Categories: uncategorized
Date: 19 April 2005 10:55:28
Unordered enquired about saints and their role in Orthodoxy. Still being an enquirer, I ask that you take the following with the necessary bucket of salt -- and if anyone reading this spots an error please point it out to me!
The saints play a huge part of the life of an Orthodox Christian. When an Orthodox Christian is baptized they are given the name of saint. Saints are seen as those who have truly followed God and imitated Christ and therefore are an example for us to emulate.
Saints are not worshipped, for worship belongs to God alone, but they are venerated as examples of Christian living and Orthodox Christians ask for their prayers. Orthodox teaching is that there is no division between the living and the departed: we all are one in Christ. Orthodox Christians here on earth also pray for those who have departed, as they would pray for someone still here -- as Kallistos Ware wrote in his book The Orthodox Church: "Death cannot sever the bond of mutual love which links the members of the Church together."
An Orthodox Christian is free to ask for the prayers of whomever they like, a departed relative for example. However, in the Church environment, prayer is generally only asked of those who have been officially recognised as saints.
New saints can be added, and are indeed added. I am unsure of the process of this. I have read that popular acclaim has a great deal to do with someone becoming a saint -- it is a true "grass roots" movement.
I hope that helps. If there are any further questions, please ask: it helps me to learn as well! Symeon the New Theologian has a description of the saints, forming a golden chain, which I find beautiful:
The Holy Trinity, pervading everything from first to last, from head to foot, binds them all together ... The saints in each generation, joined to those who have gone before, and filled with them like light, become a golden chain, in which each saint is a separate link, united to the next by faith, works and love. So in the One God they form a single chain which cannot quickly be broken.Quoted in Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Church