Characteristics of the Ancient Church

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

Ancient ecclesiology is the antidote to the chaos that we currently face within Apostolic Christianity, in both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox forms. The key is the re-appropriation of local catholicity, which is a principle practically forgotten by modern theologians.

1.     "Catholic," "Ecumenical" and "Universal" are terms associated with a complete, local, operating church system - which is a living, face-to-face expression of an eternal reality in a specific context - the general reflected in the particular. It is not a nation state presumed to be universal as in the "Oikonomia" of the Roman State!

2.    Apostolic Succession flows through the bishops and their representative presbyters by the laying on of hands, necessarily by virtue of only being able to give what has already been received, and in keeping the commands of Christ and the practices of his Apostles. It exists as a charismatic reality within the church, and is for service within the Church, not political power or authority - for those called to serve to preside as rulers, and for bishops to function as princess instead of pastors, the Church is cursed and hindered, and the bishops obscure and destroy the very message they are called to serve! 

3.     Ecumenicity and Apostolicity, once associated with empire, lose their former operation and start working for the empire’s good and not the good of the Church - The misuse of the state church gradually destroys authentic expression of faith, even when the authentic content remains. 

4.     The Church will be realized in a future age, but is currently in the process of formation, not complete and without spot, not located in one, specific body, but in all bodies that recognize Christ as Lord and God and maintain the sacraments as established by Christ. The Heavenly Bride is outside of our temporal boundaries, as is therefore the result of this process, not the status of the Church Militant. 

5.     The Pre-Roman-centered definition of the Mystical Church, therefore, was a body in formation, consisting of all the local bodies that were heirs to the Apostles, and were mutually recognizable through FAITH, not through a system of political affiliations or submission to a single imperial mandate - It was not a “Branch Theory”, not an “Invisible Church Theory”, and not an “Imperial Ecumene-as-icon-of-God's-glory-theory” - but a “Maranatha Theory” or a “Procession into the Kingdom Theory” in which we are 1) Waiting, 2) Watching, and 3) Repenting and preparing for the Lord’s return! 

6.     We are not yet in the fullness of the Coming Age, and to treat our Church as that fullness, as if the fullness rests in us and not in Christ, and as if we have substance on our own, leads to the heresy of schisms, speculations, human authority taking the place of God’s authority, and the error of accepting the icon of a thing for the thing itself - idolatry! This "Hypostatic View" of ecclesiology has plagued Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism with contradiction and unfortunate compromises, where the Gospel becomes obscured by the very thing meant to proclaim and protect it! 

7.    In its extreme, then, the Church and its claims become the focus, and the person, ministry, and reality of Christ get lost in the forms of human history and commentary. The Church is called to be the Bride of Christ - Therefore, it is not for us to have an independent essence or a hypostasis, but to be given our status as the Church, called out and into the Church in a continual process of formation completed in Heaven, through a relationship with Christ!