This post responds to Dr. Joshua Sijuwade’s The Identity of the Church: A Comprehensive Argument for the Truth of Eastern Orthodoxy, which claims that the Eastern Orthodox Church best fulfills the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed’s vision of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” While appreciating the intellectual rigor of Sijuwade’s argument, the author challenges the underlying assumption that the one Church must correspond to a single, historically continuous institution. Drawing from Ephesians 4 and the teachings of Jesus, the post argues that the Church’s unity is spiritual, not institutional—rooted in the shared life of believers who abide in Christ and are joined together by the Spirit. The true continuity of the Church is the ongoing work of the Spirit among all who follow Jesus, not an unbroken chain of organizational lineage. Historic and structural continuity have value but do not define the Church’s identity; faithfulness to Christ does. The Church, therefore, is not a denomination we can point to, but a people who together embody the love, faith, and hope of the gospel.
Who is “the Church”?
A Dedicated Faith 