Before Christ's sacrifice on the cross, He offered up a fervent prayer for all who would believe in His name, asking His Father to preserve them in divine unity. These words of Christ are not a call to external unity, but to absolute internal unity, similar to the unity of the three persons in the Holy Trinity, that is, to the unity that man lost because of the fall. They are based on the three persons and are represented by them, and signify man's salvation and perfection.

في الفترة التي تلت العصر الرسولي انتقل موقع الرسل في الكنيسة، كما حدَّده الكتاب المقدّس، إلى الأساقفة. كانت سلطة الأسقف في الكنيسة الأولى سلطة المسيح والكنيسة ولم تكن سلطة شخصيّة. وكما أن الرسل كان لديهم “فكر المسيح”، والقرارات التي كانوا يتّخذونها في المسائل الكنسية تتم بإرشاد الروح القدس وليس من لدنهم.

The truth of salvation in Christ is not a rigid letter that can be preserved in a book. It is a treasure that the Lord gave to the apostles so that their union would be the sure guarantee of their possession of the truth of salvation. The apostles passed this treasure on to the bishops so that they might complete the mission, in their union with the Church - the Body of Christ, where the Holy Spirit works. In doing so, they do not express their own opinion, but the will of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Church.

The Church is the link between humans themselves, and between them and God, in the image of the partnership existing between the Holy Trinity. In this sense, there was a Church in Paradise, but the fall of man from the first communion led to the transfer of the Church from Paradise to earth.