Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Membership in a Parish

Question:

The following is a reply to a visitor's question regarding the meaning of "chlenstvo", that is "membership" in a parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada

Answer:

Very Reverend Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org

Membership in the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who said: "I shall build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18), is a glorious gift and privilege from God. We enter the Church by the Sacrament of Baptism, which in the Orthodox Church is immediately followed by the Sacrament of Chrismation, to convey and unfold the gifts of the Holy Spirit for living a godly life and ministry to the world. This is then followed by the Holy Eucharist. As we partake of it, we are already taking our place in the eternal Kingdom of God where this is the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, about which St. John saw in his vision on Patmos (Revelation 19:9).

This wonderful gift and privilege has to be continually and consistently worked out in our daily living in this world which is transitory and yet is so precious to our Lord that He became one of the people in it, taught, suffered and rose again in it and sent His Holy Spirit upon it to transform it and make it into His Kingdom. He is its true Lord and King as well as its Creator and Sustainer, and He will never give up on it. Our mission is to do His work in it, aided and directed by Himself through the Church He founded in it and through the empowerment and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Church is fully manifested in its Congregations, its "Hromady".  It is our gift and privilege to be a part of a Hromada.  It also requires our active participation, particularly in worship but also in its life in the world. We must support the Hromada financially, out of the funds which our Lord gives us the strength and wisdom to acquire by our work in the world.  The Hromada is here in this world, even as it is also a part of the world that is to come, and so must be governed as an earthly institution, always bearing in mind that it is also a heavenly reality. Thus people submit their applications for membership, are accepted and support and serve in it as members in the earthly juridical sense as well as in the heavenly sense as fellow sojourners on the way to the eternal Kingdom which is already among us but also yet to come in all its majesty and glory.

The people of the Hromada are on the same path - seeking by God's grace to serve Him and grow in His likeness. This is the process of theosis as St. Athanasius (296-373) wrote: "God became Man so that man might become godlike (this last word is an interpretation - the original goes "a god"). The people of the Hromada, led by the Pastor who is helped in his work by committees, of which one of the most important is the parish council, are not perfect - in fact they sometimes appear to be very much inadequate to the glorious mission which is entrusted to them. Yet we are all linked together and are called to help each other on this sometimes rocky, thorny path. We help each other in different ways.  We pray for each other, share with each other, teach each other, correct each other and forgive each other.  We live together and, as the pebbles in a rock tumbler, eventually reveal our true beauty by the life process of "rubbing shoulders" and bumping into each other.  It is a glorious and wonderful path.

In our world "full of sound and fury" as Shakespeare wrote, there are so many distractions to turn our minds and hearts away from "the one thing needful" (Luke 10:42).  This one thing needful, the road to salvation, is there for everyone to see and everyone is invited to come and partake of it, but it is also hidden so only those find it who truly wish to. Happy are those who hear and accept the invitation to become members in the eternal Kingdom of God which we can find in our Hromady, and who persist and assist in the increase of the Light in this dark world until the coming of the Day.

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