Entering the Orthodox Church · Lesson 7 of 20
Where Does the Prodigal Return To?
If man’s true life is found with God, then fallen man must return to his Father’s house. Before the Fall, that house was Paradise — communion with God. After the Fall, that communion is found in the Church, which the fathers call the true Paradise, the new Paradise. The return of the prodigal is the journey of every catechumen: back from the far country to the house — and the house is the Church.
Saint John Chrysostom preached exactly this to the “illumined,” those preparing for Baptism during Lent, and his reading of the parable is deeply Eucharistic. Outside the Father’s house, he says, where the wheat of prudence and the vine of self-control are not cultivated, famine prevails — the spiritual deprivation of life apart from God. But whoever comes to himself and turns home finds the benevolent Father waiting, ready to overflow with love. What follows in the parable is not a business transaction with a returning debtor; it is a feast — and every gift the father commands corresponds to a gift of the Church.
What Do the Robe, the Ring, and the Shoes Mean?
“Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry” [Luke 15:22–23].
The robe, Chrysostom says, is the garment of divine grace woven in the baptismal water — the spiritual robe of the Holy Spirit. Apart from God, man is naked and has lost his beauty; in Baptism, God clothes him again. Chrysostom even dares to put words in the Father’s mouth: “Adorn the dearest members of my son — I cannot bear to see my own image abandoned naked.” This is why the Church sings at every baptism: “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” [Galatians 3:27].
The ring placed on his hand is the sign of betrothal and adoption — the seal of the Holy Spirit that marks him, even from a distance, as a son of God by grace, and makes the enemies of God fear him. The shoes on his feet are God’s strength, so that the serpent will not find his heel bare and strike him again — the baptized will instead trample the dragon underfoot.
And the fatted calf is Christ Himself, who sacrificed Himself for the human race — “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” [John 1:29]. The feast is the Divine Eucharist, where man is gladdened and receives new life. Beyond the Church and her Eucharist lies only the far country — the world of corruption and famine.
What Are the Three Sacraments of Entry?
Nicholas Cabasilas, the great fourteenth-century interpreter of the sacraments, taught that three Mysteries constitute the life in Christ. Baptism is birth: the font is the spiritual womb of the Church — as we received biological life in our mother’s womb, we receive spiritual life in the Church’s womb. Chrismation is movement and breath: it activates the grace received in Baptism, for it is not enough to be born — one must live and grow. And the Divine Eucharist is food and life itself: we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ.
This is why the Eucharist follows Baptism and Chrismation, and why it is the center of all the sacraments and of the Church’s whole life. A materialist philosopher once quipped, “you are what you eat,” meaning to abolish everything spiritual. The Church can accept his phrase and turn it inside out: the one who eats only material food becomes carnal; the one who eats the spiritual food, the flesh of the Son of Man, becomes spiritual — mature and whole.
Is the Church an Organization?
No — and this is the lesson’s central point. The Church is not a human organism, a social club, or a charitable organization. She is the theanthropic Body of Christ. Christians are not members of a corporation but members of Christ’s Body, joined to Him in inner, real communion.
The Orthodox Church refuses even the subtle division, developed in the West, between a “mystical body” (the baptized) and the “real body” (the Eucharistic bread). For Orthodoxy these are one reality: the Church is the Body of Christ — the very body He took from the Virgin Mary, deified and risen; the Eucharistic bread upon the altar; and the saints who are His members. One Christ, one Body.
From this follows a sober consequence: our sins matter more than we think. Saint Paul warns that when we sin, we sin against Christ, whose members we are [1 Corinthians 6:15; 8:12]. We do not own ourselves; we belong to Him who sanctified us and joined us to Himself. To defile the body is to defile a member of Christ — as much a sacrilege as trampling what is holy.
What, Then, Is the Church?
A house of celebration, where the fatted calf is sacrificed and spiritual gladness prevails — “an assembly of heaven and earth.” Chrysostom’s invitation to the catechumens of his day still stands, word for word, for ours: The Redeemer is standing at the door. The Physician is in attendance. The surgery is open; the medicine is ready; the font welcomes all. The spiritual robe has been woven by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Blessed are those counted worthy to wear it.
This article is drawn from Entering the Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, a guide to the catechism and baptism of adults, and is part of a series presenting its teaching.
