Mission Monthly – May 1999

“…and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… [for] your are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, God's own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of Him who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

1 Peter 2:5, 9

I would be hard pressed for an answer if someone asked me to choose only one messageto get through to ALL the souls God has given me to care for in my priesthood. If I could trust that my parishioners understood at minimum the basics of the faith, I know that the theme of the “royal priesthood” would be at the top of my list.

There are two words from the original Greek which translate as “priest.” The first and most common is “presbyter”which defines the priest as an elder and leader of the Church. The second and much less commonly known is “ierevs” which expresses the sacramental and liturgical function of the priest as “the one who offers.” It is this latter definition that intrigues me here because this is the word that St. Peter uses in his first epistle to describe God's people as the “royal priesthood.”

On the day of my elevation to the Holy Priesthood the bishop, through the laying on of hands, conferred upon me the grace and authority of the Holy Spirit to serve God's Church liturgically, sacramentally and pastorally. This function is given to all “worthy” priests to maintain order and to communicate the grace which God gives to His Church for worship, revelation and stewardship. This is absolutely central and essential to the life of the Church; yet, possibly of even greater significance is the ordination to the “royal priesthood” which every Orthodox Christian receives at baptism and chrismation.

When one is baptized into Christ in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit he enters into the death and resurrection of Christ through the expulsion of the devil and the remission of sin. When one is anointed with the holy chrism he is “sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit” and receives the same authority which Christ gave to His Apostles on the day of Pentecost… as those who received the laying on of hands from the Apostles (see Acts 8:14-17, 19:1-7)… as those who are chosen to succeed the Apostles in the unbroken lineage of the Faith and Tradition of the Orthodox Church until the coming again of Christ. Every bishop and priest, man and woman, parent and child must face the reality of their own participation in the royal priesthood in serving the Kingdom of God with humility, offering every aspect of their life at the altar of God's living tabernacle. “Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee in behalf of all and for all.” These words are not only meant to be said by the priest at the Anaphora of the Divine Liturgy, they are also to be said by each of us as little “p” priests of the Body of Christ. We all must set out to offer the fullness of our lives as co-redeemers of this world in the grace and authority of the Holy Spirit. We have been called out for this purpose, “to declare the wonderful deeds of God.”

Sadly, sin continually interferes with the authority of our priesthood; many abandon their authority outright at the altars of pride, materialism, vanity, self-determination and even self-pity. But the joyous struggle of repentance always gives me hope in knowing that I, and those whom God has given me to lead, can always turn again towards our true calling as priest, sealed in the gift of the Holy Spirit. It seems that only now I am beginning to understand these very challenging words of Fr. Alexander Schmemman, “The vocation of every priest is to transform every persons vocation into a priestly one.”