What Happens to Christians Outside the Orthodox Church?

Sooner or later almost every inquirer asks it. If the Orthodox Church really is the one Church of the Creed, what does that mean for the millions of people who love Christ, read the Scriptures, pray, and suffer for their faith, but have never been Orthodox? Are they Christians? Are they in the Church? Will they be saved?

Some Orthodox voices online quote St Cyprian's "no salvation outside the Church" as though it settled the fate of every Baptist grandmother. Others speak as though nothing is really at stake. This article follows the evidence instead: what Cyprian wrote and why, how later Fathers and canons treated people baptized outside the Church, why Orthodox practice in receiving converts has varied, and what modern Orthodox theologians and synods have and have not claimed.

In brief

The maxim usually quoted as "no salvation outside the Church" comes from St Cyprian of Carthage in the 250s, in a dispute about whether baptism given by schismatics and heretics was real. Cyprian said it was not. The Church did not follow him on every point: St Basil and the canons received some groups by chrismation rather than baptism. Orthodox practice since has swung between strictness (the 1755 decree required Latins to be baptized) and leniency (the synods of 1484 and 1667 received them by chrismation), and it still varies. Modern Orthodox teaching holds firmly that the Orthodox Church is the one Church and that salvation is found in Christ and his Body. It also says, in the Russian Church's 2000 statement, that separated communities have "never been viewed as fully deprived of the grace of God." On the final destiny of particular non-Orthodox people, the Church has defined nothing. Kallistos Ware, drawing on Khomiakov, says we know where the Church is but cannot be sure where it is not; stricter Orthodox disagree about membership but also leave judgment to God.

Thesis: The Orthodox Church confesses that it is the one Church and that salvation is in Christ's Body, but its own canons and practice show that it has never treated everyone outside its visible boundaries as simply graceless, so the honest Orthodox answer about non-Orthodox Christians is confident about the Church, humble about individuals, and silent where God has not spoken.

Where the phrase comes from: St Cyprian

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, wrote his treatise On the Unity of the Church around 251, during the Novatian schism, when a rival bishop had been set up at Rome.¹ His most famous sentence comes from it: "He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother." He adds that if anyone could escape who was outside Noah's ark, "then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church."²

The exact formula comes a few years later, in the dispute over baptism. Cyprian held that people baptized by heretics or schismatics had not been baptized at all, and should be baptized on entering the Church. Writing to a bishop named Jubaianus, he argued that if even martyrdom could not benefit a heretic, "because there is no salvation out of the Church," still less could heretical baptism.³ Councils at Carthage in 256 backed him.⁴

Context matters. Cyprian was writing about heresy and schism, rival altars set up against the bishops, not about people who had never heard the Church's claims. He also lost the argument with Rome. Pope Stephen replied that nothing should be innovated beyond what had been handed down, and that converts from heresy should receive the laying on of hands "for repentance," not baptism. Cyprian called this an error.⁵ (The site's article on Cyprian tells the story in full.) Cyprian died a martyr in 258 and is a saint in East and West, but his sacramental theory was not adopted as it stood.

A different instinct: Augustine, Basil and the canons

A century and a half later, St Augustine argued against the Donatists, who had inherited Cyprian's view. Augustine held that baptism given in schism is real but does not profit the person until he is reconciled to the Church: the sacrament "can indeed be received but cannot profit elsewhere."⁶ He also wrote a sentence that later theologians on every side have quoted: "in that unspeakable foreknowledge of God, many who seem to be without are in reality within, and many who seem to be within yet really are without."⁷

The clearest Eastern witness (see the site's Church Fathers explorer) is St Basil the Great's first canonical letter to Amphilochius of Iconium, whose canons the Council in Trullo (692) ratified as part of Orthodox canon law. Basil distinguishes heresies (groups "altogether broken off and alienated in matters relating to the actual faith"), schisms (separation "for some ecclesiastical reasons and questions capable of mutual solution"), and unlawful congregations. He reports that "it seemed good to the ancient authorities to reject the baptism of heretics altogether, but to admit that of schismatics, on the ground that they still belonged to the Church."⁸ Basil himself leaned toward strictness with some groups, but he advised following local custom, for fear that "through the severity of our decision" the Church might "be a hindrance to those who are being saved."⁹

The canon usually numbered as the seventh of the Council of Constantinople (381) turns this into a scale. Arians, Macedonians, Sabbatians, Novatians, Quartodecimans and Apollinarians are received after renouncing their errors and being anointed with chrism; Eunomians, Montanists and Sabellians are received "as heathen" and baptized.¹⁰ The canon is probably not from 381 at all. The editors of the standard English edition print Hefele's judgment that it is an extract from a mid-fifth-century letter of the Church of Constantinople, "at least eighty years later" than the synod of 382. The Council in Trullo (692) adopted it, with an addition, as its canon 95, which gives it full canonical authority in the Orthodox Church whatever its origin. The same council also ratified the canon of Cyprian's African synod, but only as a custom "kept only in the country of the aforesaid Bishops"; stricter canonists, St Nikodemos among them, give it more weight.¹¹

{{strong: From the fourth century onward, the Eastern Church received some Christians from outside its communion without baptizing them.}} It shows that the Church did not treat its visible boundary as a wall with nothing real beyond it.

How converts have been received over the centuries

The same tension runs through the second millennium. A synod at Constantinople, meeting in 1482 and 1484, repudiated the Council of Florence and issued a service for receiving Latin Christians by chrismation and a confession of faith. A council at Moscow in 1667, with the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch present, also received Latins by chrismation.¹²

In 1755, however, Patriarch Cyril V of Constantinople, with the patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, issued a horos (definition) declaring that converts from the West were to be received "as unholy and un-baptized." The setting was intense Latin proselytism in the Middle East after the Melkite union of 1724. As George Dragas notes, its chief objection was to baptism without triple immersion. It has never been formally withdrawn, though later rulings of Constantinople allowed reception by chrismation.¹³ St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain gave the strict view its classic defense in the Pedalion (1800), arguing that the earlier leniency had been an "economy" made under pressure.¹⁴

In 1875 the Patriarchate of Constantinople, replying to a letter on the question, noted that the question "bears many pros and cons," that the Russian Church followed the Moscow council of 1667 while the Eastern churches followed the decree of Cyril V, and that it was "left to the spiritual discernment" of the bishops concerned until the local churches could reach agreement together.¹⁵

The Russian Orthodox Church's 2000 statement on other Christians lists three rites of reception, "through Baptism, through Chrismation, through Repentance," and explains that the Church "relates to the different non-Orthodox confessions in different ways."¹⁶ The 1999 North American agreed statement notes that the Moscow decree of 1667 against rebaptizing Catholics "has remained authoritative in the East Slavic Orthodox churches to the present day," while the Nikodemos framework, by the same statement's account, "came to be accepted by much of Greek-speaking Orthodoxy."¹⁷ Fr George Metallinos describes how in 1979 he baptized three German converts with permission from the Archdiocese of Athens; strict reception, he says, "had never been abolished in the Church of Greece."¹⁸ Practice varies by jurisdiction and bishop, and a convert follows his own bishop's direction.

Two ways of reading "economy"

Behind the varied practice lie two theologies. On the stricter reading, associated with St Nikodemos and defended in recent decades by writers such as Metallinos, non-Orthodox rites are empty in themselves. When the Church receives a convert without baptism, it uses its authority of oikonomia (pastoral dispensation) without attributing any reality to the earlier rite in its own right.

On the other reading, the varied rites are a diagnosis. Where the Church does not baptize, it is acknowledging that a real baptism, in the name of the Trinity, already took place. The 1999 statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, a joint Orthodox and Catholic dialogue, argued that the Nikodemos theory "systematically reversed" earlier Eastern practice and is not "the majority position of the Orthodox churches today."¹⁹ That statement represents one school. It is not a synodal decision, and stricter Orthodox reject its reading of history.

Florovsky: "The Limits of the Church"

A much-cited modern Orthodox treatment is a short essay by Fr Georges Florovsky, published in English in the Church Quarterly Review in 1933.²⁰ Florovsky took Cyprian seriously. "Strictly speaking," he wrote, "in its theological premises the teaching of St Cyprian has never been disproved." But he argued that Cyprian "started from the silent supposition that the canonical and charismatic limits of the Church invariably coincide," an equation the Church's own practice had not confirmed.

His argument ran from the canons. If the Church receives some converts without baptism, and sometimes receives clergy in their orders, it is treating something done "outside" as real. And if a sacrament is real, it can only be the work of the Holy Spirit. "Where the sacraments are accomplished, there is the Church," he wrote, and so "the 'outside world' does not begin immediately." He also cautioned against using economy to explain everything: whether a baptism is real is, in his Latin phrase, a quaestio facti, a question of fact to be discerned, not something settled by pastoral convenience.²¹

Florovsky did not conclude that divisions are harmless. He spoke of "many bonds, still not broken" between the Church and separated Christians, and ended by quoting St Gregory the Theologian: "We seek not conquest," ... "but the return of our brethren, whose separation from us is tearing us apart."²²

Khomiakov, Ware and "where it is not"

In the nineteenth century the Russian lay theologian Alexei Khomiakov wrote that the visible Church "does not judge the rest of mankind, and only looks upon those as excluded, that is to say, not belonging to her, who exclude themselves." The rest of mankind, "whether alien from the Church, or united to her by ties which God has not willed to reveal to her, she leaves to the judgment of the great day."²³ Khomiakov cites St Paul: "For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? ... But those who are outside God judges" (1 Corinthians 5:12-13, NKJV).

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's widely read The Orthodox Church made this view familiar in English. Ware describes two groups among faithful Orthodox. A more moderate group holds that "Many people may be members of the Church who are not visibly so; invisible bonds may exist despite an outward separation." In his words, "We know where the Church is but we cannot be sure where it is not; and so we must refrain from passing judgment on non-Orthodox Christians."²⁴

Ware is equally clear that a "more rigorous group" holds that anyone who is not Orthodox cannot be a member of the Church, citing the catechism of Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), whom he describes as head of the Russian Church in Exile. Even this group, Ware notes, holds that divine grace is active among many non-Orthodox and that God will have mercy on the sincere; they deny only that such people can be called members of the Church. He adds that "such opinions are held by many Orthodox of great learning and holiness."²⁵ {{strong: Both the moderate and the strict positions are held today by Orthodox bishops and theologians in good standing.}}

One honest caution. Ware supports the moderate view with St Irenaeus: "where the Spirit is, there is the Church." In Irenaeus the sentence runs both ways ("where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God"), and the very next lines say that those who do not join themselves to the Church do not share in the Spirit.²⁶ Irenaeus was writing against Gnostic sects, and his words cannot fairly be claimed as an early statement of the moderate view.

What the Orthodox Church actually teaches

It helps to separate three levels.

What the Church confesses. There is one Church, which the Orthodox Church believes itself to be. The Creed confesses "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church," and the 2016 council in Crete opened its document on other Christians by calling the Orthodox Church "the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."²⁷ Salvation is in Christ alone: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12, NKJV). Christ gives that salvation in and through his Body, by baptism, the Eucharist and life in the Church, as union with God, what the Fathers called theosis. None of the Orthodox sources surveyed here treats the Church as optional.

What is widely taught. The Russian Church's 2000 statement puts the common view carefully. It affirms that "salvation can be attained only in the Church of Christ," and in the same paragraph says that separated communities "have never been viewed as fully deprived of the grace of God," since a break from communion leads to "an erosion of her grace-filled life, but not always to its complete loss." It speaks of "a certain incomplete fellowship," and declines to measure how much grace has been kept in any particular body, calling that "a mystery of God's providence and judgement."²⁸ The Crete council said that the Orthodox Church "accepts the historical name of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches and Confessions that are not in communion with her," a wording that names them without ruling on their ecclesial status.²⁹ The authority of Crete is itself disputed: the churches of Antioch, Russia, Bulgaria and Georgia did not attend.³⁰

What remains theological opinion. Whether non-Orthodox sacraments are real in themselves; whether non-Orthodox Christians are members of the Church in some invisible way; and how God will judge any particular person. No ecumenical council has defined these things. The final destiny of individuals belongs to God, "who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4, NKJV), and who judges according to what each person was given: "to whom much is given, from him much will be required" (Luke 12:48, NKJV). The Orthodox Church's own teaching on the final judgment leaves it to Christ.

{{moderate: The modern Orthodox writers and synodal statements surveyed here decline to say that non-Orthodox Christians as such are lost, while insisting that the Orthodox Church alone is the Church in its fullness.}}

The strongest objections

"Rome gives a clearer answer"

A Catholic will say that the Second Vatican Council already worked this out. Lumen Gentium teaches that the Church of Christ "subsists in the Catholic Church," while "many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure." It says that whoever knows the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ and refuses to enter it "could not be saved," and that those who "through no fault of their own" do not know the Gospel or the Church, but sincerely seek God and try to do his will, can attain salvation.³¹ The decree on ecumenism says baptized believers in Christ "are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect."³² Why can Orthodoxy not say as much?

The reply is that the Orthodox position is in some respects close to this, as the Moscow statement shows, but Orthodoxy has no central teaching office like Rome's and is slower to define what tradition left open. Rome's own path to this clarity was not straight; the site's article on what Catholics historically meant by the maxim traces it. Orthodox reticence is not evasion. It is a refusal to define what Christ did not reveal.

"The true Church is invisible"

Many Protestants answer that the Church that saves is the invisible company of all believers, known only to God, and that no visible body can claim to be it. Yet the classic Reformed confessions also held a strong view of the visible Church. The Westminster Confession calls the visible church the house and family of God, "out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation."³³ Calvin wrote that "beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for."³⁴ The Orthodox reply is that Scripture calls the Church a body with baptism and a common table, not an invisible idea, and that the Reformers themselves kept the old conviction that the Church is a mother.

"This is ecumenist softening"

Strict Orthodox raise the opposite objection. Cyprian, the 1755 decree and St Nikodemos, they argue, express the mind of the Fathers; the moderate view grew from twentieth-century ecumenical contacts and blurs the line between truth and error. It deserves a serious answer, which is historical. Graded reception is in Basil and in canon 95 of Trullo, centuries before any ecumenical movement, and the 1484 and 1667 synods received Latins by chrismation. The strict view is a real Orthodox position. It is not the only one the canons support, and its defenders also leave final judgment to God.

"If you cannot agree, the claim is empty"

A skeptic may say that a church which cannot agree on how to receive a Lutheran has no business claiming to be the one true Church. The disagreement is real. But the Orthodox agree on the faith and on the Church's identity; they differ on the sacramental status of bodies outside it, a question the canons themselves left partly open.

What this means in practice

For an Orthodox Christian, the teaching cuts two ways. It forbids treating other Christians as unbelievers; the Gospel warns against forbidding those who work in Christ's name "because he does not follow us" (Mark 9:38-40, NKJV). It also forbids pretending that division does not matter. To a Protestant or Catholic friend, the Orthodox Church does not say "you are damned." It says "come home." The site's article on people who never hear the Gospel takes up the wider question of non-Christians.

What we can say confidently

• Cyprian's "no salvation out of the Church" was written in the 250s during disputes over schism and heretical baptism, and Rome under Stephen rejected his sacramental conclusion.
• Basil's first canonical letter, the canon numbered 7 of Constantinople, and Trullo canon 95 receive some outsiders without baptism.
• Orthodox practice has varied: chrismation for Latins in 1484 and 1667, baptism under the 1755 decree, and discretion in 1875 and today.
• The Russian Church's 2000 statement affirms both that salvation is in the Church and that separated communities are not wholly deprived of grace.
• No ecumenical council has defined the eternal destiny of non-Orthodox Christians.

What remains disputed

• Whether reception without baptism recognizes a real sacrament (Florovsky) or supplies grace to an empty rite (Nikodemos, Metallinos).
• Whether non-Orthodox Christians can be called members of the Church in any sense, invisibly or partially.
• How much authority the 2016 Crete council's wording carries, since four churches were absent.
• Whether the moderate view is a recovery of early practice or a modern development; both sides cite the canons.

Conclusion

The Orthodox answer is not a formula for sorting souls. The Church confesses that it is the Body of Christ, the mother Cyprian spoke of. It also remembers that Christ is the Judge, and that the same canons which guard its boundaries show it recognizing the work of the Spirit beyond them. Khomiakov's line is perhaps the best summary: the Church knows itself, and leaves the rest "to the judgment of the great day." The Orthodox Christian is called to pray for the unity of all, to love his separated brothers and sisters, and to hold the door open.

Notes

1. John Chapman, "St. Cyprian of Carthage," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1908), sections on the Novatian schism and the baptismal controversy; New Advent. ↩
2. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 6, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, ANF 5 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1886); New Advent. ↩
3. Cyprian, Epistle 72 (ANF numbering; Ep. 73 in modern editions), To Jubaianus 21, trans. Wallis, ANF 5. ↩
4. Chapman, "St. Cyprian of Carthage" (the spring and September councils of 256). ↩
5. Cyprian, Epistle 73 (ANF numbering), To Pompey 1-2, trans. Wallis, ANF 5, quoting Stephen's letter. ↩
6. Augustine, On Baptism, Against the Donatists 1.2.3, trans. J. R. King, rev. Chester D. Hartranft, NPNF1 4 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1887); New Advent. ↩
7. Augustine, On Baptism 5.27.38, NPNF1 4. ↩
8. Basil of Caesarea, Letter 188 (First Canonical Epistle), canon 1, trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF2 8 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1895); New Advent. Basil's canons are ratified in Council in Trullo, canon 2, NPNF2 14. ↩
9. Basil, Letter 188, canon 1, NPNF2 8. ↩
10. Council of Constantinople (381), canon 7, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 14 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1900); New Advent (where the page prints it under the label "Canon 5"). ↩
11. NPNF2 14, "Warning to the Reader Touching Canon VII," quoting Hefele, with the note on its adoption as Trullo canon 95; CCEL. Council in Trullo, canons 2 and 95, NPNF2 14; New Advent. On Nikodemos and Cyprian's legislation: North American Consultation, Baptism and "Sacramental Economy", part II.B.2. ↩
12. George Dragas, "The Manner of Reception of Roman Catholic Converts into the Orthodox Church, with Special Reference to the Decisions of the Synods of 1484 (Constantinople), 1755 (Constantinople) and 1667 (Moscow)," paper read at the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Dialogue (USA), 1998, section 2 and (for 1667) the 1875 letter quoted in section 4; Myriobiblos. ↩
13. Dragas, sections 3-4, with the English text of the 1755 horos and his comment on its objection to baptism without triple immersion; North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, Baptism and "Sacramental Economy" (Crestwood, NY, 3 June 1999), part II.B.1. ↩
14. North American Consultation, Baptism and "Sacramental Economy", part II.B.2-3. ↩
15. Patriarchal and Synodical Letter of Constantinople, 26 May 1875, as translated in Dragas, section 4. ↩
16. Russian Orthodox Church, Jubilee Bishops' Council, Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward the Other Christian Confessions (14 August 2000), 1.17; English text at orthodox.cn (mirroring the Moscow Patriarchate's translation). ↩
17. North American Consultation, Baptism and "Sacramental Economy", parts II.A and II.B.4. ↩
18. George D. Metallinos, I Confess One Baptism (Holy Mountain: St Paul's Monastery, 1994), Preface to the English Edition. ↩
19. North American Consultation, Baptism and "Sacramental Economy", parts II.B.2 and III.A.5. ↩
20. Georges Florovsky, "The Limits of the Church," Church Quarterly Review 117 (1933): 117-31; text reproduced on the Ancient Faith blog Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy (2012). ↩
21. Florovsky, "The Limits of the Church." ↩
22. Florovsky, "The Limits of the Church," closing paragraphs. ↩
23. A. S. Khomiakov, The Church Is One 2, in W. J. Birkbeck, ed., Russia and the English Church during the Last Fifty Years, vol. 1 (London, 1895), ch. 23. ↩
24. Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Church, new ed. (London: Penguin, 1993), ch. 16, "'One Holy Catholic Church': what do we mean?" (page number not verified). ↩
25. Ware, The Orthodox Church, ch. 16. ↩
26. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.24.1, trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, ANF 1 (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885); New Advent. ↩
27. Holy and Great Council (Crete, 2016), Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World, para. 1; holycouncil.org. ↩
28. Basic Principles (2000), 1.15 and 1.17. ↩
29. Crete 2016, Relations, para. 6. ↩
30. Paul L. Gavrilyuk, "Council meets despite absence of four patriarchates under the sway of Russia," America, 7 July 2016. ↩
31. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (1964), 8, 14 and 16; vatican.va. ↩
32. Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), 3; vatican.va. ↩
33. Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.2 (text of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church); opc.org. ↩
34. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.1.4, trans. Henry Beveridge (1845); CCEL. ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Augustine. On Baptism, Against the Donatists. Trans. J. R. King, rev. Chester D. Hartranft. NPNF1 4. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1887.
• Basil of Caesarea. Letter 188. Trans. Blomfield Jackson. NPNF2 8. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1895.
• Council of Constantinople (381) and Council in Trullo (692), canons, with editorial notes. Trans. Henry Percival. NPNF2 14. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1900.
• Cyprian of Carthage. On the Unity of the Church; Epistles 72 and 73 (ANF numbering). Trans. Robert Ernest Wallis. ANF 5. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1886.
• Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies. Trans. Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. ANF 1. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing, 1885.
• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Dragas, George. "The Manner of Reception of Roman Catholic Converts into the Orthodox Church, with Special Reference to the Decisions of the Synods of 1484, 1755 and 1667." Paper for the Orthodox-Roman Catholic Dialogue (USA), 1998. Myriobiblos.
• Florovsky, Georges. "The Limits of the Church." Church Quarterly Review 117 (1933): 117-31.
• Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church (Crete, 2016). Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World.
• Khomiakov, A. S. The Church Is One. In W. J. Birkbeck, ed., Russia and the English Church during the Last Fifty Years, vol. 1. London, 1895.
• Metallinos, George D. I Confess One Baptism. Holy Mountain: St Paul's Monastery, 1994.
• Russian Orthodox Church. Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward the Other Christian Confessions. Moscow, 2000.
• Ware, Timothy (Kallistos). The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993.

Other scholarship and church documents

• Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Trans. Henry Beveridge. Edinburgh, 1845.
• Chapman, John. "St. Cyprian of Carthage." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton, 1908.
• Gavrilyuk, Paul L. "Council meets despite absence of four patriarchates under the sway of Russia." America, 7 July 2016.
• North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation. Baptism and "Sacramental Economy": An Agreed Statement. Crestwood, NY, 1999.
• Second Vatican Council. Lumen Gentium (1964) and Unitatis Redintegratio (1964).
• Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), ch. 25.