Church Governance Quotes

If we admit instrumental musick in the worship of God, how can we resist the imposition of all the instruments used among the ancient Jews?—yea, dancing as well as playing, and several other Judaic actions? or, how can we decline a whole rabble of church-officers, necessary to be introduced for instrumental musick, whereof our Lord Jesus Christ hath left us no manner of direction?

Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church

That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

Churches should not be directly involved in politics.

Once elected, the Pope is by virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error. God would change any spend thrift politician into a responsible Pope.

Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church.

I believe in the separation of church and state. The government has the right to say what happens in a civil case, like in a court house. And religious people have a right to say what happens in a church congregation. They are two completely separate things.

Nothing will divide the church so much as the love of power.

All Church power is, therefore, properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions.

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution.

The state authorities have no place in the church of God, no right to control and persecute the conscience.

The most harmful thing in Christianity … is the leadership of one man in the Church—for instance, the pope, and his supposed infallibility. It is precisely in the dogma of his infallibility that the greatest mistake is contained, for the pope is a sinful man

The Russian Orthodox Church, being part of the one Universal Church of Christ, shall have the pre-eminent public and legal status among other confessions in the Russian State, which befits her as the greatest shrine for the overwhelming majority of the population and a great historical force that built the Russian State… As soon as they are made public, decrees and statutes issued the Orthodox Church for herself in the order established by herself, as well as deeds of the church government and court shall be recognised by the State as legally valid and important unless they violate state laws… State laws concerning the Orthodox Church shall be issued only with the consent of the church authorities

Once a bishop is appointed, in terms of governance, we are semi-autonomous. It's not like we are branch managers of a bank or something.

The Orthodox hierarchy doesn't have the kind of power that high-ranking clergy do in other churches. There isn't even a worldwide governing board to hold all the various Orthodox bodies together.

Priests, Bishops, and Popes … are neither different from other Christians nor superior to them.

By the former of these (canon law), the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own order.

Many years ago, it was my opportunity to serve as president of the Canadian Mission. There we had a branch with very limited priesthood. We always had a missionary presiding over the branch. I received a strong impression that we needed to have a member of the branch preside there.

If you aim at a Scottish presbytery, it agrees as well with monarchy as God and the devil.

All leaders in the Lord's Church are called by proper authority. No prophet or any other leader in this Church, for that matter, has ever called himself or herself. No prophet has ever been elected.

It is an insult to reason and the laws to pronounce the words, 'Civil and Ecclesiastical Government.' … no regulation should be made save by the civil power.

If you aim at a Scottish presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy, as God and the devil. ... No bishop, no King! I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.

Priesthood is the means whereby the Lord acts through men to save souls. One of the defining features of the Church of Jesus Christ, both anciently and today, is His authority. There can be no true Church without divine authority.

There are two principles by which the world is ruled: the authority of priests and the royal power. The authority of priests is the greater because God will demand an accounting of them even in regard to kings.

Religion and God are totally separate. Religion is created by government. God is God.