Why Saints?
We don’t
have saints in my church. We focus only
on Jesus and the Bible…
We don’t
have saints in my church. We can pray
directly to Jesus, we don’t have to go through a “middle man”.
It is
not uncommon as we rub shoulders at work and school with people of different
faiths that we are challenged to explain what we believe and why we believe
it. I once worked with a nurse who was
very proud that her Church was “just Christian without any of those ‘add
ons’. One of the “ad ons” that she was
referring to and a part of our Faith that is often challenged is our devotion
and veneration of the Saints. Some
Christians, such as my nurse-friend have the uninformed notion that such
devotion crept into the Church at some late century, say the Middle Ages, and that pure, apostolic
Christianity had no such practice as the honoring of Saints.
In the
New Testament, St. Paul referred to all baptized Christians as saints.
For example, in his epistle to the Ephesians he addresses all the saints who live in Ephesus. (Ephesians 1:1) Near the close of the New Testament age, in
the vision of St. John the Evangelist which is recorded in the book of
Revelation, it becomes clear that the saints are not all baptized Christians
but only those who remained faithful and endured the persecution and deception
of the antichrist.
Here is
the patience of the saints, here are those who keep the commandments of God and
the faith of Jesus. (Revelation
14:12)
One of
the disciples of this same St. John the Evangelist was a man named Polycarp who
became bishop of the city of Smyrna. It
is believed that he was about 20-25 years old when St. John died, the last of
the Apostles of the Lord. In his old
age, around the year 165 A.D. he was
arrested by the Roman authorities and led away to be executed by burning at the
stake. One of the oldest Christian
documents is an account of his death called the Martyrdom of Polycarp. What
is fascinating is the light this ancient document sheds on the devotion and
honor that the early Christians paid to the martyrs and to the earthly
remains. As these early Christians
attempted to retrieve his bones from the ashes, some unbelievers suggested that
they would now worship Polycarp rather than Christ. The ancient document records:
..it is
neither possible for us ever to forsake
Christ, who suffered for the salvation of such as shall be saved throughout the
whole world, nor to worship any other.
For Him indeed, as being the Son of God, we adore; but the martyrs, as
disciples and followers of the Lord, we worthily love on account of their
extraordinary affection towards their own King and Master, of whom may we also
be made companions and fellow disciples!
(Martyrdom
of Polycarp, chapter 17)
This
ancient Christian text clearly explains the devotion that these early
Christians had for the martyrs whom they honored and loved but worshipped the
Lord Jesus alone. The document goes on
to describe the honor with which they treated his bones as holy relics and
gathered at his grave each year on the anniversary of his death:
…we
afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite
jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place,
where, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and
rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom…. (Chapter 18)
From
this and other ancient texts it is clear that the early Church worshipped the
Lord Jesus Christ as King and God alone but honored the saints who were
powerful examples and role models of what a true Christian ought to be. They honored these martyrs and cherished
their memories. Their bodies were
retrieved and carefully buried, their graves becoming places of prayer and
pilgrimage.
The
other challenge to our faith is that saints are somehow a middle man standing between us and the Lord Jesus. Some believe that our reverence for the
Saints does not give us direct access to Jesus but that we have to ask the
Saints to speak to Him in our behalf. A
brief look at any Orthodox prayerbook or attendance at any Orthodox service
proves that Orthodox Christians are entirely capable of speaking to Jesus
directly. As with the honoring of saints
and the honoring of their holy relics, is this asking for the intercession of
the saints another of those “add ons” claimed by my nurse-friend?
Christians
have always asked for and depended on the prayers of each other before
Christ. In fact, Christ worked His first
miracle at the Wedding in Cana at the request of His Mother! St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Ephesians,
Thessalonians, Colossians, and Romans asks them to pray for him. (Ephesians
6:19; Thess 5:25; Colos 4:3;
Rom 15:30-31) The
Epistle of St. James says: The prayer of a righteous man has great
power in its effects. (James 5:16) If we sinful and bound by
earthly desires can pray to Jesus for others how much more effective will the
prayers be of those holy men and women who are now standing in His
presence! The Saints are not dead nor
are they asleep, they are alive and with Christ in His Kingdom. In the third century, St. Cyprian of Carthage
expressed the thought that those that fall during time of persecution are aided
by the martyrs’ prayers before God. (Epistle
XV) In the 4th century, many of the
Fathers testify to the practice of asking for the intercession of the
Saints. St. Basil, in his Letter 360 states that he accepts the
intercession of the apostles, prophets, and martyrs and he seeks their prayers
to God. St. John Chrysostom instructed
people to seek the intercession and fervent prayers of the saints because they
have special “boldness” before God. (Encomium,
3). The 7th Ecumenical
Council, meeting in 787 A.D., dealing with the controversy over the use of
icons, sums up the ancient teaching of the Church on the veneration of Saints:
…we adore
and respect God our Lord; and those who have been genuine servants of our
common Lord we honor and venerate because they have the power to make us
friends with God the King of all.
So, we
Orthodox Christians, the direct, unbroken continuation of the ancient,
Apostolic Church continue to give glory, honor and worship to One God in the
Holy Trinity and also give honor and devotion to the Saints who were faithful
disciples of the Lord and remain alive in His presence. This veneration of Saints, rather than the
“add on” of later centuries, was part of the Christian Faith from the first
century. We Orthodox hold the original
faith of the Christian without any “add ons” while most other Christians have
“subtracted” or “taken away” beliefs and practices known to the earliest
Christians.
- Father Edward Pehanich
Lampada - Gold Plated
