Is It Abnormal To Desire To Be A Member Of The True Church?

A friend of mine wrote the following to me in an email:

But in the writings and comments of other EO believers, I have come across some implicit (sometimes almost explicit) ideas/opinions/beliefs that seem to come across with the following sentiments:

1. The EO church is "the one true Church".
2. Non-EO churches are living in a state of schism (i.e. from "the one true Church"), which is sin.
3. We cannot be certain of the salvation of non-EO believers. We hope they'll be saved, but that's God's call.
4. Non-EO churches/believers may be following God the best way they know how, but they do not have full access to His grace and the power and life of His Holy Spirit, since that can only be obtained through "the one true Church".

Now, I realize that the views of individual EO believers (even if they are church leaders) do not necessarily represent the mainstream EO position, and it's possible that I'm misunderstanding things because of my limited knowledge, but I thought I'd just mention those things to give you more background in relation to some of my responses. In my mind, it is one thing to present one's theology as what one believes to be the best expression of Christian faith and practice, but an entirely different thing when one presents it as, in a sense, "the infallible words of God for everyone".

I think my friend asked a reasonable question. At the same time, I think that he might not realize that the desire to identify the true church and to endeavor to become part of it is not something unique to Eastern Orthodoxy. To illustrate this, I want to quote at length from a non-Orthodox source. Below is Article 29 of the Belgic Confession (written 1561), which is one of the three symbols that unite continental confessional Calvinism. In my former Confessional Calvinist days, documents like this were very important to me:

We believe that we ought to discern diligently and very carefully, by the Word of God, what is the true church--for all sects in the world today claim for themselves the name of "the church." 

We are not speaking here of the company of hypocrites who are mixed among the good in the church and who nonetheless are not part of it, even though they are physically there. But we are speaking of distinguishing the body and fellowship of the true church from all sects that call themselves "the church." 

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church-- and no one ought to be separated from it (http://reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://reformed.org/documents/BelgicConfession.html#Article 29)

This symbol identifies three attributes by which a true church can be recognized:

1. Pure preaching of the gospel,
2. Pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them, and
3. Church discipline for correcting faults

My intention in quoting this is neither to agree nor to disagree with it, but rather to illustrate the point that Eastern Orthodox are not novel or unique in pondering the question of what are the marks of a true church. Rather, this has been a question considered important throughout history, up to and including the magisterial Reformation. From my perspective, the fact that many people in the 21st century who self-identify as Christians are unlikely to ask this question is due to the fact that they are so far removed from the historic church that they in many respects have ceased to share its value system.

Perhaps in another post I can comment on the marks of the True Church from an Orthodox perspective.