Priest Ilia Chighladze
The icon — “the mystical image of the Church”
The holy Church, in the prayers it offers up to God, always commemorates every one of its members, and with special honour those who have accomplished a special labour, who are numbered among the saints and shine as unquenchable beacons in this world wrapped in the darkness of sin.
The word “saint” in the broad sense refers to every Christian who confesses the faith and has been cleansed by the enlightening water of the holy font. The holy Apostle Paul addresses the Christians living in Rome as those “beloved of God, called to be saints” (Rom. 1:7).
In a narrower sense the word “saint,” already from the 4th century, is applied to those chosen believers whom the fulness of the Church recognises as partakers of eternal life, as standing before the throne of God together with the angels (an angel is called “holy” too).
At an early stage the prophets, the apostles and the martyrs were numbered among the saints, and later the great hierarchs and the monastic fathers and mothers distinguished by their struggles. In the early centuries their canonisation, that is, their proclamation as saints, took place not by a synodal, conciliar decree but by the unanimous spoken decision of the local bishop and the flock. A typical example of this is given in the work of Iakob Khutsesi, “The Martyrdom of the Holy Martyr Queen Shushanik” (5th century): describing the burial of the body of St Shushanik with the participation of two bishops, the author adds: “And it was a Thursday, on which we appointed the commemoration of St Shushanik, to the glory and praise of God.”
The priest-monk Giorgi Mtsire, who described the life of the venerable George the Athonite, likewise notes that the commemoration of the holy father George, immediately after his repose, was appointed thus by “the blessed Peter and his brother John of Chqondidi, and with them other fathers too… and they had an icon painted of the most holy Mother of God, with both fathers on either side — the holy father Euthymius on the right and father George on the other side — standing before the holy Mother of God as supplicants and intercessors for us.”
Later, from the 14th century, canonisation in the Greek Church takes the form of a synodal decree; that is, the assembly of the hierarchs of a local Church now confirms in writing the canonisation of persons recognised as saints by the agreement of the whole Church. The first example of this was the canonisation of Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, in 1368 by Philotheus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and his synod.
It should be noted that in the Church of Georgia this formal side was carried out for the first time only in 1987, at the canonisation of St Ilia the Righteous (Chavchavadze), and it is carried out to this day in the canonisation of other saints.
At the end of the 19th century, when the question of the list of the saints of the Church of Georgia and of their days of commemoration came up, the Exarch of Georgia, Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky, 1892–1898), seeking to belittle the Georgian heortologion, demanded of the Georgian clergy the acts of canonisation of the Georgian saints. Of course no such documents existed. This decision was unjust. Is there an act of canonisation of St George, of St Demetrius of Thessalonica, of St Theodore Tiron or of any other saint of the early centuries? No, and there never has been. The exarch's decision was prompted by Russian chauvinistic aspirations, which for a time halted the celebration of the memory of the Georgian saints and the giving of their names to the newly baptised. This state of affairs was corrected under the archpastorship of the next exarch, Archbishop Flavian (Gorodetsky, 1898–1901). The special commission created in his time (which included Archpriest Kallistrat Tsintsadze, afterwards Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Archpriest E. Eliashvili, afterwards a bishop, and others) drew up, on the basis of the ancient Georgian calendars, menaia and synaxaria, the list of the saints of the Church of Georgia and their days of commemoration. After the restoration of autocephaly the filling out of the list of saints continued, that is, the entering into the church calendar of those persons who had not been canonised before, but who were commemorated in church literature with the honour of saints and of the blessed. From the middle of the 20th century the names of Vakhtang Gorgasali, Ashot Kuropalates, Demetre-Damiane, Demetre the Self-Sacrificer, the martyrs of Marabda and others thus appeared in the church calendars (about 55 commemorations).
Photius II, Patriarch of Constantinople (1929–1935), set out in 1931, in the form of a decree, the general principles of recognition as a saint: 1. “The examination and verification of the data for the proclaiming of saints is carried out in a synodal manner, by all the metropolitans, archbishops, bishops and clergy holding official positions in the Church concerned. 2. The examination of the question of numbering among the saints is superfluous for those to whom the common fulness, made up of the pastors and the flock of the Church, has long since rendered the honour of sanctity and whom it venerates. These holy persons, whom we glorify to this day as cleansed and glorified by the Lord, have a formal recognition received from the Church. 3. At the recognition a corresponding church record is drawn up. 4. The record of recognition is solemnly signed, with the fitting church service being celebrated in the church. 5. For the rendering of honour to the recognised saints an icon and a fitting office to be celebrated in church are created in due time. 6. It is also necessary that the grave be opened, the holy relics taken up (if they have been preserved) and anointed with holy chrism. The opening of the grave is usually accompanied by an all-night vigil and festal Liturgies.”
It should be noted that the last point has been carried out exactly, from the most ancient times, in the Greek, the Russian and other local Churches, but the Church of Georgia has no such practice. The only exception is the holy relics of the holy martyrs David and Constantine, which rest in the monastery of Motsameta [1].
The Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages worked out two steps of canonisation: numbering among the blessed (beatification) and numbering among the saints. Persons of the first and of the second category have a different status. For example, in the name of a blessed one not a church but a chapel (a small church for services) may be built. Such a division is not proper to the Orthodox Church, although different saints may bear a particular title: “blessed,” “venerable,” “righteous,” “right-believing.”
The saints are divided into the following nine ranks: forefathers, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, confessors, venerable fathers and mothers, unmercenary healers, and right-believing kings and queens. Above them (and above the angels too), more honourable and more exalted, is the all-holy and ever-virgin Mary the Mother of God.
The holy Orthodox Church, commemorating in prayer and offering up supplication for its members who have departed this world and stand before the throne of God, glorifies with one mouth and one heart the name of the most holy Trinity.
Irakli Chighladze
“The Key of David,” the newspaper of the Tbilisi Theological Academy, Seminary and Theological Institute, May 2010
[1] — Among the local saints of our Church, the relics of St Shio of Mgvime have also been taken up and remain so (most of them perished in 1978 in the fire at the old patriarchate, where Patriarch Ephrem II had moved them for safekeeping, since the Shiomgvime lavra had been closed), as well as the relics of St Queen Ketevan, of the 6,000 martyrs of Gareji and of the venerable Dodo of Gareji. All our other saints, among them the remaining Syrian fathers, St Nino, Shalva, Bidzina, Elizbar, John of Manglisi and others, are buried beneath the floor of a church. Because the relics of St Ketevan and of Shio of Mgvime were taken up, a large part of them was lost and destroyed. I think that our forebears, being constantly in a state of war, avoided this tradition in order to preserve the holy relics.
