Can someone be saved while being separated from the Church?

St. Cyprian of Carthage says, “The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If anyone could escape who was outside the Ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, ‘He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathers not with me scatters’ (Matt. 12:30). He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathers elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ … He who does not hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.”¹¹⁰⁰ He also says, “I entreat all to return into the Church. I beg all our fellow-soldiers to be included within the camp of Christ.”¹¹⁰¹

St. Ambrose says, “He who departs from the Church squanders his patrimony”¹¹⁰²

1099 Origen, Homilies on Luke 34.7 (FOTC 94:140).

1100 St. Cyprian of Carthage, On the Unity of the Catholic Church 1.6 (ANF 5:423). 1101

St. Cyprian of Carthage, The Epistles of Cyprian 54.16 To Cornelius (ANF 5:345).

1102 St. Ambrose of Milan, Exposition of the Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke , trans. Theodosia Tomkinson (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1998): p. 318.