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“Christ, invisible to the bodily eye, manifests Himself on earth clearly through His Church … The Church is the Body of Christ both because its parts are united to Christ through His divine mysteries and because through her Christ works in the world.” —St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco
“How does the Liturgy begin? ‘Blessed is the kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.’ …What is this kingdom, which is blessed, glorified, honored…? It is the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. It is paradise, in which Christ has placed us; it is our holy Church. Its king is the God of three suns: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The servants of the king are the angels and archangels, along with the thrones, principalities, authorities, dominions, powers, the many-eyed cherubim, and the six-winged seraphim. The king's generals are the saints. Our Lady the Theotokos is the queen. The faithful soldiers of this kingdom are all those Christians who are ready to follow Christ, whatever the cost; all those who are ready to bear His honorable Name, all those who make up His Church. All of them… are with us during the celebration of the Liturgy…
During the celebration of the Liturgy, Christ is with us exactly as he was when he was teaching, when he made the lame leap and walk, the blind see, and the dead return to life. And this is not simply having the memory of Christ within our thoughts, but having Christ Himself truly and concretely present before us. He is present – He, the teacher, the prophet, the miracle-worker. Christ Who was crucified, Who was raised from the dead, Who ascended into heaven, is now before us! …
The priest turns his eyes to heaven, and calls the things of heaven down to earth. He commands the cherubim, the seraphim, even the Holy Trinity, because God gives the priest the power to have rights over Jesus Christ. Because He is not visibly present, Christ delegates His work to His priests. And when the priest is in the sanctuary, he is beyond every earthly ruler, for he does not govern men, but rather the choirs of saints and the armies of angels…
…Saint Gregory Palamas said that the church ‘resides on high, being an angelic and transcendent place’ which ‘raises man to heaven and presents him to the God who is above all’ …When we enter church… we are traversing the distance from earth to heaven. We pass beyond the stars, we leave the angels below us, and we rise up to the heights of the Holy Trinity.
Don't think that when we go to church, we are simply entering and exiting an ordinary building. Instead, we go up to, and make our entrance into, the Holy of Holies, into the heavens themselves… we sinners open the doors of heaven and enter! Although we are sinners, when we enter into the Liturgy, we go up to the heavenly Jerusalem… So we have come to the church… Let nothing disturb the tranquility of your soul. God is present. Wherever we look, God is before us!” —Archimandrite Aimilianos, The Church at Prayer, pp. 54, 56-57, 69, 71-72.
“Whosoever should ever call himself a bishop over all bishops or a universal bishop shall be the forerunner to the Antichrist.” —Pope St. Gregory (I) the Great (Gregory the Dialogist), Forty Gospel Homilies
