The Protestant claim (which I have found empirically true) is that the biblical writings are enough to be a spiritual salvational witness link from the 1st century church that wrote them, to modern disciples. Of course there is work of the Holy Spirit being performed here too. Protestants hold that you don’t need to have a physical organizational link to that early church to be brought into the universal church. In fact the way John the Baptist warned the Jews that God could raise sons of Abraham out of the stones, so that basically the physical sons of Abraham shouldn’t get haughty about their lineage, seems to warn against trusting in physical organizational links.
However it remains true that Christ’s audacious promise that the church would not become extinct, kept saving faith alive in the Catholic/Orthodox complex when it was the only game in town.
I am a kind of a weird Protestant, a Crazy Evangelical, who acknowledges genuine saving faith in Christ in all the three branches of modern Christendom. Because it is the Person who saves. I regard the places that Christian worship communities fall down as tragic and sad, but they do not snuff out Christ’s promise.
A crazy Evangelical???
Do tell! lol
I don't see where the Catholic/Orthodox religion was EVER the only game in town...No doubt they always tried to be the only game in town but it appears that God always saved a remnant somewhere to carry on...