The Necessity of Fellowship
We have dwelt at length on the love that is of God and the implications of his abolishment of death for our sakes because it draws our attention to the absolute necessity of fellowship (communion) with one another. Only in union with Christ in the Church can the death that would otherwise swallow us in its corruption be overcome. Only in the Church can we share in his eternal life of love by participation.1 Week after week in Matins, Vespers, the Divine Liturgy, and the Feasts of the Church, year after liturgical year, Christ our true God calls us through one another to the fullness and wholeness of his life in and through his Body. We need one another in order to keep ourselves from being conformed to the way of this world and to have our minds constantly renewed in the truth.2 It is truly not good that man should be alone. We were created in Christ to give ourselves to one another in the fellowship of his love, as He gave Himself for us.