What if God does know, can, and wants to, but simply in this people at this moment in its history "no one seeks God; all have turned aside, they are together become unprofitable" (Rom. 3:11–12)? And that is why God does not send missionaries to them, because He knows well that their labors would be fruitless there at this moment.
In the Acts of the Apostles we read: "After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but the Spirit suffered them not" (Acts 16:7). God Himself does not allow preaching into these lands!
Why?
Did God not want the people living at that time in Asia and Bithynia to be saved? Of course He wanted to. But God, who sees the hearts of men and their thoughts, knew that none of them at that moment were seeking the truth and would not receive the apostolic preaching. [11]
And what would happen if the apostles came to such places, proclaimed the Gospel, and all the inhabitants, to the very last, rejected this preaching? Christ Himself says about this: "But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city" (Luke 10:10–12).
It is just that the punishment of those sinners who heard the preaching about Christ and rejected it will be much heavier than that of those who sinned and were enslaved to sin without knowing the Savior. But the Lord, Who "is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil" (Luke 6:35), wants there to be as few such cities as possible. And for a time He does not send apostles there, and sometimes even restrains them, so that even for those people who in their hearts chose sin rather than God, there might be a circumstance mitigating their guilt.
This leaving them in ignorance becomes for them an expression of God's mercy, for "that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes" (Luke 12:47–48). Through this we see the love of God, we see how even for those people who in their hearts preferred darkness, God cares.
But if He so cares for those who, by choosing sin, have made themselves enemies of God, then how much more must He care for those in whose hearts there is a thirst for truth and righteousness?
It is precisely such people He seeks among all nations, as Scripture says: "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God" (Psalm 14:2). Venerable Silouan the Athonite says that "the Holy Spirit moves every soul to seek God." [12] And if any soul responds and begins to seek God, then what the Lord promised in Scripture is fulfilled for it: "If you seek Him, He will be found by you" (1 Chronicles 28:9).
If there is a person whose heart sincerely seeks the truth, even if he lives among a people completely unaware of Orthodoxy, the Lord arranges for such a person the opportunity to receive Orthodoxy.
Thus, in the 12th century, God arranged for a German roman catholic and a Volga Bulgarian Muslim to have the opportunity to learn about Orthodoxy, and in the 13th century, for a Mongol pagan. All three made use of this opportunity and became Orthodox, even though it was very difficult. Now they are recorded in our calendar of saints as St. Procopius of Ustyug, St. Abraham of Bulgaria, and St. Peter of the Horde.
The entire history of the Church, as well as the present day, is full of such examples, confirming the words of the Psalmist: "You do not forsake those who seek You, O Lord" (Ps. 9:11).
In the New Testament, we see this in the example of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:27–39). How much the Lord arranged so that this man could successfully reach Judea, so that he could learn about faith in the one God, so that he could learn Hebrew, so that the book of the prophet Isaiah would fall into his hands, and finally, so that this eunuch would meet the Apostle Philip, who proclaimed Christ to him and then baptized him.
How much care for one soul we see in this account, how much has been arranged by Providence to give this lover of truth the opportunity to enter the salvific ark of the Church through baptism!
And if someone, seeing all this, begins to imagine that at the same time in Ethiopia or other countries there were other people who were similarly disposed toward the truth in their hearts and sought God, but, unlike this eunuch, God for some reason did not send an apostle to them, nor give them the opportunity to learn the truth and be baptized – then what can be said? Either such a fantasizer does not believe in God at all and thinks that everything in the world is determined by chance, or he accuses God of partiality and injustice, believing that He, with all circumstances being equal, for some reason gives some the opportunity to be saved while denying it to others.
But Scripture says: "There is no unrighteousness in the Lord our God, nor partiality" (2 Chron. 19:7), and this truth—that God has no partiality—is repeated three more times by the apostle (Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25).
If we believe in God's Providence, we understand that things do not happen as if we first go somewhere and preach, and then, as a result, believers appear—no, first the God who knows the heart sees that in such and such a people there are souls ready to receive the truth and thirsting for it, and after that He arranges things so that either a missionary comes to these souls, or these souls find themselves in a country where the Orthodox Church exists.
According to St. Athanasius, "for the knowledge and precise understanding of the truth, we need no one other than ourselves. The path to God is not far from us… it is not outside us, but within us; and its beginning can be found by us, as Moses also taught, saying: The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (Rom. 10:8; Deut. 30:14)… Let the idol-worshipping Greeks make no excuses, and let no one else deceive himself, claiming that they have no such path, and therefore that they have a pretext for their godlessness. We have all entered upon this path, and it is open to all, though not all walk on it." [13]
Therefore, no one can excuse himself by ignorance. As St. Nikon of Optina testifies, "the possibility of salvation is given by God everywhere to all." [14] Because a person's conversion to God begins not from some external circumstances—not from seeing an Orthodox church and entering it, or from an Orthodox book falling into their hands, or from meeting an Orthodox Christian, encountering a holy person, or seeing a miracle—but from the inner choice of their heart.
Yes, not everyone is born in an Orthodox country, not everyone knows about Orthodoxy and about Christ; there are peoples whose culture lacks the very concept of one God. But absolutely every person on earth knows such concepts as "good" and "evil," "truth" and "falsehood," and everyone has a conscience that helps distinguish one from the other. And through this, every person makes a choice. According to the words of Saint Justin (Popović), "man in this world must resolve the problem: to be with Christ, or to be against Him. And every person, whether they wish it or not, resolves this problem. Either they will be a lover of Christ, or a fighter against Christ. A third option is not given." [15]
The Lord promised: "seek and you will find" (Matt. 7:7), therefore any sincere search for truth leads a person to Christ, for "truth is the God-man Christ and His Gospel. And falsehood is everything that is not Him, everything that is not in His Gospel and is against the Gospel. Therefore, faith in Christ is 'the service of truth' (2 Cor. 3:9). Whoever does not serve Christ serves falsehood." [16] Only the one who does not seek the truth fails to find the truth and does not end up in the Orthodox Church. But through this unwillingness to seek, he too makes a choice about his life, and this choice, unfortunately, is not in favor of the truth.
But the one who chooses love for truth, who yearns to know the truth [17], enters upon the path to God, which, in the words of Saint Athanasius, is within ourselves, and for such a person the Lord sends the opportunity to enter into His Church, leading him to an Orthodox church, sending the necessary book, a friend, and other external things that help him come to the Church; and if someone for sincere conversion needs to meet a saint or see a miracle – the Lord sends him a saint and works a miracle. He gives everything necessary to quench the thirst of the one who thirsts for truth. On the cross, Christ showed how much He is willing to do for our salvation.
The Lord calls: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). But whoever does not ask does not receive; whoever does not seek does not find; whoever does not knock, the door will not be opened to them. If an entire people consists of such people, then the Lord does not send preachers of the Gospel to that people.
Blessed Augustine writes directly about this: "As regards that time and those places when and where His Gospel was not preached, He foresaw that then and there all people would be the same with respect to that preaching as many were during His bodily presence [on earth], namely, those who did not want to believe in Him even when the dead were raised by Him… What wonder, then, if Christ, knowing over the past centuries how full the universe was of unbelievers, justly did not wish to preach to those of whom He knew in advance that they would not believe either His words or His miracles?" [18]
In the same way, Saint Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky) examines the question of why, while some people are born into Orthodox families and from childhood receive knowledge about salvation, "other unfortunate ones… are born as if destined for perdition… they live and grow up in the most unfavorable conditions for salvation… So we ask ourselves, what does this mean? Why does the Lord, as it were, foreordain some for salvation, while others are as though condemned beforehand to perdition?…
No, no! He wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. We read in the Epistle to the Romans: 'And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son' (Romans 8:28–29). The significance of these words of the Apostle Paul is immense. Those whom He foreknew according to His divine foreknowledge would follow the path commanded by Christ and would be worthy of the Kingdom of God are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." [19]
Some people who are not well-versed in theology call this patristic teaching Calvinist or liken it to the Muslim view of predestination, thinking that there is no teaching on predestination at all in Orthodoxy. But this is not so; Scripture clearly says: "Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. 8:30). However, Orthodoxy does not accept the erroneous, heretical understanding of predestination.
According to the heretical teaching, God predestines the actions of people, as well as their choices and their fate, whereas according to Orthodox teaching, the Lord does not predestine either a person's choice, or his deeds, or his posthumous fate; but, knowing by foreknowledge what choice this or that person will freely make in his heart, for those who choose the truth, the Lord predestines external circumstances that allow them to realize this choice and unfold it in the best possible way, and ultimately, to attain the Kingdom of Heaven.
In the "Epistle of the Patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith" of 1723, it says: "since God foresaw that some would make good use of their free will, and others badly, for this reason He predestined the former to glory, and condemned the latter." Further, the patriarchs say that in the entire human world, there operates "illuminating grace," which "like light enlightening those who walk in darkness, guides all," and "those who wish to freely submit to it (for it helps those who seek it, not those who resist it), and fulfill its commands necessary for salvation, receive in consequence also a special grace," and it is this second grace, "perfecting them in the love of God … that justifies them and makes them predestined." As for the opinion of those who, "destroying man's free will," present the desire of God Himself as the cause of the torments of hell for the perishing, the patriarchs call this a "terrible slander against God," Who "is not the cause of any evil, equally desires the salvation of all, and in Whom there is no place for favoritism," and they anathematize "those who speak and think in this way."
So, on one hand, we have the Christian teaching that the Lord loses no one and forgets no one. He lacks no power, attention, or means to save anyone, so that all who wish to come to the knowledge of the truth, He, by His Providence, leads into His Church.
On the other hand, as an alternative, we are offered a strange belief in a weak, limited God, who lacked the power to spread the Church properly, and therefore, for all those whom He failed to bring into the Church during their lifetime, a backup plan for salvation is needed, which is supposedly to occur after death.
Comparing these two teachings, I see no reason whatsoever to say that the second is more worthy of God, more worthy of Christ.
How is this strange and absurd belief in a weak God better than the Christian faith in an almighty God, who gives the opportunity to be baptized into His Church to all who sincerely seek the truth?
[The translation of the remaining part of the book is in progress. Please wait.]