REFUTING A FALSE MODEL OF SCHISM

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

Recently, several of our young men have been unsettled by the confident and uncompromising claims circulated online by a young figure styling himself “Redeemed Zoomer.” He has come to exercise an influence disproportionate to his spiritual formation or his scholarly acumen in the online battles between Orthobros, Rad Trads, and the Protestant “Reconquista” (a term that he, apparently, invented), combining doctrinal confusion with rhetorical certainty in a way that proves spiritually destabilizing to many who encounter his work, especially untrained young men. His latest intervention concerns the question of whether the so called “Classic Protestant Churches” are schismatic. While his argument presents itself as orderly and logical, quite attractive to those desperately trying to cling to a sense of Protestant authority, it rests upon a series of unexamined assumptions that render it internally incoherent. For this reason, it requires careful and patient dismantling.

The “schism flowchart” presented by Redeemed Zoomer rests upon a set of assumptions that are fundamentally foreign to the ecclesiology of the Ancient Church. Its errors are not just matters of emphasis or tone, but of all its underlying definitions, which come from contemporary Protestantism and not from the Ancient Church. It presumes very modern conceptions of the administrative “form” of the Church, of authority, and of unity that arose centuries after the patristic period, dependent as much on outside recognition as much as internal fidelity to the Apostolic Faith, and then retroactively projects that conception backward as though it were native to the Apostolic age. This kind of academic “blindness” is very common amongst liberal mainline denominations and is one of the ways that they assuage their consciences while also claiming continuity and authority. Examined in the light of the Holy Scriptures, the Apostolic and Ancient Fathers, and the canonical tradition we inherit from the undivided Church, the framework collapses under its own weight.

At the heart of the charming little chart lies an undeclared categorical mistake that quietly identifies “the institution of the church” with the Church itself. This identification is never specifically argued, because it is assumed as a self-evident truth. Yet the Ancient Church never defined the Church as a juridical structure characterized by legal formalities, administrative continuity, or a secularly identifiable corporate entity. The Church is first formed by the Holy Spirit interacting with the world through the reception and obedience of the unchanging and eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ: repentance, baptism, reception of Apsotlic laying on of hands, for the fullness of the Holy Spirit and for functional ministry within the Church, and then sealed by the Lord’s Supper, the very Body and Blood of our Lord. In other words, the Church is the Body of Christ, animated by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, constituted by the true confession of faith ("orthodoxy"), the right administration of the sacraments ("ortho-praxy"), and the bond of charity ("communion in mutual submission and accountability"). Ordained offices exist for the sake of the Church, not the Church for the sake of these offices or titles. When truth departs, institutional continuity alone does not preserve catholicity, because the Holy Spirit cannot indwell and enliven a lie. St. Augustine speaks plainly when he insists that the Church is bound not to walls or to historic sees, but to Christ Himself and to the love poured out by the Spirit. This flowchart denies this, and therefore cannot reach a truthful opinion at the final conclusion.

"They have the buildings, but we have the Church." - St. Athanasius the Great, while exiled and in hiding

Because the Church is mis-defined in Redeemed Zoomer's schema, schism is likewise also mis-defined. In patristic theology, schism is not the mere fact of separation from an existing administrative structure. Schism is a rupture of communion arising from pride, self-will, or the rejection of catholic unity without just cause. Motivation is very important, as is the substance of the faith that is held. The Fathers carefully distinguished schism from heresy, and both from faithful resistance to corruption. St. Jerome, writing against the Luciferians, notes that schism often arises not from the faithful, but from false bishops who abuse their office. Men who exercise high office for their own benefit, not the benefit of the faithful, are a great source of confusion and damnation. Separation from such men does not create schism, because unity is not grounded in their persons, but to the truth they are bound to serve by God. The flowchart erases this distinction and substitutes a simplistic rule in which institutional separation is automatically sinful, regardless of cause. This rule has no standing in the ancient tradition.

Scripture itself directly refutes this unstable and ahistorical framework. The prophets of Israel repeatedly stood in open opposition to the religious authorities of their day. The Prophet Elijah confronted the priests of Baal who had been absorbed into Israel’s official worship. Jeremiah was cast out by the Temple establishment for proclaiming the word of the Lord. By the logic of the flowchart, the prophets should be condemned as schismatics, yet Scripture presents them as the very voice of covenant fidelity. The same pattern appears in the New Testament. Our Lord was rejected by the Temple authorities, expelled from their communion, and executed under their judgment. The Apostles were cast out of the synagogues and compelled to establish Eucharistic assemblies apart from the structures that condemned them. Very few contemporary Christians know about the Jewish Council of Jamnia that expelled Christians from all houses of Jewish worship. If unjust expulsion followed by faithful continuation constitutes schism, then Christ Himself and His Apostles must bear that charge. The Church has never taught such a thing, which alone is sufficient to expose the flaw.

The claim that the establishment of parallel churches in the same place is inherently schismatic fares no better historically. During the Arian crisis, Orthodox bishops frequently existed alongside imperial and heretical replacements, who had all the outward symbols of respectability. St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria was repeatedly deposed, exiled, and replaced by bishops who enjoyed state recognition and secular sponsorship. Despite this, the Church never judged St. Athanasius schismatic. On the contrary, those who held the sees without the true faith were recognized as usurpers, despite their institutional continuity, funding, or imperial support. Similar situations occurred during persecutions, during periods of mass apostasy, and in regions where episcopal leadership collapsed morally or doctrinally. The existence of parallel jurisdictions was not the cause of schism, but the symptom of deeper corruption. Legitimacy was measured by fidelity to apostolic doctrine and sacramental life, not by uninterrupted occupation of an office.

The Western canonical tradition is especially clear on all these points. The Ancient Church of the West, in direct continuity with the Undivided Church, has consistently held that unjust excommunication is null and void before God. Human ecclesiastical authority only holds as long as it is representative of true doctrine, right worship, and sacramental continuity. Authority exercised against truth is an abuse, not a binding judgment. A bishop who excludes the faithful for confessing the orthodox catholic faith severs himself from the Church more surely than those he condemns. The flowchart makes no room for this principle. It treats every act of exclusion by recognized authority as decisive, and every act of continued fidelity outside that authority as schism. In doing so, it reverses the moral and theological order upheld by the Fathers and the holy canons.

What ultimately emerges from this subtle and confusing flowchart is not patristic ecclesiology, but a modern logic of control, a theory of power that enlivens Postmodernism and Modern Critical Theory. Obedience to structure is substituted for obedience to Christ. Institutional preservation is treated as the supreme good, even when truth, holiness, and charity are ultimately forgotten and compromised. Reform is indistinguishable from schismatic rebellion, and authority becomes functionally infallible so long as it maintains organizational continuity based on legal categories. This is the logic of the Episcopal Church, or of liberal Roman Catholicism. This is neither ancient nor an orthodox catholic Christian way of seeing the Church. It is a reactionary framework shaped by post-Reformation anxieties about "validity" and modern denominationalism that attempts to justify itself up and against the Ancient Church, anachronistically projecting backward onto a Church that did not think in these terms.

From the perspective of the Ancient Church of the West, schism is a sin against love, not against paperwork, as St. Augustine and the ancient Western Fathers maintained. Unity is preserved by truth, not by political coercion. Separation undertaken to preserve the apostolic faith is not schism, but true witness and an Apostolic prerogative. Parallel structures arise when authority fails in its vocation, not when the faithful abandon theirs. Christ, the prophets, and the Apostles stand as permanent refutations of any theory that equates institutional compliance with ecclesial righteousness. It is for all these reasons, Redeemed Zoomer’s flowchart cannot be reconciled with Scripture, the Fathers, or the canonical conscience of the undivided Church. It reduces the Church from a living body into an abstract institution, and then mistakes submission to power for fidelity to Christ. The Ancient Church of the West must therefore reject it, not as a minor error, but as a fundamentally false account of what the Church is and how unity is truly preserved.