{"id":7666,"date":"2019-12-29T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T17:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=7666"},"modified":"2019-12-22T09:04:56","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T14:04:56","slug":"sergei-iosifovich-fudel-on-the-witness-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/?p=7666","title":{"rendered":"Sergei Iosifovich Fudel+ on the ‘Witness’ of the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Holy Church of Christ is one! But its dark double has existed in history near it and under its name.<\/p>\n

Evil has always lived next to the never-fading life of the Church of Christ, within the Church enclosure; and we should keep our eyes open to this, keeping in mind that the hand of him that betrayeth Me is with Me on the table<\/em> (Lk. 22:21). St. John Chrysostom was not afraid of realizing and voicing the spiritual disease of his Local Church. St. John of Kronstadt said: \u2018Not knowing the spirit that destroys, you will not know the Spirit that gives life. Only by means of direct contrasts of good and evil, of life and death, can we clearly know both the one and the other.\u2019 1<\/sup><\/a> And now the Church lives in a time when it is especially important for Christians to have a clear vision so that they can \u2018know both the one and the other.\u2019<\/p>\n

Some young newcomers to the Church accept everything they see in it rashly and trustingly; and then, when its \u2018dark double\u2019 delivers them a blow, they are fatally distressed up to the point of regressing to atheism.<\/p>\n

In the Church, Seek Christ! Seek only Him! Because only the Church is the Body of Christ in its humanity, only His Body; and then you will be given a wise heart for the discernment of good and evil in the Church, in order to see that the light of the Church shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not<\/em> (Jn. 1:5).”<\/p>\n

\u00a0 – excerpts collected by\u00a0Igumen Nektary Morozov<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

***Now and then we include a particularly thought provoking or inspiring excerpt not from one of our regular \u2018Elders\u2019***<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Holy Church of Christ is one! But its dark double has existed in history near it and under its name. Evil has always lived next to the never-fading life […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-modern-orthodox-elders","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7668,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7666\/revisions\/7668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxinsight.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}