Going to church – means going to the community, to the liturgical-Eucharistic gathering of the faithful, not to a temple! To be baptized into the Church, into Christ – means to be baptized into the community-parish, into the Body of Christ, to become an organic member of the Body; to start living the life of the Body, not the one you were before baptism, that is, not the life of this world; it means to start living the life of the community, not your own egotistical life; to die to oneself and to rise to personal life in the Body!!! Therefore, you can only baptize those who are baptized into the community (proclaim until they are ripe for this conscious step)! Children can only be baptized whose biological parents are parishioners, living members of the Body of Christ, and only in the parish to which the parents belong! And all other children (whose parents – nominal “Christians,” not parishioners, essentially pagans) to baptize – is a great crime, primarily against those children, whom we baptize irresponsibly!!! The only possible baptism – is baptism into the community-parish, which lives a Eucharistic life! Baptisms that have another (non-Church, where the goal is the Church, the Eucharist) motivation – CRIME!!!
To be baptized at all (not for life in the community and the Eucharist, but just to be a Christian!?) – is the same as to marry, to take marriage (that is, without a partner – just in the status of being married)!? It sounds absurd – to take marriage by oneself (to be married!?), and this is tantamount – to be baptized without a community and not for life in a community! Here not even an analogy, but an identity (see Eph. 5, where the apostle describes the relationship of Christ and the Church as the marital relations of a husband and wife; in baptism the proclaimed enters into marital relations with Christ, becomes one flesh with the Body of the Lord (becomes a living member of the body), that is, with the assembly of the faithful in Christ, who constitute His Body). And now look at how we baptize and are baptized, and call this act with a term that corresponds to its essence (we hinted above how to name such actions (irresponsible, senseless, formal baptism); and the first word might be: crime…).
Confession – a second baptism (with tears and labors of repentance), and its essence is the same as in baptism (reconciliation and union with the Church – see Part I.). Therefore, the sacrament of confession is not a moral cleansing, not a report of sins and realized passions, not selfish self-pity in words of self-justification…, but a restoration of marital unity with the community. That is why confession, when there were still living communities, was received by the entire community (into which after falling away the penitent returned); and in general, all Sacraments were performed (and should be performed) by the whole community, led by a presbyter or bishop. As in baptism marital (organic) relations are established between the baptized and the community (Christ, the Body of Christ), so in penance (confession) the lost through sinful adultery (with passions that led to deadly sins, or heresies, etc. – with everything that separates from the Church, that kills) marital relations with the Church, that is, with the Eucharistic community, are restored. And now let’s see if our confession bears a church character, or is reduced only to ethical emotions of purity and selfish self-admiration; what is its goal: to cleanse from sins and reproaches of conscience or to restore Eucharistic life in the community?! Therefore, why such spiritlessness, fruitlessness of our “piety” – it’s not surprising!
Therefore, to revive the community (Church), it is necessary to stop formal baptism (whose goal is not membership in the community, in which baptism takes place; baptism must be performed by that community, in which the baptized decided to be saved – to live a Eucharistic life, carrying a certain ministry)! And all those who are already formally baptized – to proclaim and prepare for the “second” baptism (baptism with tears), that is, for the sacrament of repentance with a conscious renewal of baptismal promises (in the overwhelming majority we are baptized in childhood and the promises for us were spoken by godparents – such formal figures). It would be good if the Church composed such a rite, but a wise presbyter will manage without a book-manual, the main thing is that he feels and understands what the Church, the Sacraments, Salvation, Repentance, etc. are. That is, each member of the community must be aware of what the Church is and what it means to be a Christian, and the foundation of this should be the proclamation and conscious renewal of baptismal promises (maybe the whole community together can renew the baptismal promises and further grow together in the life of the Body, with which they reconciled, or each separately, but necessarily aloud and in front of the whole community). Therefore, the beginning of the revival of the community starts with fundamental proclamation, which should end with the Sacrament of repentance-confession with the renewal in front of the whole assembly of baptismal promises. To start a fruitful process of proclamation, first it is necessary to de-sacralize the bishop and the presbyter (bring down from “heaven” to “earth”; make a presbyter from a priest), make one of the community, not one above the community; the bishop, the presbyter must be accessible to every member of the community, which is impossible as long as they are pagan priests, sanctified priests. This de-sacralization (cancellation of the dialectic of sacred and profane) must be performed by the bishops, presbyters themselves, they themselves must return themselves to the community. And this will begin to happen only when bishops, presbyters in their parishes (in which they are ordained for the service of leader, head) become chairpersons, not only presiders in the Eucharistic liturgy. To preside not only in the office, but primarily in conversation with the faithful in the temple after the service or at another time – in a home, family atmosphere, as one “from,” not as one “above.” In such an atmosphere, the tension and wrong relations-relationships of the faithful to the hierarchy and the hierarchy to the faithful will be destroyed, trust will start to simmer between each other and in this trust, living relations between the faithful will start to be born – the community will begin to revive54! And in those conversations (over a cup of tea or without) – learn and teach, be proclaimed and proclaim…