Catechesis · Inquirer
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Catechesis · Inquirer
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
The Nicene Creed confesses "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." These four marks are not qualities the Church achieves by moral effort -- they are descriptions of what the…
Question
What do the four marks of the Church actually mean?
The Nicene Creed confesses "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." These four marks are not qualities the Church achieves by moral effort -- they are descriptions of what the Church is by virtue of its union with Christ. The Church is one because Christ is one. It is holy because the Spirit who dwells in it is holy. It is catholic because it possesses the whole faith for all people in all places. It is apostolic because it stands in unbroken continuity with the apostles Christ sent. The marks describe the Church's identity, not its aspiration.
The mark of *oneness*: the Church's unity is grounded in the unity of God. "There is one body and one Spirit -- just as you were called to one hope when you were called -- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:4-6). The enumeration of ones is Trinitarian: one Spirit, one Lord, one Father. The Church's unity is not an administrative achievement but a participation in the divine unity. Visible divisions in the Church are real wounds; they do not dissolve the Church's essential oneness, but they contradict and obscure it.
The teaching
Catholic and Apostolic -- the two most contested marks
The word *katholikos* does not mean Roman Catholic. It is a Greek word meaning "according to the whole" -- complete, entire, lacking nothing. When Ignatius of Antioch first uses it (c. 107 AD: "wherever the bishop is, there is the Catholic Church"), he means the Church in its wholeness as opposed to any sectarian fragment of it. The catholic Church is the complete Church -- the one that has the whole faith, the full sacramental life, the entire apostolic ministry. Every local Eucharistic assembly that is in communion with the whole is fully catholic: not a branch of catholicity, but the whole Church present in that place.
The Orthodox use of "catholic" is therefore radically different from the Roman appropriation of the term. Rome uses "Catholic" as a proper name for a particular institution. Orthodoxy uses *katholikos* as a theological description: the Church that possesses the fullness of the apostolic faith and life. By this standard, any Eucharistic assembly that has broken from the apostolic succession, reduced the sacramental economy, or departed from the conciliar faith has, to that degree, ceased to be catholic -- regardless of what it calls itself.
Wherever the bishop is, there let the people gather; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.
Ignatius's equation of Christ's presence with the Catholic Church's presence is the first use of the word "Catholic" in Christian literature (c. 107 AD). His point: the Church is catholic not because it is everywhere geographically, but because wherever it fully is -- gathered around the bishop, celebrating the Eucharist -- it is the whole Church, lacking nothing. Catholicity is not quantity (presence everywhere) but quality (wholeness wherever present).
St. Ignatius of Antioch
To the Smyrnaeans 8 · c. 107 AD
Holy Scripture
"There is one body and one Spirit -- just as you were called to one hope when you were called -- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all."
Ephesians 4:4-6
"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you."
John 17:21
The Unity Problem
How the Church can be one while Orthodox churches are divided from each other
The most pressing challenge to the mark of oneness is not the separation from Rome or from Protestants -- it is the visible divisions within Orthodoxy itself. Multiple Orthodox patriarchates and jurisdictions exist in the same territories. Autocephalous churches have been in and out of communion with each other. The Ukrainian church question, the Macedonian church question, the ongoing tensions between Moscow and Constantinople -- these are real divisions within the Orthodox family. How is the Church one in the face of these?