«Jesus Christ… is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other…» (Acts 4:11–12)
Unfortunately, there are still people who call themselves Orthodox Christians yet seriously believe that salvation—that is, entry into the Kingdom of Heaven—is possible even for non-Christians. In their view, those who do not believe in Christ but perform good deeds can also be saved.
Such views are not new; they have been known before. In the 19th century, St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) refuted this error in a letter, from which we will quote a few excerpts (though it is worth reading in full):
«A sight worthy of bitter lamentation: Christians who do not know what Christianity is! The question you posed is often asked today: ‘Why can’t pagans, Muslims, and so-called heretics be saved? Among them are very good people. To condemn such kind people would be contrary to God’s mercy!.. To consider ourselves saved and members of other faiths lost is both foolish and extremely prideful!’
«I will try to answer you as briefly as possible. Here is the true teaching on this matter—the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church: Salvation consists in the restoration of communion with God. This communion was lost by the entire human race through the Fall of our first parents… To restore man’s communion with God—in other words, for salvation—redemption was necessary… All human good deeds—weak, descending into Hades—have been replaced by one mighty good deed: faith in our Lord Jesus Christ…
«You err grievously in thinking and saying that good people among pagans and Muslims can be saved—that is, enter into communion with God! You wrongly regard the opposing view as some novelty or a creeping error! No! This is the constant teaching of the true Church—both Old and New Testament. The Church has always recognized that there is only one means of salvation: the Redeemer! She has always taught that even the greatest virtues of fallen nature descend into Hades…
«To acknowledge the possibility of salvation without faith in Christ is to deny Christ and, perhaps unwittingly, to fall into the grave sin of blasphemy.»
This letter of St. Ignatius is well-known, though unfortunately not as widely as it should be. In conversations with supporters of the idea that non-Orthodox can be saved, I have cited it, and their reaction has been predictable: they dismiss it as the «personal opinion of St. Ignatius, not the teaching of the Church,» while equating the Church’s teaching with their own views—which directly contradict the saint’s words.
This is typical of modernistic thinking: labeling everything in Orthodox teaching that contradicts the modernist’s personal opinion as a «private opinion.»
However, St. Ignatius himself states that he is expounding not his personal view but the teaching of the Orthodox Church. Moreover, if we turn to other Church Fathers, we find the same truth affirmed.
For example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk testifies:
«No one can be justified before God and saved without Christ and apart from Christ, but only through faith in Christ… For no one can be delivered from the devil, sin, the curse of the Law, or hell without Christ. This is all contained in Christ’s brief word: ‘If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed’ (John 8:36).»
A thousand years before St. Ignatius, St. Anastasius of Sinai was asked: «If an unbeliever in Christ—a Jew or a Samaritan—does many good works, will he enter the Kingdom of Heaven?» He answered:
«Since the Lord tells Nicodemus, ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5), it is clear that [unbelievers] will not enter [that] Kingdom. However, [none] will be deprived of their due reward: either [the unbeliever] receives his good things in this life—wealth, luxury, and other pleasures—like the rich man who heard from Abraham, ‘Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things’ (Luke 16:25), or his fate in the age to come will differ greatly from that of those who did no good. For just as there are many mansions in the Father’s house (John 14:2), so too are there many different punishments for sinners.»
Thus, St. Anastasius, like St. Ignatius, confirms that an unbeliever in Christ—one not born of water and the Spirit (i.e., unbaptized)—will not enter the Kingdom of God after death, though his good deeds will not go unrewarded.
St. Symeon the New Theologian states:
«It is a great good to believe in Christ, for without faith in Christ, it is impossible to be saved.»
St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes:
«Even if a man is virtuous in deeds but has not received the seal of water, he will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The word is bold, but it is not mine—for so has Jesus decreed!»
St. John Chrysostom exhorts:
«Hear, all you who are unbaptized: Tremble and weep! Terrible is this threat, terrible this decree! ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit,’ says Christ, ‘he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’ (John 3:5), for he still wears the garment of death, the garment of curse, the garment of corruption. He has not yet received the Lord’s seal; he is not His own but a stranger, lacking the mark required for the Kingdom.»
We could continue quoting, for this truth is unanimously proclaimed by the Holy Fathers of all ages and nations. But for pious Christians, what has been cited is sufficient, while for modernists, no amount of evidence will ever be enough.
After all, if one treats the words of the Holy Fathers not as the testimony of God-seers to a truth they have experientially known, but as «just another personal opinion,» then it makes no difference whether there are one, seven, or a thousand such «opinions.»
To any minimally pious Christian, the idea that truth is hidden, undefinable, and unknowable must seem monstrous—yet this very idea underlies the modernist desire to reduce all Holy Tradition to «personal viewpoints of long-dead people» and Scripture to «historical perspectives, allegories, and conventions addressed to ancient, long-dead people.» Conversely, this monstrous idea inspires those who desperately wish truth to remain undefined and unknowable, for otherwise, they would have to abandon their own views that contradict the truth—the truth of which the Lord said:
«And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free» (John 8:32).
The liberating truth of Christianity is that Christ came and paid the ultimate price to grant salvation to mankind, and that apart from Christ,
«Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved» (Acts 4:12).
Though the Church annually proclaims with utmost clarity in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy: «To those who do not accept the grace of redemption proclaimed in the Gospel as the only means of our justification before God—anathema!» —many modernists persistently cloud the issue, pretending there is no clarity on this foundational matter.
They love to say that it would be unforgivable presumption to anticipate God’s future judgment by claiming all non-Christians will perish—that «only God can decide.»
Yet in repeating the truth expressed repeatedly in Scripture and Tradition, we are not «daring to preempt God’s judgment» but rather affirming what He has already revealed about it:
«He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned» (Mark 16:16).
This is not our «presumption»—Christ Himself said it, and He is the Truth, in Whom there is no lie. The Church’s faith in the Last Judgment is not limited to the mere assertion that such a judgment will occur but includes the primary criteria by which it will be conducted—the foremost being the conscious acceptance of Christ.
If salvation were possible without Christ, then it would have been possible before Christ. But if so, why did Christ come to earth—not only come but go to His death? And why do we call Him Savior, following the Apostles and His own words? How could He say He
«came to seek and to save that which was lost» (Luke 19:10)
if, it turns out, humanity was never truly lost but was quite capable of saving itself through non-Christian religions?
If Christ came merely to add a new «option» to an already existing possibility of human salvation—to offer some improved version—then He is not the Savior but an «Upgrader.» Yet His very name means «Savior» (Jesus = Yeshua = «Yahweh saves»), and this name alone refutes those who think salvation can be attained without Him.
It is known that when tempting Christ in the wilderness, Satan quoted Scripture. St. Ephrem the Syrian, explaining this episode, writes:
«He took from Scripture what suited him and omitted what contradicted him. So too do heretics take from Scripture what supports their deceptive teachings and omit what refutes their errors, thus showing themselves to be disciples of their master.»
Supporters of the idea that salvation is possible without knowing and accepting Christ—if only one does good deeds, regardless of faith—attempt to cite Scripture passages allegedly supporting their error. In particular, they point to the Apostles’ words:
«But in every nation he that feareth him… is accepted with him» (Acts 10:35),
and
«For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law… they shew the work of the law written in their hearts» (Rom. 2:14–15).
Before addressing this argument, a brief introduction is necessary.
The Holy Fathers unanimously taught that there is no salvation outside Christ and His Church. This is no coincidence, no mere «convergence of opinions.» The Fathers understood that admitting the possibility of salvation outside Christ and the Church would render the Incarnation, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Christ meaningless—indeed, it would strip Christianity itself of all meaning.
The Apostle Paul said the same:
«If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain» (Gal. 2:21).
He explicitly wrote that even keeping the Old Law, given by the true God, could not bring salvation—yet now some attribute to him the idea that not only those who worshipped the true God and kept His revealed Law, but even idolaters ignorant of divine revelation, can be justified before God!
In other words, the same Apostle Paul who said that
«the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God» (1 Cor. 10:20)
and who exclaimed,
«And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?» (2 Cor. 6:15),
is now, in the modernists’ view, their ally in claiming that in God’s Kingdom, there will be fellowship between those who worshipped God and those who sacrificed to demons, between those who prayed to Christ and those who bowed to Belial.
The absurdity of this idea is self-evident. Naturally, the modernists’ interpretation not only contradicts the patristic exegesis but is directly refuted by the Holy Fathers, particularly St. Joseph of Volotsk:
«If ‘in every nation he that feareth him… is accepted with him’ (Acts 10:35), why did Peter not leave Cornelius and his household in their former faith—though they feared God and did more good deeds than most—but commanded them to be baptized in the name of Christ? If in every nation, whoever fears God and works righteousness is accepted by Him, why did our Lord Jesus Christ say to His holy disciples: ‘Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you’ (Matt. 28:19–20)? And why did He say: ‘He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned’ (Mark 16:16)?»
«The great Apostle Peter spoke these words about the righteous who lived before Christ’s Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection—those among Jews or other nations who feared God and acted righteously, who worshipped not idols but the true God, like Cornelius and his kind. But after Christ’s Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection, ‘there is none other name under heaven… whereby we must be saved, except the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The Lord says in the Holy Gospel that unless one is born of water and the Spirit in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he cannot be saved—even if he were the most righteous of men. This was also testified by the Apostle Peter when he baptized the righteous Cornelius, of whom God had spoken… Now, people are pleasing to God through baptism and striving for good works; before Christ’s Incarnation, the righteous were pleasing to God through their fear of Him and righteous life… Clearly, the Apostle spoke these words about the righteous who lived before Christ’s Incarnation—those who feared God and acted righteously, not worshipping idols. Of them, Paul also said: ‘For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law… they shew the work of the law written in their hearts’ (Rom. 2:14–15).»
Often, proponents of the error that salvation is possible without Christ argue that there are so few Orthodox Christians in the world; thus, they claim, it cannot be that only sincere members of the Orthodox Church are saved—for that would mean very few are saved and very many are lost.
But did not the Lord Jesus Christ Himself say:
«Enter ye in at the strait gate… wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it» (Matt. 7:13–14),
«For many are called, but few are chosen» (Matt. 22:14),
«Fear not, little flock» (Luke 12:32)?
From the beginning, the Lord made clear the sad reality that many perish and few are saved. Yet, thank God, today the saved are far more numerous than those saved in Noah’s Ark during the Flood—and that Ark, as St. Philaret of Moscow noted, is a type of Christ’s Church.
Moreover, supporters of this error love to speak of the unfortunate «simple» pagans, Muslims, or Catholics who allegedly had «no objective chance» to become Orthodox Christians because Orthodox missionaries never reached them. In saying this, they seem unaware of God’s Providence, which demonstrates the exact opposite: these «natives» did not become Orthodox Christians not because the Apostles failed to reach them, but because the Lord, in His foreknowledge, knew they would not heed the preaching of truth—and thus did not send Apostles to them.
Their remaining in ignorance was itself an act of God’s mercy, for
«And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes» (Luke 12:47–48).
Conversely, if the Lord saw a person whose heart sincerely sought truth—even if he lived among a people entirely ignorant of Orthodoxy—He would arrange for that person to encounter Orthodoxy.
Thus, in the 12th century, God arranged for a German Catholic to learn of Orthodoxy—he converted and became St. Procopius of Ustyug. That same century, God gave a Volga Bulgar Muslim the same opportunity—he became St. Abraham of Bulgaria. The next century, a Mongol pagan converted and became St. Peter of the Horde. The history of the Church is full of such examples.
Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) aptly writes on this subject:
«God is love, justice, and omnipotence. His actions are motivated by love, determined by wisdom, and executed by power. Thus, people’s ignorance of God cannot be explained by historical circumstances, for the helm of history is in God’s hand. Such an explanation would imply that God is constrained by external situations and historical laws. Rather, the ignorance of those incapable of accepting the truth is itself God’s mercy toward them. Like Gideon sending home those he knew would flee in battle (Judg. 7:3).»
When examining the arguments of those who believe the unbaptized can be saved, one gets the impression they forget not only God’s Providence but God Himself.
To them, a «good» person is one who does not sin against others and shows them kindness. Such a person, they claim, is thereby worthy of salvation.
But even the Ten Commandments do not limit themselves to duties toward fellow men; the very first commandments concern man’s duties toward God:
«I am the Lord thy God… Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them… Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain» (Ex. 20:2–7).
Thus, the gravest sin—unbelief in God, refusal to honor Christ—is not even considered a sin by modernists. A triviality! Can someone really be deprived of eternal unity with the One he refused to know or honor in life?
The answer: Not only can he—he must be, for posthumous unity with God is the logical continuation of the unity chosen in earthly life, granted only by Christ in His Church. Likewise, posthumous separation from God is the logical outcome of the separation chosen in this life—when a person preferred self-love and sin to God or the search for true God.
God is the only true source of good and joy. Separation from good is torment. Those who chose to be with God and demonstrated this choice in life will be with Him eternally—in bliss and joy. Those who preferred anything else to God and did not unite with Him in the Eucharist will be eternally cut off from the source of good and joy—that is, they will abide in torment. In both cases,
«Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap» (Gal. 6:7).
We must also recall another truth, eloquently expressed by Archimandrite Raphael:
«Faith, baptism, and the Eucharist are not contractual conditions to be fulfilled; they are not a debt the sinner must repay to escape damnation; they are not God’s ‘demands’ that can be waived if one lacks the means or opportunity. Faith, baptism, and the Eucharist pertain directly to man himself—his person, his nature, his communion with the spiritual world. Through baptism and the Eucharist, he becomes a new creation. Grace transforms his person, spiritualizes his nature, transfigures his soul, sanctifies all its powers, resurrects his spirit, and prepares him for the posthumous encounter with Christ… In the age to come, what we acquired here on earth will be revealed—otherwise, earthly life as a period of self-determination would be meaningless.»
This article concludes with the words of two great saints of the 20th century:
Hieromartyr Hilarion (Troitsky):
«One can only marvel at how far people go in ‘interpreting’ Christianity. Whatever they wish, they immediately find in the Gospel. It turns out that any idle fantasy—even a malicious thought—can be covered with the Gospel’s authority.
«No, the Christian faith becomes clear and definite only when one sincerely believes in the Church. Only then is the pearl of this faith pure, only then is it not mixed with a heap of filthy rubbish—the self-willed opinions and judgments of men. This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he called the Church ‘the pillar and ground of the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15).»
St. Nikolai Velimirović:
«True life is only that which is sought and found in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. All else is death and decay. In the scorching desert of human history, the risen Christ is the only open and unfailing spring—quenching, refreshing, and giving life. All else that may appear to the weary, thirsty traveler as a spring is no spring, but the glint of scorching sand, resembling water, or a demonic illusion.»
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