Asceticism and morality have no relation to the identification of the Church as a unique and only kind of reality (organization, gathering of people based on certain principles). If you want to engage in self-improvement and self-discipline – asceticism, – you do not necessarily have to become a member of a Christian parish (a Christian), and generally you will only lose, not reach the maximum (in Christianity, there is no such concept as ‘self-improvement’, therefore asceticism, which exists in Christianity, is directed in a diametrically opposite direction relative to self-deification, therefore not so ‘effective’ and generous with visible fruits, as among the pagans). You better address Buddhists with ascetic inquiries regarding self-improvement, self-deification – there such asceticism that Orthodox ascetics did not even dream of! If you want to be a highly moral person – similarly, you do not need to be Orthodox. To live by the rules of decency and formally (externally) not sin, that is, not violate conventional (by agreement – V.A.) codes of laws of the most perfect ethical system – you better go to Islam, – there such morality that ‘Christians’ can only envy and equate with them; or just become a member of an atheistic cultural community, educated on noble, ethical principles and on decent manners. We can continue to consider other characteristics of communities-organizations, which can be found in one or another organization or religion: a hierarchical management system, worship, prayers, rites, uniforms, ideology (teachings, dogmas, Scripture), missionary work, moralizing, therapy (perception of the organization as a hospital), customs, rituals, symbolism, etc., and to make sure that these qualities do not make the Church a unique community of people (do not identify it against other organizations). What then makes the church the Church, identifies it – makes it unique, the only and unrepeatable organization-community?! Since the Church ‘specializes’ not in the improvement of the nature of the individual (psychosomatic life), but in the revelation of the hypostatic principle in a person, its identity is hidden in the knowledge of the mystery of the Person, the mystery of the Hypostatic Divine mode of existence. Therefore, the church makes the Church, identifies it in ‘this world’ only one thing – the Eucharist (from which all the sacraments flow and to which they return: baptism, chrismation, ordination, consecration of water, marriage, etc.), the Sacrament of life of the future age, the Sacrament of the revelation of the hypostasis and its entry into the depths of the Divine Life of the Most Holy Trinity!!!
The Church is not just a historical object and not a product of history. It is a product of the Kingdom of God, which is thus reflected in history. Therefore, in ancient Christian texts, and in the Biblical (New Testament), and in the texts of the Apostolic Fathers, the term ‘παροικία’ (‘parish’, ‘parochia’, literally – ‘being in a foreign land’, later came to mean a church community), for example, the ‘traveling’ Church of Rome and others. To travel in the world means to be not an organic part of this historical reality, but something eschatological, which penetrates and passes through the world and history. The Church in the world, but not of the world – returns from the diaspora to home, to the Kingdom of God. The Church is not some worldly reality, and its identity resides at the end of time and the world (in eschaton), in the Kingdom of God, which it always actualizes for the faithful at the Eucharist!
The term, which defines the socio-historical form of the first Christian communities (communities, parishes) and expresses their essence – the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ (ἐκκλησία). It means gathering, gathering together, giving an example of community and unity of people, which precedes any other definition. The Church (ἐκκλησία) is called so because it calls everyone (ἐκκαλαίσθαι) and gathers together (St. Cyril of Jerusalem). The word ‘Church’ means not a separate place, but, on the contrary, unity and agreement… It is necessary for the Church in the world to always be one, even though divided, by virtue of the fact that it is located in many places (St. John Chrysostom).
We will show the identity of the socio-historical form and the Eucharistic essence of Christian communities of the XXI century. (patriarchates, metropolises…) regarding the first Christian communities, that is, the identity of the Church in history in any spatial-time coordinate. The entire complex hierarchical system of the Church as a socio-historical organization (patriarchates, bishoprics, canons, rules regulating various interactions and orders, etc.) organically developed and grew from the cell – the Eucharistic community of the holy apostles in Jerusalem. Similarly, as the human body with its complex systems organically develops, grows from a cell – a fertilized egg cell. The hypostasis is one and the same, but over time, with growth, development from a cell, which is hypostasized by a person (hypostasis), a complex body is formed, the essence (genotype, DNA) of which in each cell at any time is one and the same (the personality is the same, but the body over time becomes different – every seven years in the body there is a renewal of all cells, – doctors say; Ivan and two days after conception, and at two years and at ninety – the same Ivan, only his body changed, decayed, aged)! Everything starts from a cell and in the process of growth a complex body with different systems of organs is formed. The body – is a derived organic reality, the basis of which is the cell (all organs consist of cells). And the constitutive factor is the hypostasis, which organizes the cells into organs, organs – into systems of organs, systems – into a single body. Therefore, in the body the primary are cells, which hypostatically form into an organ, systems… The life of the organism takes place at the cell level, not the organ, which functions only because living cells perform their functions. The primary is not the organ, but the cell!