Christianity or the Church?

— About the Book —

Christianity is presented here not as an abstract teaching to which mental assent is given, but as a life which unites separate persons in a way which can be said to be similar to the unity of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Following the teaching of Khomiakov the author sees in "the denial of the Church the most characteristic feature of both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism." The teaching of Leo Tolstoy is seen to exemplify most clearly an understandng of Churchless Christianity. He concludes, "It must be considered the most vital necessity of the present time that Christ created precisely the Church and that it is absurd to separate Christianity from the Church..."