How our forebears regarded the clergy
In the 17th century Patriarch Macarius of Antioch travelled in Georgia, and his account, we think, says much: “The Georgians treat the clergy with great deference; you can by no means get a bad word about them out of them. When princes, nobles and their wives meet hierarchs on the road, then, if they are on horseback, they dismount and from afar begin to venerate them with bowed knees; then they rise and receive a blessing from them. After this they withdraw, stepping backwards so as not to turn their backs, and venerate them a second time with bowed knees. So behave not only simple Georgians but kings and queens as well. They greatly love to hear preaching and instruction, and with great eagerness carry out the word of the one who instructs them. Whatever misfortune befalls them, they bear and endure it with great patience, without murmuring; you will not hear from them an abusive word against the faith or against any person, as is the custom with us.”
Once people spoke with the almighty God face to face and dwelt constantly in the grace of the Lord. Since then much water has flowed away. Today, for communion with this grace, one's own effort alone is not enough: participation in the divine mysteries is necessary, and the celebration of them is in the power of the clergy alone. At first sight they seem to be ordinary people, but upon them has come down that invisible grace which at Pentecost came visibly upon the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. About who these people are, why we should render them such great honour, and how heavy the cross of the priesthood is, we are speaking with the rector of the church of the Exaltation of the Cross in Tbilisi, Archpriest Teodore (Gignadze).
— Father, what is the mystery of the priesthood; why did the Lord establish clergy for us, and what power did He give them?
— The priesthood is one of the chief mysteries in the Church of the New Testament. In general, when we call some event in the Church a mystery, it is meant that behind the outward side there is seen a certain mystical secret which is beyond our reach. All this applies to the mystery of the priesthood as well. If we have the pretension of explaining to the end what the priesthood means, our attempt is doomed in advance.
The priest is an image of Christ. We render honour to the face painted on a board, and this honour ascends to the prototype, to the Saviour. To insult an icon is to insult God Himself; to render honour to an icon is to render honour to God; and the priest is far above an icon painted with colours on a board, for he is, one may say, a living icon of Christ.
A question arises: why is the institution of the priesthood needed at all? There is a well-known saying of people who came through the Soviet era: I believe in the Church, but not in the priest. In answer to this we sometimes say, half in jest: this is the same as believing in medicine but not wanting to see a living doctor. Such people judge the priesthood. But do they know what the institution of the priesthood means? Why does it exist, what are its roots, and what do we need it for?
We must begin with why God became man, why He came as a human being:
The world is created by a personal God; that is, the beginning of the world is not an impersonal force but a Person. And faith means a personal relationship with God; but from the example of man we know that a person is not conceived without human nature, nor is a person reduced to human nature. Therefore, if we cannot see a person, cannot see their soul or their body, we cannot establish a personal relationship with them. That is, until a person had the possibility of seeing God with their bodily eyes and feeling Him with their own senses — that is, until God became tangible for them — they could not achieve a perfect personal relationship with Him, and their faith could not be perfect either. One of the many reasons for God's coming as man, for the incarnation, is precisely this. God, by His incarnation, that is, by coming as a human being, gave us the possibility of having a personal relationship with Him.
God took on human flesh and soul, but as a person He was never a man. Behind the flesh and soul of Christ there was a non-human, divine Person. He came to us, but He laboured visibly on earth only three and a half years; after the crucifixion and the resurrection He ascended into heaven. Has mankind then been deprived of the possibility of a personal relationship with God? Did it exist only for those three and a half years, and even then only for a handful of people? Of course it is not so; that would be unjust.
So that we might have a personal relationship with God, like the apostles and Christ's closest friends, He founded the Church. The Apostle Paul calls the Church a mystical body, the living organism of Christ. The Lord gives the Church He founded the greatest authority, and lays upon us, in our dealings with the Church, a serious responsibility. Of the apostles and of the clergy who inherit from them the Lord says directly: by your attitude to them your attitude to Me is measured; that is, as they treat you, so they treat Me. He that receiveth you receiveth Me; he that rejecteth you rejecteth Me. When we deal with a priest, we reveal thereby what our dealings with Christ would have been if we had been born 2000 years ago.
Someone will say: what has Christ to do with an ordinary man? But between them there is the greatest thing in common, for Christ too had exactly such a human nature — flesh and soul, with their infirmities, with an outward appearance, an anatomy, a physiology, as we have, except for sin. And secondly: a priest is not an ordinary man. This awareness has been lost in our life. Of course, in his individual qualities and personal inclinations a priest too is an ordinary man, but he is not only an ordinary man. There is a well-known comparison of Maximus the Confessor: a sword is cold, strong, firm and sharp, but if we heat it in fire it not only cuts but burns. Something wonderful has happened: the heat has acquired the property of cutting, and the cutting the property of heat. These properties have as it were mingled with one another, but the sword has remained a sword and the fire fire. So it is after ordination: when the grace of the Holy Spirit passes to the priest, he is no longer an ordinary man, he becomes a bearer of the divine fire. The Georgian word for priest (mghvdeli) means precisely this.
At first the divine fire came down upon the apostles at Pentecost, when they were filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit; and so that the people might see that the grace of the Holy Spirit was upon these particular men and not upon some others, the divine fire came visibly upon their heads in the form of tongues of flame. Probably this was a fire like the one that comes down every year at the Saviour's Tomb on the Saturday before Pascha. The people saw that these men had become the Church of Christ, the heirs of Christ. Twelve apostles, of course, would not have been enough for the mankind of that time, still less for the times to come. So they chose worthy disciples and, by the physical laying of hands upon their heads, passed on to them the divine fire. According to the church canons, a hierarch must be ordained by at least two bishops, and the flock must be present and say “axios” (he is worthy); that is, ordination must take place in the sight of all — secret ordination is forbidden in the Church. It must be known to everyone that this man is the heir of particular bishops, who themselves, through an unbroken chain of ordinations, are direct heirs of the apostles. Incidentally, that unbroken chain which exists to this day in the Orthodox Church does not exist in the sects. They are like people who have bought themselves a family name: even if a century goes by, in reality they will have no connection with the blood of the name they bought.
The priest blesses ordinary water, and it becomes incorrupt; the priest prays at the Liturgy, and by his prayer God changes ordinary bread and wine into flesh and blood. This is an awesome mystery; the priest at that time becomes a mediator between the people and God, prays in the sanctuary for the people and asks mercy for them. Imagine what a responsibility this is for the priest himself. This is an awesome reality, which the priest himself, first of all, must feel; first of all the priest himself must fear the grace that is in him. If a priest does not have this feeling, he will not be able to be a good priest.
— How justified do you consider it that in some countries — in Greece, for example — a priest for a certain number of years has no right to act as a spiritual father, and only celebrates the mysteries?
— This practice does indeed exist in various countries and, in my view, it is very good. There is no greater power on earth than the priestly, since only the priestly power can forgive a person's sins. But the priesthood is one thing, spiritual fatherhood another. At ordination a man always becomes a priest, but he may never become a spiritual father. Spiritual fatherhood means something else. The nurturing of various gifts and virtues needs very great labour, both intellectual and spiritual. Besides this, it needs experience. If a priest does not work on himself, he will not be able to be a spiritual father. In the letters of Gregory the Theologian much of interest is written about the priesthood. The holy father says that a person must pass through the greatest school of obedience; he must himself be light in order to give it to another, must himself be a teacher in order to teach another, must himself be wise in order to pass wisdom on to another. If a priest does not strive toward this, he will never fulfil the greatest office and mission laid upon him. All the more so in our society, which is poisoned by anti-church preaching through films and newspapers. Communist culture was steeped in blasphemous notions and ideas. To this day, in many people the word “priest” calls up an association with the film characters Okhrokhine and Enuki. This is a sad fact, deeply imprinted in the consciousness of our society. Today's priest must be an image of Christ precisely so that, not after a long acquaintance but at the very first sight, he may dispel a person's negative views; that is, he must be in good order outwardly too.
— We know that there are different priestly degrees. How are the rights distributed in the church hierarchy?
— In the priestly degree there are three ranks: the hierarch, that is, the bishop; the priest; and the deacon. All three are priestly degrees, but the deacon cannot celebrate the Divine services, cannot give a blessing; he is chiefly the helper of the bishop, and of the priest as well, in the course of the services. He can already touch the holy table and receive Communion not as a layman but as a minister. This is the first, preparatory step of the priesthood.
Unlike the priest, the hierarch sits directly on the throne of the apostles. The priest has the right to celebrate the mysteries with the bishop's blessing and not independently; he cannot lay on hands, that is, pass on priestly grace to another — that is in the power of the hierarch alone.
If a priest goes out of obedience to his hierarch and acts against his will, then grace no longer follows his ministry. Here we mean the case where the hierarch is Orthodox and is not, in his outlook, an enemy of the Church. When a hierarch begins to preach heresy and goes against the Church, then it befits the priest no longer to obey him and to turn to another hierarch. Apart from this case, he has no right to act without the hierarch's blessing.
— In what case is a priest deposed?
— All this is set out in detail in the Nomocanon: if a priest commits mortal sins of a certain kind, deposition threatens him, since it is better that a man be removed from the priestly ministry than that he should offer the bloodless sacrifice with unclean hands, that is, celebrate the Liturgy.
— Father, why is it that after ordination a priest can no longer marry, and why does a priest no longer wear a wedding ring?
— If we look closely, certain parts of the mysteries of priestly ordination and of marriage are very like one another, and it is remarkable that they are alike in their outward forms too. At a wedding the couple, led by the priest, goes round the icon of the Saviour laid on the analogion. At ordination to the priesthood there is likewise a threefold circling of the holy table. At that time the same prayers are read as at a wedding; that is, at ordination the priest is mystically betrothed to the heavenly Bridegroom, Christ, and to the Church as well; therefore he no longer wears a wedding ring.
Of course, the priesthood does not free him from responsibility for his own family: he has a wife and children and remains a husband and the father of children; but if a spiritual father is widowed, or his wife has left him, or he was not married before, he no longer has the right to marry, because every person either already is, or is potentially, his child.
— What responsibility lies on a priest's wife?
— After ordination the priest rises to a qualitatively new step, and he rises together with his family, with his wife and children. Therefore the priest's wife shares the cross of the spiritual father. If the wife does not take up this cross together with her husband who is a spiritual father, the devil will defeat her, and through her will defeat the husband as well; and a defeated husband will no longer be able to be a priest. So to be a priest's wife is the greatest responsibility. Not to speak of the fact that a spiritual father's wife must be an image of a Christian woman. If her husband imitates Christ, she must imitate the most holy Mother of God herself.
Besides this, most people come to a spiritual father with pain, bring him their trouble, and the spiritual father is greatly burdened. He is as it were a rubbish bin: people come and pour their rubbish into this bin, and the demons with it. It is the greatest happiness if at home peace and joy await you from your wife and children, when you know that your wife will meet you with a smile, that she knows you have come home burdened and will meet you with love and warmth, and that the children will be good children. The family should be a kind of haven for a priest.
— And in general, how heavy is the cross of a spiritual father?
— A certain man wished to set out on the priestly path. I was present when the Patriarch set out for him what the priesthood is: His Holiness thought for a while and then explained spiritual fatherhood in just three words — it is life for others.
In the life of a spiritual father there are countless trials. We say that in the life of a person, of a Christian in general, there are always trials, but in the life of a spiritual father they are especially sharpened. In pastoral theology many chapters are devoted to what particular trials a spiritual father has that a layman does not have, and that the spiritual father himself did not have when he was a layman. It may be said that the fallen angels find time for him; but this too is for his tempering. Every spiritual father goes up to Golgotha; the chief thing is that he should not refuse halfway and turn out to be a betrayer.
— Why is it that to the One who is most exalted, to the Lord, we speak with “thou,” while to a spiritual father we say “you”?
— One cannot speak to the Lord with “you,” because “you” gives rise to a certain estrangement. Conversation with the Lord is the most intimate, the most heartfelt, the most delicate thing in a person's life. It is impossible to pray with the whole heart in front of others. That is why the Lord says: shut thyself in thy closet. What happens in your heart should not be revealed outwardly; it is enough to say “you” at that time and estrangement already sets in.
As for a spiritual father, unfortunately there is no such closeness with him; human barriers hinder us. If you speak to him with “thou,” you lose reverence and awe. And since in our language this form of respectful address (“you”) is accepted, we address a spiritual father in this way too. With the Lord this loss of reverence does not threaten us: He is God, He is almighty.
— In our dealings with a spiritual father we do not always keep the measure. There are people who are wilful toward their spiritual father, while others, on the contrary, make a god of him and will not take a step without his word. What kind of obedience is needed toward a spiritual father, and why is obedience needed at all?
— Christianity does not exist without obedience. Often obedience is understood wrongly and is set against freedom. The cause of this is not understanding, or not wishing to understand, obedience. Obedience is the way to freedom. I shall give an example from the Roman Empire. When a son was born in the family of a worthy Roman citizen, the child was from the moment of birth a free citizen of Rome; but this free citizen grew up in the family in absolute obedience to his father, and this obedience was the way to freedom. That is, although at the child's birth a document was drawn up concerning his Roman citizenship and his absolute freedom, in reality he was not yet free: he was his father's obedient son, without a word of his own, and he learned freedom by walking the way of obedience.
In obedience we receive fully the experience of the one who goes before us, we walk on the path he has cleared, and we come out onto a wider field; and the name of that field is freedom — but to walk this path we must follow him.
The obedient one conquers their own selfishness, their own passions and, above all, their own pride, which hinders them in freedom. But in everything there is a measure; in Christianity this is the golden mean. Any deviation, to the left or to the right, is already a violation. Obedience to a spiritual father is likewise a way along the golden mean, which is difficult, and any deviation from it is ruinous. These deviations are: complete disobedience to the spiritual father, when the spiritual father is needed only so that one may list one's sins to him. Such a person may have no spiritual father at all, going now to one, now to a second, now to a third. They use the spiritual father merely as the celebrant of the mystery, so that he may read them the prayer of absolution; they have no desire at all to share his experience or to accept his instruction — that is, they act by their own will.
The other extreme is complete enslavement to the spiritual father, setting him up, putting him in the place of Christ. Unfortunately, in this case some spiritual fathers too may be at fault. A spiritual father must guide in such a way as not to overshadow for his spiritual children the path that leads to Christ; he is a teacher who brings them to Christ, he is only an image and not Christ Himself. As an icon painted on a board cannot be taken for Christ, though it is needed and through it we can have communion with Christ, so it is with the spiritual father. A spiritual father must be very careful not to overdo it himself, and if a spiritual child has such a tendency, he must without fail hold them back too. Otherwise he will not fulfil his task.
— May a priest take up some other occupation besides priestly service?
— In today's reality a priest has so much to do in the church that, one may say, he has no time even to scratch his head. I cannot imagine how he is to do other work, but such cases do occur. The justification is that they are hard pressed materially. This is a sad reality: the greater part of the clergy really are hard pressed materially. Only outwardly do the churches seem full, with a numerous flock; but in reality the priest's income is very meagre. For this reason some priests take up other work as well. If he keeps a farm, raises cattle, or works with his mind, that is still possible; but there are kinds of work which may prove humiliating for a priest and bring turmoil and chaos into his soul. In any case the chief thing is that a priest has less time for it.
— Often, after various services, people do not know how to make an offering to the priest…
— For this there are special boxes in the church. Some think that the offering belongs to the church and not to the priest. This is absurd, as absurd as if a doctor were not to receive a salary from the funds allotted to medicine. The Church is, first of all, the priest with the grace that dwells in him, and the flock that is spiritually fed by him. The Apostle Paul says it very simply: we give you spiritual things — is it a great matter if we receive bodily things from you? It may be put thus: the Church, the sacred hierarchy, is bound to supply spiritual food to its spiritual children, and the flock is bound to maintain the spiritual father and, of course, the church. For this there exists in the Church the institution of the offering; in some Churches (Greece, Russia, some Western denominations…) there are even salaries, but there the flock necessarily pays 10 % of its income (if it were so here too, the priest would have an income and would have no material problems at all). Our Church does not require this. A person gives voluntarily, but we say that the offering should be according to conscience and according to ability. A priest must be without self-interest, must spend himself to the end for others, must never think about whether this person will make an offering; but at the same time the flock must think about the church, about the people who work in it, about the priest, about the candle-sellers who bustle about in the church all day like ants.
— Father, such a full schedule, and serving mostly on one's feet, is not particularly good for the health. As you yourself say, a priest cannot play football or go to the swimming pool. How then is he to unwind?
— He might have an exercise bicycle at home, or work physically; but to go out into the street in sports clothes — personally I consider that impossible. Perhaps this comes from my spiritual weakness: that if I take off my vestments, then, because of my own sins, I shall forget that I am a priest; so it is better for me to go about vested.
— Some people will not let even the smallest mistake of a clergyman pass, and think that a priest cannot make a mistake in anything.
— Christ is the only sinless one; the priest is an image of Christ, he is not Christ Himself. He must imitate the Lord, but he himself is an ordinary sinful man. He certainly has personal sins, which very often show themselves. If the flock does not love their spiritual father, they look for precisely these sins with a magnifying glass. In such a case it may be said that they are an enemy. The father of a family is not faultless either; he too has vices and weaknesses. Yet the son loves him — will he hate him for that? If the flock sees the sins of their spiritual father, let them strengthen their prayer for him, let them care for him the more. Let them not judge him; let them at least sometimes rise early in the morning and at night and pray for their spiritual father, that God may strengthen him. This is true love. But if we are set on looking for what is bad, we shall find it everywhere, and first of all in ourselves.
