Vladimir Soloviev, “The Russian Church and the Papacy” (1889)

 “No amount of argument can overcome the evidence for the fact that apart from Rome there only exist national churches such as the Armenian or the Greek church, state churches such as the Russian or Anglican, or else sects founded by individuals such as the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Irvingites, and so forth.

The Roman Catholic Church is the only church that is neither a national church, nor a state church, nor a sect founded by a man; it is the only church in the world which maintains and asserts the principle of universal social unity against individual egoism and national particularism; it is the only church which maintains and asserts the freedom of the spiritual power against the absolutism of the state; in a word, it is the only church against which the gates of Hades have not prevailed.”