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The Identity of the Church of Christ
By: Evangelos Dim. Kepenes (Junuary 4,2026, 23:12)
What is the true identity of the Church of Christ? Is it a collection of national institutions or a divine reality that transcends human statutes?
Through the Church of Christ, “the manifold wisdom of God” has been revealed to the heavenly powers and authorities.
“to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him” (Eph. 3:10–11).
The Church of the living God was and is born not of perishable seed but of imperishable “since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Pet. 1:23).
«Do not remember the former things, nor dwell on the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth—do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the dry land, to give drink to my chosen people, my offspring, the people whom I have formed for myself, that they might declare my virtues.» (Isa. 43:18–21)
This “offspring of imperishable seed” (John 1:12) was not a draft of an incomplete institutional religion or a philosophical system, handed down by God to the “father-philosophers” of Orthodoxy to shape it formalistically, crystallize it dogmatically, and establish it universally through institutional coercion, violating “if anyone would come after me…” (cf. Luke 9:23).
The Church of Christ is “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), purchased with the precious blood of God (Acts 20:28), in order to proclaim His virtues, and not to function as a vehicle for national statutes, as is the case with anthropocentric religions that degrade it into a national institution (e.g., Greek, Russian, Bosnian, etc.), which assign a national identity to the “Christian.”
However, the expansionist and stabilizing interests of the Roman Empire imposed its institutional and dogmatic crystallization through the Ecumenical Councils—institutions with clear political overtones—undermining the preservation of unadulterated apostolic truth and biblical language in the face of Greek philosophy. The influence of Greek philosophy, embraced by the Fathers, combined with the political necessities of the Roman state, was decisive in shaping the Trinitarian and Christological dogma, as well as the broader dogmatic structure.
Thus, the promised hope, “which we have as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure [and] It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain” (Heb. 6:19), of the true tabernacle, where Jesus is the eternal High Priest, was diminished by anthropocentric religions: Instead of the certainty of God’s immutable oath, they offer the false security of institutional “camps”—churches guarded by professional priesthoods, human statutes, and political expediencies.
Conclusion
The influence of Greek philosophy and the political necessities of the Roman state distorted the identity of the Church from a vessel of God’s virtues into a vehicle for national statutes and professional priesthoods.
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