On the Holy Priesthood
[I believe] IN ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH.
-the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Creed
Dear Parishioners and Friends,
This month we will celebrate the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (29 June OS/12 July NS) and the Feast of the Twelve Holy Apostles (30 June OS/13 July NS), and we will prepare for this feast by a fasting period called the “Fast of the Holy Apostles.”
It is significant that soon after the Holy Church celebrates the Descent of the Holy Spirit, She calls upon us to return to intensified fasting and prayer, in imitation of the Holy Apostles, for whom fasting and prayer formed the foundation of genuine Christian life. We renew our spiritual struggles precisely in order to bear fruit in the Holy Spirit which the Church received at Pentecost, just as the Holy Apostles received the Spirit and then went forth to bear fruit “a hundredfold.”
The True, or Orthodox, Church is called Apostolic, then, because She lives the sanctifying, grace-filled life of the Apostles and the Early Church. She is also called “Apostolic” because Her members are led by the successors of the Holy Apostles, the Orthodox bishops who possess apostolic succession and who pass on the apostolic teaching, along with their representatives in the parishes, the presbyters (priests), assisted by the deacons as well as by the “ minor clergy” (readers and chanters). This grace-filled ministry of the three ranks of sacred ministers is known collectively as the Holy Priesthood.
The Holy Fathers speak at great length about the Holy Priesthood and its place in the life of the Church. Why is an ordained priesthood necesssary ? Is it not enough that we have the One, True, and Great High Priest, Our Lord Jesus Christ?
The answer is that Our Lord wanted to extend His High Priestly ministry in space and time, to the end of the world, by choosing and ordaining his disciples who would then go forth and in turn ordain bishops, presbyters, and deacons for the Church. This is abundantly clear in His words to the Apostles throughout the Gospels, and especially in His discourse at the Last Supper recorded in John 14 - 16. It is also abundantly clear throughout the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of the Apostles in the New Testament.
Why was an ordained priesthood necessary? For several reasons:
1. Because the Church is hierarchical, imitating the heavenly hierarchy of God and His Angels, and reflecting the fundamental reality that the entire universe as created by God was designed to be in hierarchical order.
2. Because throughout the entire Holy Scriptures and the history of the Old and New Israel certain men were set apart to teach, to disicipline, and to offer sacrifice.
3. Because human nature is such that men need consecrated and set apart examples and leaders to guide them in spiritual warfare, just as soldiers need officers as guides, authorities, and examples in physical warfare.
4. Because Jesus Christ Himself, as recorded in John 20, gave the Apostles the authority to bind and loose sin. This authority must have been passed on to successors; otherwise the Church’s ministry to bind and loose sin would have died out.
5. Because the Church’s leaders must be sacred not secular in character, in order to reflect the holiness and otherworldliness of the Church’s Divine inner life.
Let us then help our bishops, priests, and deacons, and the minor clergy - sub-deacons and readers/chanters - to perform their sacred duty, and be obedient to their sacred leadership, in order to upbuild the House of God, Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood
The work of the priesthood is done on earth, but it is ranked among heavenly ordinances. And this is only right, for no man, no archangel, no other created power, but the Paraclete Himself ordained this succession, and persuaded men while remaining in the flesh to represent the ministry of angels. The priest, therefore, must be as pure as if he were standing in heaven itself, in the midst of those powers...
Anyone who considers how much it means to be able, in his humanity, still entangled in flesh and blood, to approach that immaculate and blessed Being, will see clearly how great is the honor which the grace of the Spirit has bestowed on priests. It is through them that this work is performed, and other work no less than this in its bearing upon our dignity and our salvation.
...What priests do on earth, God ratifies above. The Master confirms the decisions of His slaves. Indeed he has given them nothing less than the whole authority of heaven. For He says, “Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” (John 20:23) What authority could be greater than that? “The Father hath given all judgment unto the Son.” (John 5:22) But I see that the Son has placed all in their hands. For they have been raised to this prerogative, as though they were already translated to heaven and had transcended human nature and were freed from our passions...
For if a man “cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven except he be born again of water and the spirit” (John 3:5) and if he that eateth not the Lord’s flesh and drinketh not His blood is cast out of everlasting life (see John 6:53), and all these things can happen through no other agency except their sacred hands (the priests’, I mean), how can anyone, without their help, escape the fire of Gehenna or win his appointed crown?