Peter, Paul and the Church:
Seeing the Whole in the Part

We have already considered how the different feasts of Saints (on the Sundays following Pentecost) are a proclamation of the work of the Holy Spirit in His Temples.  The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (July 12, New Calendar) focuses on the particular character of the Temple or Church of Christ itself both as a universal Body and as a local entity.  This feast under-lines what the Church really is and why it is so critically important to all Christians.

Simon the Fisherman was a man who earned his living among the coarse and rude members of his trade by the sea.  

He instinctively sensed the great Holiness of the One Who had come to see him.  Simon was courteous enough to ask Christ to walk away from someone so polluted with sin as himself!

But Christ asked him to become his disciple and there is not doubt but that Simon enjoyed a special relationship as a leader of the Apostles.

Simon underwent a change of name when he confessed Christ as the Son of the Living God.  Christ called him the "Rock" and said that upon this Rock He would build his Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it.

The other disciples echoed Simon Peter's confession as well, but Peter acted to speak on their behalf.  He was a kind of "First among Equals" as a result.

And it was Peter who denied Christ three times before His Passion.  And it was to Peter that Christ gave the great commission to "feed My sheep."

After Pentecost, when the disciples were clothed with strength from "on High," it was Peter who proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ and baptized more than three thousands persons that first day.

The timid fisherman who was initially afraid of his own shadow now walked among learned and simple alike while Christians tried to throw themselves into that same shadow to experience a healing!

Peter moved around in his apostolic labours, consecrating bishops of villages, towns and even great urban metropolises wherever he went.

Antioch received its first bishop at the hands of Peter, as did the great Greek City of Alexandria (through Peter's assistant, Mark the Evangelist).  Peter also consecrated a bishop for Old Rome where Christians had lived for some time before his coming there.

It was Pope St Gregory I who first referred to the "Petrine See" as the collective Sees of Rome, Antioch and Alexandria.

Add to these the City of Jerusalem where Peter first received his commission from Christ and chaired the Apostolic Synod there.  Also, Constantinople was founded by tradition by the brother of St Peter, St Andrew, as was the See of Kyiv.  Peter's influence really got around!

The great Metropolitan Churches founded directly or indirectly by Peter also spoke with Apostolic Authority in matters affecting church doctrine and discipline.

To be in union with those Churches or, as they would later be called, "Patriarchates," was to be a sign of one's Christian Orthodoxy.

It was clear that the role of Peter and the Patriarchates founded by him was to speak on matters affecting the entire Church, both East and West, North and South. 

The five original Patriarchates would see in a place of honour at Ecumenical Councils at which Orthodox faith and practice would be defined and defended for the universal Church of Christ.

The Bishop of Rome would have first place owing to the fact that Rome was the capital city of the Empire and also because Rome was where both Peter and Paul were martyred.

In its internal organization, the Church followed closely the organization of the Roman Empire.  "Bishop" is actually and formerly the name of a Roman city mayor.  "Metropolitan" is also derived from a Roman civil government title.

But every Bishop would be entrusted with the administration of his own canonical territory.  No one Bishop would ever get involved in the affairs of another's See or territory. 

But Rome did, at times, intervene on behalf of Fathers wrongly dealt with by either religious or even secular authorities.  As with Old pagan Rome, one could always appeal to it if one felt that one's own Patriarch or Bishop had wronged one.

Saint Paul, on the other hand, had a different calling and role within the Church.  His various letters to the Churches as the Apostle of the Gentiles makes him the patron of the Local Church.

Raised in the strictest possible traditions of Pharisaic Judaism, Paul was the most unlikely Apostle of all to adapt Christianity to the non-Jewish world.

It was St Paul who first makes mention of the Scythians which indicates that he not only knew of them, but also of missions among these ancestors of the Ukrainians or else ancestral citizens of the Ukrainian lands.

It was St Paul who developed the Local Church within the "Catholic" sense.

For St Paul, the Church existed at different levels.  The most basic level was the "Home Church" run by parents and grandparents.  The Home Church was where Christianity was taught and experienced by the family unit.  In times of persecution, in Paul's time and in ours, the Home Church was often the only level at which Christianity could have been experienced and maintained.

The Local or Regional Church level is where the inculturation of the Gospel message truly took place.

The Local Church was and is the Universal Church, where the "whole" is seen in the "part."

This is an Eucharistic understanding of the Church that is very "New Testament."  Just as Christ is present in every particle of Holy Communion, so too is the Church present wherever there is a bishop, the mysteries/sacraments are celebrated and the Orthodox Catholic Faith is maintained in union with the Church throughout the world.

Kyiv is a great example of a Local Church.  As such, Kyiv developed its own traditions, canonical law and theological schools.  Kyiv's teachings, although designed for local use, have been received by world-wide Orthodoxy and has even influenced thinking in Roman Catholicism.  

During the papal visit to Kyiv, Pope John Paul II paid tribute to Kyiv as a great Light for all of Eastern Europe.  He should know since Poland has been an historical beneficiary of Kyivan religious culture!

But the spirituality of the inner life of the Kyivan Church has remained very Ukrainian.  This does not prevent it from positively impacting Christian cultures elsewhere or from preaching Christ to the world!

In the final analysis, the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul represents the constant tension between "universality" and "locality" in the Church. 

We do not somehow belong to two Churches.  We belong to the Universal Church precisely through our membership in our Local Church, the "Whole" in the "Part."

Our Kyivan Tradition is "ours" and reflects our historic cultural identity and values.  But it doesn't only belong to us.  

The Fathers of the Kyivan Church demonstrated that they could evangelize the peoples of Europe and Asia while remaining true to their Kyivan patrimony.

St Paisius Velichkovsky renewed monasticism and the Prayer in the Name of Jesus throughout several countries and Orthodox Churches.  Yet, he was always, "Paissy, Native of Poltava."

The Feast of Peter and Paul offers us a vision of our Church and what it should be, with a complementary and simultaneous outward reach and inward focus.

The Kyivan tradition is not only just for Ukrainians.  It is a wealth of spiritual culture with which we are entrusted in order to be beacons to the world, especially in the West.

St Peter's brother founded our Church, and St Paul's preaching established its particular character.

The Church is the Body of Christ wherein the Holy Spirit dwells.  It is within the universal Church that we find the Life-giving springs of the Mysteries and the teaching of Christ as He wanted us to have them.

But these are mediated to us within the prism of our own cultural understandings and world-view as are to be found in the Local Church.

This is why both Peter and Paul are honoured together as they represent a fusion of two perspectives.

This is why we need both understandings of the Church.  The one mediates the objective message of the Gospel and the other adapts it to our world-view.

It is only through the Church that we may find the ultimate meaning and interpretation of Christ and His message and work for our salvation. 

The Church is Christ Who continues to mediate His life-giving Grace through the imperfect instruments of His Bishops, Priests and Deacons as well as through the entire life of the Church.

The Gospel of Christ is a social one which under-lines the end of our alienation from one another brought into the world by sin.

Salvation can only really be found in relation to and in the Church of Christ since that salvation implies union not only with God, but with redeemed humanity as well.

To think that one can somehow participate in the salvation of Christ without the Church is to reject the healing of the separation between people that Christ came to achieve by assuming our nature. 

It is, after all, a nature common to us all.

Dr. Alexander Roman  alex@unicorne.org