The Battered but Safe εκκλησια

"There is pleasure to be on board a ship battered by a storm, when we are certain that it will not perish: the persecutions buffeting the Church are of this kind."

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 617.

Against Schism - A Letter of Dionysius

Dionysius to brother Novatian, greeting. If you were led on unwillingly, as you claim, then you can prove it by retreating willingly. One should endure anything rather than split the church of God, and martyrdom to avert schism I think more glorious than that to avoid idolatry. For in the case of the latter one is martyred for the sake of his own single soul, but in the former for the sake of the whole church.

- Dionysius, Eusibius, Book 7.