Salvation – inside and outside the Orthodox Church

Does someone have to belong to the Orthodox Church to be saved?

I’ve been asked this question lately, seen other people asked it an answer, and been involved with discussions in various places online. I was starting to see strong statements by some that one MUST belong to the Orthodox Church, and no salvation could be possible otherwise. This is not in alignment with what I have been taught as a catechumen – which more specifically would be to say that the Orthodox do not pass judgment on those outside of the Orthodox Church – and for that matter, they do not judge the salvation of individuals inside the Church either. Salvation belongs to God and is His singular right to decide. We trust to His mercy.

I saw a nice collection of quotes that helps to solidify this position, and want to share them here. Thank you to xariskai on OrthodoxChristianity.net for collecting these!

A common explanation is that we know where the Church is, but not where it is not.”As to those people who are good and kind but are not believers, we cannot and must not judge them. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable; let us leave these good people entirely to His judgment and to the grace of His Providence. He alone knows how and why He has built the argosy of humanity, and the small boat of each one of us, such as it is.” -St. Macarius of Optina In fewer words: “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” (1 Cor 5:12). Metropolitan Philaret Voznesensky of New York (Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) on the Faith of Non-Orthodox Christians: “It is self evident, however, that sincere Christians who are Roman Catholics, or Lutherans, or members, of other non-Orthodox confessions, cannot be termed renegades or heretics—i.e. those who knowingly pervert the truth… They have been born and raised and are living according to the creed which they have inherited, just as do the majority of you who are Orthodox; in their lives there has not been a moment of personal and conscious renunciation of Orthodoxy. The Lord, “Who will have all men to be saved” (I Tim. 2:4) and “Who enlightens every man born into the world” (Jn 1:43), undoubtedly is leading them also towards salvation in His own way.” ‘Inasmuch as the earthly and visible Church is not the fullness and completeness of the whole Church which the Lord has appointed to appear at the final judgment of all creation, she acts and knows only within her own limits; and … 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’ (“The Church is One”) -Saint Philaret, Khomiakov “We are not to imagine that because Orthodoxy possesses the fullness of Holy Tradition, the other Christian bodies possess nothing at all. Far from it; I have never been convinced by the rigorist claim that sacramental life and the grace of the Holy Spirit can exist only within the visible limits of the Orthodox Church… Faithful to its vocation to assist the salvation of all, the Church of Christ values every ‘spark of life,’ however small, in the dissident communities. In this way it bears witness to the fact that, despite the separation, they still retain a certain link with the unique and life-giving center, a link that is -so far as we are concerned- ‘invisible and beyond our understanding.’ There is only one true Church, the sole bestower of sacramental grace; but there are several ways of being separated from that one true Church, and varying degrees of diminishing ecclesial reality outside its visible limits.” Lossky, introductory note to the article of Patriarch Sergius of Moscow, “L’Eglishe du Christ et les communautes dissidentes,” quoted in Bp. Kallistos Ware, The Inner Kingdom, pp. 8-9.