The Theology of Priesthood

The ordained ministry of the Orthodox Church is threefold — bishop, presbyter (priest), and deacon — set apart by the laying-on of hands in unbroken succession from the apostles. This file treats the three major orders and their distinct functions, the meaning of apostolic succession, and the truth that all ministry participates in the one priesthood of Christ, in which also the whole baptized people share as a royal priesthood.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The One Priesthood of Christ

There is, in the strict sense, one Priest in the Church: Jesus Christ, the great High Priest who “ever liveth to make intercession” (Hebrews 7:24–25), who offered Himself once for all (Hebrews 9:11–14) and who alone mediates between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). Every priesthood in the Church is a participation in His. This is the first principle of the Orthodox theology of orders and the guard against every clericalism: the ordained do not possess a priesthood of their own, added to or rivaling Christ’s, but are made ministers of His priesthood, acting in the Liturgy and the mysteries not in their own person and power but as the instruments through whom Christ Himself baptizes, forgives, and offers (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Penguin, 1993, Part II, on the priesthood as participation in Christ’s; Schmemann, For the Life of the World, SVS Press, 1973, ch. 1, on Christ as the one priest).

This one priesthood is shared, in different modes, by the whole Church and by the ordained. The whole baptized people is a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9; cf. Exodus 19:6, Revelation 1:6): every Christian, made a christ (an anointed one) in chrismation, is called to the priestly offering of self and world to God (Schmemann, For the Life of the World, ch. 1, on the priesthood of all the faithful). The ordained priesthood does not abolish or replace this royal priesthood but serves it — the bishop and presbyter stand at the head of the priestly people to gather their offering and to minister to them the mysteries of Christ. The two priesthoods are not in competition; the ministerial exists for the sake of the baptismal, that the whole Body may offer itself in Christ (Schmemann, The Eucharist, SVS Press, 1988, on the celebrant and the assembly; Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II).

The Three Major Orders

The ordained ministry has been threefold since the sub-apostolic age. St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing about A.D. 107 on his way to martyrdom, already presents the threefold order as universal and essential: nothing is to be done in the Church without the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons — “without these it is not called a Church” (Ignatius, To the Trallians 3; cf. To the Magnesians 6, To the Smyrnaeans 8, on the threefold ministry). The three orders are distinct not merely in rank but in function:

The Bishop (episkopos) holds the fullness of the priesthood and is the principle of the Church’s unity and continuity. He is the successor of the apostles, the chief celebrant of the Eucharist and of the mysteries in his local church, the ordainer of clergy, the teacher of the faith, and the visible center of the local Church’s communion with the whole Orthodox Church (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II, on the bishop as successor of the apostles and center of unity). Only a bishop can ordain, and only a bishop consecrates the holy chrism or a new church; in him the local community is bound into the one catholic Church. In Orthodox practice bishops are chosen from the celibate (monastic) clergy.

The Presbyter (presbyteros, priest) shares the bishop’s priesthood by delegation and celebrates the Eucharist and most of the mysteries in the parishes, as the bishop cannot be everywhere at once. The priest baptizes, chrismates (with the bishop’s chrism), hears confessions and absolves, anoints the sick, and crowns marriages — but he does not ordain, and he acts always in dependence on and communion with his bishop, whom he commemorates by name in the Liturgy (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II, on the presbyter’s ministry). The antimension on the altar, bearing the bishop’s signature, is the visible token that the priest offers by the bishop’s authority.

The Deacon (diakonos) is ordained to the ministry of service — assisting the bishop and priest at the altar, leading the litanies, ministering the chalice, serving the poor, and giving voice to the prayer of the people. The diaconate is a true order of the sacramental ministry and not merely a step toward the priesthood, though it has often been treated as such; the deacon does not celebrate the Eucharist or the mysteries in his own right but serves them (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II, on the diaconate; see Ordination and the Minor Orders). The diaconate’s roots reach to the seven appointed in Acts to serve the tables so that the apostles might give themselves to prayer and the word (Acts 6:1–6) — a passage the tradition reads as the institution of the ministry of service.

Apostolic Succession

The mystery of orders binds the Church of every age to the apostles and, through them, to Christ. Apostolic succession means that bishops are ordained by bishops in an unbroken chain reaching back to the apostles, so that the gift of the ministry and the authority to teach and to celebrate are handed down continuously from the beginning (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II, on apostolic succession). Its Scriptural pattern is the laying-on of hands by which Paul ordained and directed Timothy and Titus, charging Timothy: “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee… with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery” (1 Timothy 4:14; cf. 2 Timothy 1:6, “stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands”; Titus 1:5, on appointing presbyters in every city).

Yet Orthodox theology understands succession as more than a mechanical pedigree. Apostolic succession is succession in the apostolic faith as well as in the apostolic ministry: a valid ordination lineage is inseparable from continuity in the true confession of the Church, for the bishop succeeds to the apostles not only by ordination but by teaching what the apostles taught (Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, Fordham, 1974, on the bishop, tradition, and succession; see Orthodoxy: Holy Tradition). The chain of hands and the continuity of faith belong together; succession is the visible, sacramental form of the Church’s abiding identity with the community the apostles founded.

Ordination as Mystery

Ordination itself (cheirotonia, treated more fully in the companion file) is a mystery of the Holy Spirit, not a mere appointment to office. It is conferred by the laying-on of the bishop’s hands with the prayer of the Church, and its heart, as in every mystery, is the epicletic invocation of the Spirit: the ordaining bishop prays that “the grace divine, which always healeth that which is infirm and completeth that which is wanting, promote” the ordinand to his order — the words spoken at every Orthodox ordination, confessing that it is the Spirit, not the bishop, who makes the priest (the ordination prayer “Divine grace…” in the Orthodox rite; see Ordination and the Minor Orders). Ordination confers a real gift and character — the ordained is set apart and given the grace of his ministry — but that gift exists always for the Church and within the Church, never as a private possession or a power the minister wields on his own account (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II; Schmemann, The Eucharist, on ordination and the assembly).

See Also

References

  • Ignatius of Antioch. To the Trallians 3; To the Magnesians 6; To the Smyrnaeans 8. In Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1.
  • Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993, Part II.
  • Meyendorff, John. Byzantine Theology. New York: Fordham University Press, 1974.
  • Schmemann, Alexander. For the Life of the World. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1973; and The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988.
  • Scripture: Hebrews 7:24–25, 9:11–14; 1 Timothy 2:5, 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6; Titus 1:5; Acts 6:1–6; 1 Peter 2:9.