The Church is without beginning, without end and eternal, just as the Triune God, her founder, is without beginning, without end, and eternal. She is uncreated just as God is uncreated. She existed before the ages, before the angels, before the creation of the world - "before the foundation of the world" (Eph 1:4) as the Apostle Paul says. She is a divine institution and in her "dwells the whole fullness of divinity" (Col 2:9). She is an expression of the richly varied wisdom of God. She is the mystery of mysteries. She was concealed and was revealed "in the last of times" (1 Pet 1:20). The Church remains unshaken because she is rooted in the love and wise providence of God.
The three persons of the Holy Trinity constitute the eternal Church. The angels and human beings existed in the thought and love of the Triune God from the beginning. We human beings were not born now, we existed before the ages in God's omniscience.
+St. Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite, in Wounded By Love: The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios, Part 2: The Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios, On The Church
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