Fr. Alexander Schmemann: Our liturgical Church

 Our Church remains a liturgical Church par excellence not only in the sense of the uninterruptedness of her ancient tradition of worship, but also because of the place which worship occupies in the life of the faithful, because of the special love the faithful have for the church building and its services.

+Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from Introduction to Liturgical Theology 

Archimandrite George of St. Gregorios: The Church as the place of Theosis

 The world has fine institutions, fine organizations, fine establishments and other fine things, but our Orthodox Church is the unrepeatable, the sole place for the communion of God with man, for the Theosis of man. Only within the Church can man become a god, and nowhere else; not in universities; not in social services; not in any of the fine and good things that the world has. None of these are able to offer what the Church offers, however good they may be.

+Archimandrite George of St. Gregorios, from Theosis, The True Purpose of Human Life, The Church: The Place of Man's Theosis

Fr. Michael Shanbour: The Resurrection of Jesus as Reality

 The Resurrection of Jesus is not merely an abstract doctrine to believe in, not merely an isolated past event to assent to intellectually, but an organic reality to enter into and assimilate into one's being in Christ’s Body, the Church. The Resurrection is the very life and atmosphere of God’s Church, made present by the Holy Spirit, and breathed into our souls by means of the divine worship of the Church through the union of heaven and earth in Christ.

+Fr. Michael Shanbour, from Know the Faith: A Handbook for Orthodox Christians and Inquirers, Chapter 10 The Intercession of the Saints.

Fr. Joseph Huneycutt: Our changing yet unchanging Church

 An old and successful parishioner once told me: “One of the keys to successful living is being able to adapt to the changes." Change is inevitable. Yet just as “Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb 13:8)  - so shall the Church be. A rudimentary study of Byzantine history reveals many changes wrought by fallible humans throughout that era in the Church. Yet the same Church now being found by American converts, reverts, and retreads - founded by Christ upon the Apostles - is the same Ark of Salvation that found our Byzantine brethren Within her embrace many years ago. It is the same faith being experienced anew in Russia. It will endure throughout all time. For now, its witness is a fledgling mission in America. Should the Lord tarry, there will inevitably develop an “American expression" of the true faith in a land populated With immigrants from many nations. In the meantime we may all look a

bit crazy, flying over, while praying Within, that onion dome. Glory to God for all things!

+Fr. Joseph Huneycutt, from One Flew over the Onion Dome American Orthodox Converts, Reverts & Retreads

Fr. Alexander Schmemann: The Church as the way of Salvation

 Christ did not establish a society for the observance of worship, a "cultic society", but rather the Church as the way of salvation, as the new life of re-created mankind. This does not mean that worship is secondary to the Church. On the contrary, it is inseparable from the Church and without it there is no Church. But this is because its purpose is to express form, or realize the Church - to be the source of that grace which always make the Church the Church, the people of God, the Body of Christ, "a chosen race and a royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9).

+Fr. Alexander Schmemann, from Introduction to Liturgical Theology, Introduction

St. Hippolytus of Rome: On the World and the Church

 The world is like a sea on which the Church, like a ship upon the deep, is buffered by storms but not lost; for she has Christ, the skilled helmsman, with her. And at her center [like a mast] is the Cross of Christ, which she carries with her as a token of victory over death... Her tillers and the two Testaments, and the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ which binds the Church together... As the wind the Spirit from heaven is present, by whom those who believe are sealed... She has also mariners on the right and on the left, assistants like the holy angels.

+St. Hippolytus of Rome, from On Christ and the Anti-Christ, 59.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: On the Church and the Holy Spirit

 Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church although scattered throughout the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth... Neither will one of those who preside in the churches who is very powerful in speech say anything different from these things, for no one is above [his] teacher, nor will one who is weak in speech diminish the tradition...

We preserve the teaching we have received from the Church, like a precious trust contained within and excellent vessel. The Spirit is ever rejuvenating it and imparting this rejuvenation to the Church in which it is contained. It is the gift of God entrusted to the Church. It imparts the Spirit to God's creatures, all who participate in it are enlivened and that is their communion in Christ, that is the Holy Spirit, the promise of incorruptibility, the foundation of our faith and the ladder that allows us to mount up to God.

+St. Irenaeus of Lyons, from Against Heresies, Book 1 20.2 and Book 3 24.1

Fr. Boris Bobrinskoy: The Church in God's eternal plan

 I would like to emphasize the care taken in the great patristic tradition to show the continuity in the divine plan of salvation through the successive covenants between God and mankind. It is not enough to assert the Church's New Testament foundation in the work of redemption, the Cross, the Resurrection and Pentecost. The Church is not something outside the work of salvation; she is not a mere consequence. Therefore, she cannot be juxtaposed to the mystery of salvation. She is its revelation, its necessary extension, its sacramental epiphany within history, between the parousias¹. In the words of Clement of Alexandria: "Just as the will of God is an act called the world, so His intention is the salvation of mankind and is called the Church" (Pedagogue II.6.27). Thus, the entire Old Testament preparation is endowed not only with a communal dimension, with respect to the chose people, but also an ecclesial dimension, because the theology of the people of Israel is itself prophetic, typological, apocalyptic, and eschatological. But we have to go further still and rediscover, within the ecclesiological tradition of the Orthodox Church, the very roots of ecclesiology, the origins of the Church in the primordial plan of the Creator, a plan of glory, love, and communion inherent in the very mystery of the Trinity. We have seen the care taken by the Father and certain modern theologians, mainly in the Russian tradition, to avoid keeping ecclesiology in a closed temporal context, and instead to situate the Church in a more coherent manner within God's plan: within the context of salvation, but also within the initial plan of creation. Thus the Lord himself says: "inherit the Kingdom prepared from [or before] the foundation of the world" (Mat 25:34).

+Fr. Boris Bobrinskoy, from The Mystery of the Church, chapter 1, Ecclesiology and Trinitarian Counsel.
¹Divine presence or visitation, here referring to the first and second comings of Christ.

St. Porphyrios the Kapsokalyvite: On The Church, angels and mankind

 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

Archimandrite George of St. Gregorios: Theosis in the Church

Those who wish to unite with Jesus Christ, and, through Christ, with God the Father, recognise that this union is realised in the body of Christ, which is our Holy Orthodox Church. Of course, this Union is not with the Divine essence, but with the deified human nature of Christ. But this union with Christ is not external, nor is it simply moral.
We are not followers of Christ in the way that one might perhaps follow a philosopher or a teacher. We are members of Christ's body, the Church. The Church is the body of Christ, the real body, not a moral one, as some mistaken theologians have written, not having looked deeply enough into the spirit of the Holy Church. Despite our unworthiness and sinfulness, Christ takes us Christians and incorporates us into His body. He makes us members of Himself. We become real members of Christ, not just followers of a code of morality. As the Apostle Paul puts it, "We are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" (Ephesians 5:30).
+Archimandrite George of St. Gregorios, from Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life, The Church: The Place of Man's Theosis