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If the RC church was broken so badly that it needed to be essentially abolished (maybe marginalized is a better word?), lets say sometime before the first Inquisition, that means the faithful were essentially out of luck for 500 years until the Reformation. That's a lot of generations.

Except for some of the most anti-intellectual and rabidly narrow Protestants, I don't know of any--certainly within leadership-- who think the RC church was invalidly corrupt for 500 years. The view of the reformers--and thoughtful modern evangelical scholars--is that through a slow process various traditions and scholastic explanations the Roman Church had obscured the good news of simple faith in the work of Christ--upon which the Church was founded. Again the evidence is that Luther, the other early reformers and even Calvin--did not seek to split the Church wide open...and even when the Roman hierarchy made a break official each sought to establish one Church...mainly on national (or at least regional) lines. Without the political/social/religious monopoly though, that the medieval Roman Church was--other splits became, in my opinion, inevitable.

The simple reason they didn't look to the Eastern Orthodox is that those people were Greek...and had had a separate culture, language and religion for hundreds of years. The reformers had also been steeped with teaching that these were not true Christians either..., in any event they sought to create a pure church within their own cultural sphere.

One of the key principles coming from the reformers though is that the real Church--those whose faith is true and will remain forever--is never really fully humanly known. We all know Jesus' story about the wheat and the tares for example...grain and weeds growing in the same field...which He said we are NOT to try to weed out! With this in mind, in a way Jesus' true followers are hidden or invisible--and other than just within a human organization. Correct me if I'm wrong but both Roman and Orthodox leaders officially excommunicated each other (and their respective bodies) at the time of the schism. Of course we don't believe now that such made one body (or the other) all go to hell--but that was the position at time...

I don't think its hard to believe that the risen Christ has seen to it that there are faithful followers of His within all (small "o") orthodox denominations... and that human organizations are secondary to how people exercise His love in their lives toward each other. His kingdom--and the true one Church universal--are nothing less.

Human organizations are surely necessary...and have certainly been split by sin (on all sides...) however He will unify us all soon, I am convinced... I suspect various kinds of people have been reached by (and in spite of) such schisms...that had the Church been uniform, would have otherwise been missed.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (St. Paul in Romans 8:28)