it came to the point where presbyters no longer felt the need for the people of God to perform the sacraments (for example, to baptize someone, to hear confession, to marry, even serve the Liturgy-Eucharist by themselves!? And so on). We will not talk about this catastrophe now—our goal is different, but the fruits speak for themselves: total lack of spirituality, immorality, crime, etc. (we have already talked about this issue somewhat in Part II).
By the end of the apostolic time, in each local church among the presbyters-bishops, there was a chief—he was now called definitely a superintendent (bishop-overseer). This episcopacy (superintendency) receives a new, very important purpose. Here is the reason for the appearance of this important duty in the church overseer (bishop): the epistles of the apostles Peter, John, Paul either unequivocally point to false teachers who appeared or prophesy about their coming. “There will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, and many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned” (see 2 Pet. 2:1-2). “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but, having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (2 Tim. 4:3). How could these false teachers succeed and who were they? The true Christian teaching was preached by the apostles of Christ and many, chosen for this task, secret elect of Christ. The latter did not need any external consecration because the spiritual recognized the spiritual and were accepted as faithful witnesses of God. In all communities-churches, there were prophets, teachers, and apostolic men. Each servant of God (chosen by Him for a specific ministry) teaches only by revelation from God and never speaks on his own initiative. He goes nowhere without a clearly heard internal call to himself—the call of the Holy Spirit. In the “Acts of the Apostles,” we read: “These (Paul and Barnabas), being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia”… or: “The Holy Spirit forbade them to speak the word in Asia”… or: “They attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not allow them” (13:4; 16:6-7). And so always, even if it is not mentioned in Scripture, it must always be kept in mind (know that the perfect do nothing of themselves and say nothing, but are led by the Holy Spirit; therefore, the Book of Acts can be called the Book of the Acts of the Holy Spirit in man and through him (of course, with the free consent and absolute trust-self-surrender of man to God)).
On the contrary, the characteristic feature of false teachers is their teaching without being called by the Holy Spirit (the Apostle says: How will they preach unless they are sent for this by the Holy Spirit? (see Rom. 10)). They begin to theologize, driven by the ordinary human passion for teaching (teaching others). Possessing some natural abilities (oratorical, literary), they rather wanted to use them for their own name, not for Christ. Not receiving a revelation (knowledge), they expounded (presented) the truth from their own understanding. But since the matter with which they spoke was God’s work, the evil spirit hurried to secretly help their inspiration, to bring devastation and destruction into the church of Christ. Under the influence of obsessive ideas, which the devil skillfully knows how to sow in cunning and proud hearts, self-proclaimed teachers became fanatics, evil and stubborn defenders of the truth distorted by their teaching. If the church were only spiritual, the false doers would be dangerous only to themselves. But there are many catechumens in the church, “these little ones,” that is, those who do not have the strength to resist temptations on their own, but only with the help and love of brothers and sisters (in Christ).
The love and light of God’s servants in apostolic times extinguished the flames of temptation. But as soon as the great lights of love departed from this life (from the second phase of existence into the third phase—see Part II), the infants in Christ—soulish, as the apostle Paul called them, carnal (“For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not carnal?” (1 Cor. 3:3)), catechumens—were unable to distinguish teachers from impostors. At the same time, an extremely necessary need arose to oversee so as not to lose the exact indication of the Truth and knowledge of the way to acquire the Holy Spirit. As the “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” says: “Guard what you have received, add nothing and take away nothing.” The point is to preserve various forms of tradition, which rationally indicate the Truth and the way to experience it; to keep the maps that indicate the way, the route to the treasure, to the Kingdom of God. In the apt words of the apostle Paul, it is necessary to “hold fast the faithful word as he has been taught.” Hold fast!—It is like grabbing on not to drown.
Thus, the chosen from the people, who were stewards of order and property in the church communities-parishes, receive a new and very important duty—to keep the tradition (various forms of indicating the Truth) pure. The apostles knew that the Lord Himself constantly sends His servants (apostolic men, prophets, teachers) to preach the truth (and to declare God’s will), so they had no reason to entrust this task to those chosen by the people, not as faithful, of course, as God’s messengers. Therefore, the state of the church after the departure of the apostles from this life became all the more unexpected and threatening… As if some despair is heard in the epistles of St. Ignatius the God-bearer, which appeared shortly after the death of the last of the apostles. But in these epistles, we find a positive indication. Here, the Holy Spirit testifies to the new order in the church. Let us depict this moment when the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, revealed the establishment of a new (hierarchical) order in the church.