“Christ is the summit of desire; there is nothing higher. All sensible things lead to satiety but with God there is no satiation. He is everything. God is the summit of desire. No other joy, no other beauty, nothing else can rival Him. What is higher than the highest? Love for Christ is something else. It is without end, without satiety. It gives life; it gives strength; it gives health; it gives, gives and gives. And the more it gives the more the person wishes to fall in love. Human love and passion by contrast may be destructive and even drive a person mad.”
Elder Porphyrios
~Wounded by Love

“If the official churches have had no other merit but that they have preserved Christ as the treasury of the world, yet they are justified thereby. Even if they have solely repeated through all the past centuries “Lord! Lord!” still they stand above the secular world. For they know at least who the Lord is, whereas the world does not know.

Churches may disappear, but The Church never will. For not churches are the work of Christ, but the Church. Moreover, if the Church disappears, as an institution, the essence of the Church cannot disappear. It is like rivers, sea and water: when rivers disappear into the sea, the sea remains, and if the sea disappears into steam, water still remains.”
St. Nikolai Velimirovich
~Agony of the Church