Is there only one road to heaven?

Archpriest Maksim Kozlov, the rector of the Chapel of St Tatiana at Moscow State University (MGU), said that God is not the same for everybody. In his opinion, there is no such thing as a Muslim or Jehovah’s Witnesses church in heaven, but only the Church of Christ. Replying to a question on the website Татьянин день (Tatiana’s Day), Fr Maksim said, 

“The notion that God is the same for everyone no matter what faith you profess is, please, forgive me for the seeming sharpness, the result of manifest religious ignorance”. 

He believes that God didn’t become incarnate from the Virgin Mary merely in order to teach us morality or to explain the mysteries of the world. Fr Maksim noted that Christ came to Earth “to found the Church, a mystical spiritual body in which we are all connected, with Him as the head”. 

He reiterated that we must clearly realise that there is no multiplicity of churches in heaven. “There is no Muslim, Buddhist, Shinto, or Jehovah’s Witnesses church. In heaven, there is only the Church of Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Only this is the Church, the Body of Christ, whose members we become through the sacrament of baptism, and in whose embrace we live through the means of the other sacraments”. 

In addition, he said that that it is impossible to muddle up Orthodoxy and Catholicism. 

According to Fr Maksim, for a thousand years the deepest thinkers, theologians, and writers have pointed up the obvious differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism.

Hattip: Voices from Russia