Coptic Church & Ecumenical Movement - Saint Mina Coptic ...

THE ONE CHURCH
CHAPTER 1
UNITY AND DISUNITY
The Lord Jesus Christ established His church, which He purchased with His blood (Acts...).
Accordingly, our understanding of the nature and mission of the Church is founded on the Holy
Scripture and the Apostolic Tradition handed down in the Church and preserved in her
sacramental liturgical life. Furthermore, the writings and canons of the Fathers together with the
three ecumenical Councils: Nicea (325), Constantinople (381) and Ephesus (431). The Niceno-
Constantinopolitan Creed represents an irreplaceable foundation and expressions of the faith.
The essence of the Church was epitomized in the four traditional characteristic notes first
enumerated in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, ie. The Church is one, holy,
universal and apostolic.
The note of Unity is intimately related to the concept of the Church as “one body in Christ”
(Romans 12:5) and as the Body of Christ (Ephesians 1:23). The essential elements in Church
Unity may be stated in agreement with the teaching of St. Paul (Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians
10:17; 12-27) as being the common worship of the one God, the common holding of the one
faith, the common possession of the one sacramental life, the common aim at the attainment of
the one hope, and the common indwelling by the one Spirit.
The Holiness that is the second note of the Church is the organic or objective Holiness, which is
constituted by the doctrines and laws and sacraments and aims of the Church as Holy, even if the
subjective Holiness, which is the lives of individual members, is not perfect. This organic
Holiness is well founded biblically, eg. St. Paul addresses those who are “called to be saints”
(Romans 1:7). The Corinthian Church consists of those “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be
saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). St. Paul, while recognising that community as holy, he condemns
sins committed by members of it (1 Corinthians 5,6). The Church is rightly described as holy
even if some of its members are sinful, as the ignorance of some members of a University does
not hinder that University from being rightly described as learned.
Universal is the third note. As applied to the Church, the word Universal is the opposite at once
of particular and of heretical. Thus, it denotes both universal and orthodox. St. Cyril of
Jerusalem gives an expanded explanation of the sense in which the term Universal has been
applied to the Church, saying:
“The Church is called ‘Universal’ because it extends through all the world, from one end
of the earth to another. Also, because it teaches universally and without omission all the
doctrines which ought to come to man’s knowledge, about things both visible and
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