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The Church in her
liturgical worship follows two yearly cycles – the cycle of the immovable
calendar and the cycle of the movable calendar. The immovable calendar are
those feasts which fall on the same date every year like Christmas,
Epiphany, the Dormition, Birth and Entry of the Mother of God and the
feasts of the thousands of known Saints whom the Church honours every year
on the day of their repose. The movable calendar are the feasts that are
celebrated every year on different dates and depend entirely on the date
of Easter. It consists of two periods with each having its own book of
special services. The first period begins 70 days before Easter which the
introduction of the Book of the Triodion and the Parable of the Publican
and the Pharisee. From this date, which includes four Sundays before Great
Lent, the whole Lenten period and Holy week up to the midnight service
before the Resurrection service it comprises what we call in the Church
the period of the Triodion. From the Easter service we enter into the
second period of the movable feasts with the introduction of the Book
called the Pentecostarion. This includes the 50 days from Easter to
Pentecost which we celebrated last Sunday and one more week ending with
the celebration of the Sunday of All Saints which is this coming Sunday.
The Church
designated the Sunday after Pentecost for the Feast of All saints for
obvious reasons. Within the whole period of the movable calendar the
Church presented us all the things the Lord did for our salvation – the
Passion, the Death on the Cross, the Resurrection, the Ascension into
heaven and the sitting on the right hand of God and the Descent of the
Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The feast of All Saints is the actual proof that
the works of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit have brought forth
fruits. The multitude of Saints who come from every nation, of different
peoples and tongues are the fruits which the Lord harvested though his
incarnation and whole life. In these fruits the Holy Spirit took up his
abode and sanctified and deified them. It was logical then to place the
feast for All Saints the Sunday immediately after the Feast of the Descent
of the Holy Spirit for it was through the grace of the Holy Spirit that
they were deified. It also reveals that the saints didn’t reach sainthood
by their own efforts. They were helped through the grace of the Holy
Spirit so that they could follow the life in Christ and become partakers
of his Passion and Resurrection. Having made themselves dead to the things
of this world and showing a desire for holiness they accepted sainthood as
a gift from God. There is thus a close connection between the feast of the
Descent of the Holy Spirit and the feast of All Saints. From the day of
Pentecost the Holy Spirit abides in the Church. Nothing else reveals and
proves the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church more than the lives
of the saints – their faith, their struggles, their confession and
martyrdom.
The saints
partook of the holiness of Christ because they accepted God’s calling to
all men “be ye holy for I am holy” (1 Peter1:16). This is God’s calling to
each and everyone of us and not just to a minority of men. We are all
called to be saints, we are all called to be deified through the grace of
the Holy Spirit. Some achieve this calling while many do not even
recognize that man’s calling is to become a God by grace. For all those
that are successful and attain the Kingdom of God through the grace of God
they are essentially saints. Every Christian has the possibility of
attaining sainthood and while we don’t specifically assign the term of
‘saint’ to our loved ones that have departed this life, we still pray and
hope that we will all meet up again in God’s Kingdom: and if we are in
God’s Kingdom we are Saints.
The Sunday of
All Saints is dedicated to all the known Saints but also to the millions
of saints whose names God has in his wisdom kept hidden from us. Of the
known saints we have people from all different walks of life. They were
not born into sainthood, they were ordinary people just like us, but at
some time in their life they realized that this life was temporary and
struggled to attain the true life with Christ. We have Saints who were
doctors, soldiers, bishops, monks, priests, nuns, kings, queens, married
couples, whole families who were killed for their faith, murderers,
thieves and prostitutes. Age also is no barrier, some were babies, others
children, teenagers, adults or old men and women. The terms and conditions
for attaining sainthood have nothing to do with social standing or age.
You don’t have to be a bishop or monk and you don’t have to walk through
life trying to display actions of false piety and pretending that you wear
a shinny halo around your head!
Christ tells
us in the Gospel reading for this Sunday what we must do to attain
sainthood: “We must confess him
before all men” – in other words we must not be
embarrassed of our faith. Many people believe in Christ but don’t go to
Church every week because they fear people might think of them as
“Bible-bashers” or religious fanatics. For the same reason they feel
ashamed to make the sign of the Cross in public. We should not be afraid
to show the world that we believe in Christ, but at the same time we
should not make a show of our faith to embarrass others. The confession of
our faith would them become self righteous and hypocritical.
In the Gospel
reading Christ also mentions that “He that loves
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loves son
or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his
cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” This doesn’t
mean that we should only love Christ and no one else, or to abandon
everyone we love and go and join a monastery. Many have done this and the
Apostles also left all that they had to follow Christ. What Christ means
is that if we have love for God above all others, if we make Christ the
centre of our lives then our love will become Christ-like and not only our
love for our family members, but love for all people will follow
naturally. We will then be able to take up our Cross and follow him. The
sign of a true saint is that he must be prepared, if absolutely necessary,
to sacrifice even family relationships especially when these family
members have an unbelief and total disregard for God and also to be
prepared to endure the hardships and martyr-like sufferings that faith in
Christ can bring at various times in our life especially in our times
where faith is regarded as a weakness.
The Sunday of
All Saints originally began as a feast in honour of all the Martyrs and
with time all the other ranks of saints who bore witness to Christ in
other ways were added to them even if this did not require the shedding of
blood. The word Martyr in Greek means witness so it was natural that even
ascetic saints who bore witness through their ascetical struggles should
be included in the feast. As the feast stands today commemoration is made
of all the saints, the Righteous, the Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs,
Confessors, Shepherds, Teachers, and Holy Monastics, both men and women
alike, known and unknown, who have been added to the choirs of the Saints
and shall be added, from the time of Adam until the end of the world, who
have been perfected in piety and have glorified God by their holy lives.
The word
“Saint” literally means “Holy One”. All Christians are in a sense saints.
From the day of our Baptism and Christmation when we received the gifts of
the Holy Spirit, we became the temple of the Holy Spirit and God dwells
within us. But the gifts we received at baptism remain hidden because we
haven’t as yet purified ourselves to discovered their existence. Thus we
reserve the term saint only for those people who have through struggles
attained holy lives, above and beyond the average Christian: those men and
women who “fought the good fight and finished the course and kept the
faith”. (1 Tim 4:7)
The Orthodox
Church honours all known saints with Icons and special services and on the
Sunday of All Saints honours all those other saints whose names have been
lost with time and all those that died without being recognized for their
sainthood. The Church continually beseeches the saints in prayer and
encourages her members to seek their assistance. This has been
misunderstood by non-Orthodox people especially Protestants who would even
go as far as to call it blasphemous. So why do we pray to the saints?
When we are in
need it is natural to ask our friends and family to pray for us. We do not
see this as something offensive or blasphemous. We hope that through the
prayer of many God will speedily hear our request and come to our aid.
Praying for one another is an act of love and it is our duty as Christians
to pray for each other. The Church is a family of brothers and sister all
with the same Father in heaven. When someone passes over to the other side
he does not stop being a member of this great family. All our faith and
hope is that there is life beyond the grave. As Orthodox Christians we
believe that with his death on the Cross Christ overcame death. There is
only the temporary death of the body but the person still lives on in the
world of spirits. “God is the God of the living, and
not the dead”. How then more natural can it be for us to seek the
prayers of our fellow brothers and sisters who not only have passed over
to the spirit world but have through their way of life found favour with
God and find themselves bathed in his glory. Is it not more natural and
logical to put our trust in their prayers than our fellow Christians who
are still living in this world?
Asking for their
intercessions does not mean that we worship them. Yes, we give them honour
and respect because of their oneness with God and because they have made
themselves God’s friends. When we pray to a saint, we do not ask him to
save us directly as though he was God, but we beseech him as our fellow
man and as our brother and fellow member of Christ’s Church to intercede
to God on our behalf. Of course our prayer to the saints is always
accompanied by a great reverence because they have been shown by God as
great men who have overcome the passions of this world and for this he has
rewarded them with glorification. We are struck with awe and admiration of
their exploits and clearly recognize the grace of God in their struggles
and martyrdom. But this is nothing unusual for we do something similar to
honour great men in other fields. Men have always honoured others who have
performed great deeds, such as a brave General, a soldier who is singled
out for his heroic deeds, or a wise statesman. If we honour such people
who are still in this life with medals and ceremonies, how much more
should we honour the saints who have battled with demons and whose deeds
far surpass the deeds of ordinary men. By honouring the saints we are
recognizing that we see in them the light of Christ and rejoice because we
are reassured of the resurrection.
We know that
prayer to the Saints is pleasing to God, because of the witness of the
Scriptures and the abundant experience of the Church. God has revealed to
the world that he himself has honoured them through the many miracles they
perform when they are beseeched to act as mediators. Through these
miracles we are assured that such prayers to the saints are pleasing to
God, and because we recognize the great grace that God has bestowed upon
His Saints, we have great confidence when we ask their intercessions.
St. Nectarius
of Aegina, the renowned saint of the 20th century wrote: “In invoking the
intercession of the saints, the Church believes that the saints, who
interceded with the Lord for the peace of the world and for the stability
of the holy churches of Christ while living, do not cease doing this in
Christ's heavenly, triumphant Church, and listen to our entreaties in
which we invoke them, and pray to the Lord, and become bearers of the
grace and mercy of the Lord.” (Modern Orthodox Saints, Vol. 7. Constantine
Cavarnos)
The word
Prayer means to ask, but it is also a form of communication. When we pray
to God we are at the same time communicating with him. As a form of
communication we are obliged to have a active spiritual union with the
heavenly inhabitants, with all the saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
prelates, venerable and righteous men, as they are all members of one
single body, the Church of Christ, to which we sinners also belong, and
the living Head of which is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is why we
call upon them in prayer, converse with them, thank and praise them. It is
urgently necessary for all Christians to be in union with them, if they
desire to make Christian progress; for the saints are our friends, our
guides to salvation, who pray and intercede for us. (St. John of Kronstadt,
My Life in Christ)
There are many
(like the Protestants churches) who call themselves Christians but have
almost no knowledge of the intercession of the Saints, and even consider
this heavenly intercourse as blasphemy. There are several reasons for
this, including prejudice, a lack of grounding in Christian Tradition,
misunderstanding of Scripture, and the abuses of Rome which I will mention
as we progress, but the primary reason is that they do not fully
understand the relationship between God and man, neither what the
Resurrection means for mankind or the Ascension and the Sitting on the
right hand of God of which we spoke about in a recent talk.
Scripture is
full of quotations that honour the saints. Sadly because they read from
the Old Testament translation made from the Masoretic text like the KJV
they are deprived of many truths. The Prophet King David in the Psalms of
the Septuagint version says “How honoured also are
Thy friends unto me, O Lord! their rule is greatly strengthened. I will
number them, and they shall be multiplied in number more than the sand.”
(Psalm 138: 17-18)
St. Paul in
the Apostle reading for this Sunday recounts the achievements of the
Saints, how they stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of
fire, escaped the edge of the sword, waxed valiant in fight, turned to
flight the armies of the aliens. how they raised the dead to life again:
but also how they suffered: they were tortured, they were mocked and
scourged, they were in bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, they were
sawn asunder and were slain by the sword, how being destitute, afflicted,
tormented they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and
caves of the earth. (Heb 11 33-38) Having set forth their memorial as an
example that we might turn away from earthly things and from sin, and
emulate their patience and courage in the struggles for virtue, he says,
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every burden, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that
is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).
There are some
that believe that when we die we are inactive and in a deep sleep awaiting
the General Resurrection of the dead. Our Lord Himself told us clearly
that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mat 22:32) and
there is an event in the New Testament that clearly teaches that the
saints are not asleep or dead. The event is the Transfiguration of our
Lord on Mount Tabor. Moses and Elias appeared very much alive next to Him
and talked with him. This clearly shows that the “dead” are even more
filled with knowledge and activity than the living, for in comparison the
apostles Peter, James and John could not withstand the uncreated light
which came forth from Christ, but Moses and Elisa basked in it. Therefore
the departed Saints have greater vision and knowledge and their
intercessory boldness is greater for them without their bodies, than when
they were in the flesh. This important understanding is elementary
knowledge for the Church, but has passed from many of those outside of
her.
Thus because
they do not understand that the Saints are alive, conscious and active,
those who shun prayer to the Saints misinterpret the reverence the
Orthodox Church show to the saints. Another thing Protestants
misunderstand is the word “pray”. They think of it as a word that applies
only to God in the same way that worship applies only to God. They are so
scandalized by the thought of praying to a saint that they consider it
almost blasphemous and if they were in the days of Christ they would rend
their clothes like the high-priest Caiaphas. As already mentioned the word
pray simply means “to ask”. We ask the Saints to intercede for us, and any
examination of the Church’s canons, the writings of the fathers and our
liturgical texts will show clearly that we understand that worship is for
God alone.
Another thing
that had a detrimental effect on the Protestant understanding of prayer to
the Saints was an unorthodox teaching by the Roman Catholic Church. It
came up with the doctrine of “Supererogation” or more simple the
superabundance of the good works of the saints. The doctrine teaches that
a certain amount of “good works” are required to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven. The good works or merits of the Holy Virgin and the saints are
more than they need to save themselves and therefore, the rest of them can
be used for the forgiveness of the sins of other men. Thus for a price,
poor sinners who cannot attain to all these good works, can pay to be
granted "indulgences", which would increase their chance of entering the
Kingdom of Heaven. This sounds so unbelievable and naïve that we would be
forgiven if we laughed out loud, but this is essentially the doctrine of
Rome till this day. Of course, the Pope himself, who invented many ways to
gather money through the administration of this supposed right to forgive
sins, has assumed the dispensation of these merits.
Opposition and the
abuse of this teaching was the main point of Martin Luther when he began
opposing the Roman Catholic Church, and it influenced the thinking of the
Protestant Reformation as a whole. The Anglican Church also denied the
doctrine of supererogation in the fourteenth of the Thirty-Nine Articles,
which state that works of supererogation “cannot be taught without
arrogancy and impiety.” Many later Protestant movements followed suit, as
did Methodism in its Articles of Religion. The doctrine of supererogation
was therefore responsible for poisoning the understanding of Protestants
regarding the Saints. This lead to their unanimous teaching that a
Christian “needs no mediator” save Jesus Christ, believing that the
scripture they refer to “For there is one God, and
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim
2:5)) forbids prayer to the Saints.
Overall we see
in those that refuse to ask the saints to intercede for them a great lack
of understanding of the Christian faith and a form of prejudice against
the saints. Its seems that they do not recognize that there is life beyond
the grave and it also seems that when someone of their church dies he
automatically stops being a member and is cut off from the main body. I
say this because while they refuse to pray to the saints they ask of those
still among the living, among their family and friends, to pray for them.
This latter action is entirely correct, as fellow believers and brothers
of a church we should pray for those we love, but if our departed are
still considered as members of the same church then they also should be
asked for their prayers. If the departed members of the church were
righteous then their prayers can do much for the living for as the
Scripture tells us: “The effectual fervent prayer of
a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16)
There is a
general perception that praying to the saints is like “second best” so why
don’t I go for the best and pray directly to God. Of course God hears our
prayers but it is also a little arrogant and self righteous on our part to
assume that he will respond to our request. Why should he, want have we
done to merit such attention, do we live such holy lives that we are so
full of confidence that as soon as we ask for God’s help he will send his
angels to our aid? Scripture clearly says that “God heareth not sinners”
(John 9:31) and that “God is far from the ungodly: but He hearkens unto
the prayers of the righteous. (Prov. 15:29)
Is it not then
better to use every means at our disposal in the hope that God will not
only hear our prayer but also respond? If he hears the prayers of the
righteous then that is a safe and sure route for our petitions. Let us not
forget that God has glorified his saints and he wants us to recognize them
as people full of his own glory. He has given them to us as protectors and
helpers in times of trouble. By honouring the saints we do not forget or
abandon God, but rather we honour, thank and glorify God for his great
grace that he bestows upon man. We glorify him who glorified the saints.
But how does
someone become officially recognized as a saint of the Church?
Some are recognized while still in this life by the holiness of their
lives, their spiritual knowledge and discernment and through miracles they
perform. They usually prefer to live in isolation away from the masses and
try to conceal the gifts God has given them, but the Holy Spirit who has
enlightened them and given them these gifts will in time uncover them so
that through their sanctity they will be able to help others. Those whom
the Holy Spirit has not revealed as saints in this life are generally
revealed as saints after their death through miracles that occur at their
graves or through their relics which very often bring forth Myron and have
a perfumed scent. People who knew them while still in this life testify to
their holiness and begin to pray to them and having their petitions
answered the fame of the Saint begins to spread. At other times they have
been known to appear to people and tell them who they are and where they
are buried.
As a rule when a
person who is considered as a living saint dies, the Church prays for him
just like any other member of the Church. No matter how righteous a man
was, he receives the same funeral service and the same memorials as the
rest of us sinners. Our prayer for all that depart this life whether they
be king or soldier, whether rich or poor, whether righteous or sinner is
that God will grant them remission of their sins, to place their souls
among the righteous and to give them rest with the saints. Only later when
the common voice of the people testifies to a person’s righteousness and
when the Lord confirms this through miracles after his death when he is
remembered in prayer, does the Church then make moves to officially accept
him as a Saint glorified by God.
When the
Church is profoundly certain that a reposed righteous man is with the
Lord, in the choir of the Saints in the heavenly Church, she then gives
her blessing for the change of prayers – in other words a change from the
usual prayers for the reposed to a specially written service for the saint
whereby we ask for his prayerful assistance before the throne of God. Thus
the Church, through her hierarchs, comes and confirms the conviction of
her ordinary members concerning the sanctity of the righteous man. This in
essence is how the Orthodox Church acknowledges the “Glorification of a
saint”.
It is very
important to note that the recognition of particular saints may have a
local character for example in Cyprus we have local saints such as St.
Bechianus [11th December], St. Soter, Bishop of Theodocian, St. Nilus
founder of Machera 13 Dec, St. Barnabas, ascetic of Basa 11 June, and a
great many more who are only known by the Cypriot Church. The Russian
Church has a great many saints that are unknown to most Orthodox in
Greece. Each Orthodox country has her own saints whom she venerates and
glorifies, but this does not mean that these saints do not belong
universally to all Orthodox Churches. If these local saints become known
to the other Sister Orthodox Churches then they would automatically be
venerated as Saints of their Church as well. The reason for this local
element is because Saints in the Orthodox Church are not “canonized” Even
though canonization derives from the Greek word canon, it is a Latin term
and it is not used by the Orthodox Church. In the Latin Church the Pope
who has self-appointed himself as the head of the church proclaims a
person a saint. In its contemporary form, canonization consists of a
solemn proclamation by the Pope: “We resolve and determine that Blessed N.
is a saint, and we enter him in the catalogue of the saints, commanding
the whole Church to honour his memory with reverence...”
Thus as the
head of the whole of the Roman Catholic Church his ruling is universal.
The Orthodox Church on the other hand, does not have a single bishop as
the head of the Church, but each local Church is autocephalous and self
ruling with each its own Synod of Bishops. Thus when recognizing the
glorification of a saint the ruling of the local synod is not binding to
the other sister Churches that make up the universal Orthodox Church.
Once
recognition has been made by the Synod, the specially written service for
the saint may be officially sung in Church and an Icon of the saint is
commissioned with the title the saint has been given.
The Orthodox
veneration of the Saints is nothing less than the wholehearted belief in
Christ, his Incarnation, his Resurrection, his Sitting on the right hand
of God and the Descent of the Holy Spirit. With his resurrection Christ
re-opened the gates of Paradise, but more than this, he took his deified
body to heaven and sat it at the right hand of God. We saw two weeks ago
in our talk on the Ascension that what this really means is that Christ
glorified humanity; he raised man to be with him and be a partaker of the
divine nature: he raised man to be a God by grace.
Our veneration of the
saints is nothing more than our conviction that all men can participate in
God’s divinity. In recognizing a saint we see the fulfilment of God’s
promise and the expectation of our own destiny. Christ has commanded us to
be perfect even as his Father in heaven is perfect. This seems like an
impossible task to the majority of us sinful men, but the saints have
proved that with the grace of God this is indeed possible by all
Christians who strive for perfection and union with God. The saints are
therefore our examples or if preferred “our heroes” who have fought the
good fight and with their heroic deeds became shining examples of virtue,
and benefactors of mankind. Their lives are for us as beacons of light
which show us the path to perfection; let us therefore set them as our
examples that by following in their footsteps we also, when our earthly
time is over, may find ourselves among the righteous and glorified by God
as a saint.
Until then let
us give them their due honour and as friends of God let us beseech them to
remember us lowly sinners in their prayers before the throne of God.
Through the prayers of All the Saints, who have been well-pleasing to God
from our forefather Adam up to the present day, may God have mercy upon us
and save us. Amen.
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