There was once a beautiful sheepfold built on the rock. In it lived a small number of sheep who lived in love with one another and with their shepherd. Their shepherd was the best at raising the first sheep in that fold, and those first sheep raised the next generation well. Each generation followed in the footsteps of the one before it, until the sheepfold flourished and grew. It became filled with many sheep of all shapes, sizes, and from all places — because love brings people together.But then there was a lion, an enemy, prowling around seeking whom he might devour. This lion hated the sheepfold and the system it ran on. He saw that as long as this organizational structure existed, he would be finished. He thought to himself: “If I am the prince of this world and the ruler of the power of the air — the one who managed to cast down angels and expel them from their dwelling — then how could I not overcome a few sheep?”So he prepared himself, relied on his power and might, and used an agent inside the sheepfold named Diocletian. Through him, he launched a fierce war against the sheep, wanting to exterminate them so that his forest would have no sheepfolds left. “Are there really sheepfolds in the middle of forests?!” he wondered.Yet he found that the sheep he was slaughtering and roasting were being offered as sacrifices of love on the shepherd’s table. Their scent was a sweet aroma before the altar of the Lord. Many sheep gave a model of sacrifice in their love for the shepherd, and the words of the Bible were fulfilled in them:
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” (Revelation 12:11)
At once, the persecution stopped. The lion gathered the rest of the wild beasts and they sat down to consult: “How can we get inside the sheep and scatter their unity?!”The lions looked at the tigers, the tigers looked at the leopards, the leopards looked at the wolves, the wolves looked at the foxes, and the foxes looked at the dogs. Everyone was confused.Until one of the beasts said: “From the beginning, we have been choosing the wrong method. Every one we killed, his blood watered the tree of the Church and he became a sacrifice to the Shepherd. So we must make the house fight against itself. We must occupy them with internal war. Whoever dies in this war will come to our table, not the Shepherd’s. His blood will water our tree — the tree of division, stubbornness, and self-love. This way, we can all relax, and our food will come to us.”But the big beasts couldn’t enter the sheepfold, and their appearance was well-known to the shepherds and the sheep. So who could enter?Silence fell over the place again as they all looked at each other. Then one spoke up, turning to the foxes and saying: “You are the smartest of the beasts and the smallest in size. It’s true you can’t kill a sheep, but we don’t want you to kill. We will give you some ideas to throw into the ears and minds of the sheep. You just plant the seed and leave it. It will bear fruit by itself in sick souls. The Shepherd has already said that few will enter the Kingdom. Now we want to know who truly loves Him and who will become our meal.”So the foxes listened carefully to each of the beasts, took the seeds from them, and sowed them into the ears and minds of the sheep.The sheep began to change. They started saying things that none of the shepherds were saying. Every sheep wanted to appear in the spotlight. But the shepherds stood firmly against every contrary teaching and refuted it with evidence and proof — especially the shepherds of Alexandria, the sons of Egypt, who were very strong in this. They gathered many shepherds from all over the world and held a council. One of its outcomes was the Creed (the Nicene Creed), so that if any fox came and threw a seed into a sheep’s mind and caused trouble, the people themselves would reject the idea, not just the shepherds. This would also give the shepherds more time and space for sound teaching.On the other side, the beasts held another meeting to devise a new plan. Then one of the serpents rose, hissed, and said: “Authority!” and fell silent.All the beasts looked at each other, not understanding anything. Each one waited for the other to explain the serpent’s hiss. The serpent continued: “Their meetings may be ruining our plans, but there is authority. And authority, just as it can unite, can also divide — because authority is power, and power is action, and for every action there is a reaction. We saw the outcomes of Nicaea and Ephesus; the reason behind them was the sheep of Alexandria and their shepherds Cyril and Athanasius. Now we also have Dioscorus. The next round cannot be handled by a fox. This needs a serpent or a lion to divide the shepherds and split the Church. Authority will be the knife that cuts the cake for the beasts, so we can all eat and enjoy.”The serpent’s words were well received by all the beasts, and everyone raced to implement the plan. Eventually it succeeded, and the sheepfold was divided into two folds: one that remained straight (orthodox), and the other that became “universal” (catholic) — but how universal could it be when it lacked the straight one?The beasts began to eat comfortably. They launched strikes against the “universal” fold and strikes against the straight one, until the straight one was almost exterminated, while the universal one started collecting teachings that were considered heresies by the straight fold.The beasts were not satisfied with that. One of the shepherds of the universal fold began issuing indulgences — certificates of forgiveness that people could buy with money to enter the Kingdom. Then a shepherd who was still a true sheep stood up against the seller of indulgences, and a big quarrel broke out between them.The beasts descended into the battle — serpents, wolves, and all. The story continued until a new player entered the arena. He was neither straight nor universal. He simply wanted to break out of the suffocating sheepfold into the open space of doctrinal freedom — whether it was right or wrong didn’t matter. The important thing was to break the walls of the sheepfold and let the sheep out, so each sheep could seek its own provision.He relied on the scandals of the universal shepherds and made himself a pickaxe to break the walls of the sheepfold. The sheep came out and started bleating loudly to attract sheep from both the universal and the straight folds. The beasts — God bless them — built new sheepfolds for the escaped sheep. They made them hate the universal and the straight folds so there would be no unity.Now every fold had sheep replying to the bleating of the sheep in the other folds. The number of sheepfolds increased, the number of sheep increased, the number of shepherds increased… but very few could be found from all these folds on the table of the Shepherd who founded the original sheepfold built on the rock with His own blood.
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