Last modified on Tuesday August 03, 2004 at 9:42 PM EDT
…The Church is one and indivisible; yet it may at the same time comprise various spheres, not to be separated but to be clearly distinguished from one another. Otherwise it would be impossible to understand the past or present history of religion or to do anything for the religious future of mankind. Absolute perfection can only belong to that higher part of the Church which has already once for all appropriated and assimilated the fullness of the divine grace--the Church triumphant or the realm of Glory.
Midway between this divine sphere and the purely earthly elements of visible humanity stands the divine-human organism of the Church, invisible in its mystical power and visible in its present manifestation, sharing equally in the perfection of heaven and in the conditions of material existence. This is the Church, properly speaking, and it is with her that we are concerned. She is not perfect in the absolute sense, but she must possess all the necessary means of secure progress towards the supreme ideali — the perfect unity of the whole creation in God — in spite of countless obstacles and difficulties, through the struggles, temptations and weaknesses of men.
Here below, the Church has not the perfect unity of the heavenly kingdom, but nevertheless she must have a certain real unity, a bond at once organic and spiritual which constitutes her a concrete institution, a living body and a moral individual. Though she does not include the whole of mankind in an actual material sense, she is nevertheless universal in so far as she cannot be confined exclusively to any one nation or group of nations, but must have an international center from which to spread throughout the whole universe.
The Church here below, though she is founded on the revelation of God and is the guardian of the deposit of faith, does not therefore enjoy absolute and immediate knowledge of all truths; but she is infallible, that is to say, she cannot be mistaken when at a given moment she defines such and such a religious or moral truth, the explicit knowledge of which has become necessary to her. The Church on earth is not absolutely free, since she is subject to the conditions of finite existence; but she must be sufficiently independent to be able to carry on a constant and active struggle against the powers of the enemy and to prevent the gates of hell from prevailing against her.
Such is the true Church on earth, the Church which in spite of the imperfection of her human element has received from God the right, the power and all the required means to raise and guide mankind towards its appointed end. Were she not one and universal, she could not serve as the foundation of the positive unity of all peoples, which is her chief mission. Were she not infallible, she could not guide mankind in the true way; she would be a blind leader of the blind. Finally were she not independent, she could not fulfill her duty towards society; she would become the instrument of the powers of this world and would completely fail in her mission.
―Russia and the Universal Church, pp. 57–58