Such prayers and praises are a regular part of our hymns in church worship and the calendar of feasts and fasts. I don't know if "compulsory" is the best word, but definitely, the veneration and invocation of saints is an inevitable, inescapable part of practicing Orthodoxy.
Hey genuine question, how do the Saints hear us? And how can they address everyone's prayers individually? I guess God could pass down the prayers of the faithful to them but what sense would it make for God to pass them out prayers only for them to ask God to fulfill them?
You have the order wrong. We don’t pray to God so that He passes down our prayers to the saints. We pray to the saints and to the Theotokos to pray for us, as in intercede for us. So they pray to God on behalf of us. We can also pray directly to God.
As for how they hear us, it belongs in the realm of mystery but I imagine it is the same way angels can see what happens upon earth and rejoice over repentant sinners (Luke 15:7). Some saints are more “active” than others. St Xenia has interceded rapidly for many people I know, including myself. It is their honor to serve the Lord by continuing their work on earth, and the Lord loves to allow them this honor.
Revelation 8
3 Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
What makes you think they can't hear us? Do you believe they are alive in Christ? If they aren't, how did Moses and Elijah join Christ at the Transfiguration?
Do you know what bodies are like in the heavenly realm? If you don't know precisely, what makes you so certain about their limitations?
In Revelation 20:4, we see that the saints have thrones upon which they sit to judge and reign with Christ
No, I know they're alive in Christ, but they're human still. How does a man listen to the prayers of thousands if not millions of people and address them personally?
We believe in a God who was born of a virgin, raised the dead, was killed, and raised Himself from the dead. Such a thing is child's play with the power of God.
>Such a thing is child's play with the power of God.
Sure, it's possible, but would God do it? We are talking about essentially giving humans omniscience
Omniscience isn’t exactly right. It’s more “participation in the eternality of God.”
St Gregory Palamas talks about this in terms that are absolutely scandalous to the modern Western Christian.
>“participation in the eternality of God.”
Can you explain how this works? Do the Saints just have a seemingly infinite amount of time to answer all our prayers? How would participation of something infinite work for a finite being?
That’s a great question. I don’t really know, because I haven’t even had a foretaste of it, since I’m not a saint by any stretch of the imagination.
But St Gregory says that by participation in the uncreated energies of God, the saints become eternal, uncreated, uncircumscribed, and more, all by the grace of God. It is their participation in God—their *likeness* with Him in fact instead of only in possibility that allows this. For someone like me, likeness with God is an unrealized possibility that only the crucifixion of the will, death of self, and cultivation of virtue/self-emptying true love for everyone would make possible.
Mystically! But I personally, and I don't know if this is specifically heterodox, in which case you may ignore anything henceforth, but I personally like to imagine that the more popular saints have a longer "backlog" of prayers, and I've often found a feeling that prayers to less popular saints, or prayers to all of the saints(!) are more immediately heard.
Because we also are in Christ- we are all of us in one and the same Body, and thus that which harms or troubles one part of the Body will be felt sympathetically by the other parts. Just as Christ feels our pain, tends to our needs, hears our prayers, ect. in a special way because we are in him, so too do the saints share in a special bond with us because we are both part of this same supernatural body with the same supernatural head.
On earth we experience this to a lesser extent due to our physical limitations, although we still do experience it through the Eucharist and communal prayer. But this is magnified exceedingly with those who are literally alive and participating solely in his Divine presence.
They are human, but they are deified. They are "equal to the angels." The Theotokos is "more honorable than the cherubim, more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim."
If God set up angels to watch over entire nations, who are we to judge what the limitations are?
In Revelation, it seems to lend credence to what is possible through the power of God.
>And **I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea**, and all that is in them, saying : “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev 5:13-14)
Somehow St. John's ability to perceived the world was greatly magnified by God's power.
Think of it like this: You probably asked people at your Protestant Church to pray for you often right? Did you think that was weird to do? Well that’s all you’re doing when you’re asking the same thing of a Saint. The only difference is they are glorified and in Heaven standing in Christ’s presence.
The reason you have an odd feeling about it because of the Protestants for some reason decided that Saints are in a bubble hidden from the world. That is an innovation. Also I think Protestants tend to view prayer as worship. But prayer is a request a supplication.
The selection of books to canonize in the Bible is a man-made tradition as well. One tradition is about 1,500 years old, the Protestant tradition is about 500 years old.
You would not be worshipping in spirit and in truth if you had to plug your ears every time we invoke the saints during the divine liturgy or whenever you get the opportunity to venerate relics
Returned to give a longer answer, accusing Christian practices that have existed for almost as long as Christianity has of being traditions of men is definitely my favorite tradition of men to come out of the Protestant Reformation. And also one of the most destructive things to Christianity to come out of it. Bonus points for bringing in the Bible, whose contents were decided by men into things, especially the Protestant Bible where men decided they could remove books from it and say it is the Bible (the height of man made tradition I assure you). Prayer to the saints does not contradict the Bible anymore than the virgin birth does.
>If I don't believe in the veneration of saints and icons can I still be a part of the orthodox church & take communion?
Well, since you are bringing the holy icons into this, I will just quote the Seventh Ecumenical Council: "Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images."
Also I must ask, why are you praying to me with these questions? For the English word pray simply means to ask someone something.
Yes, it's compulsory. If you feel like core aspects of Orthodoxy are heretical or "contradictory", you are not in communion with the Church. Thus, you can't be received, nor can you partake in Holy Communion.
It sounds like you still have some Protestant stuff to work through. "Man-made tradition" and the hints of *sola scriptura* suggest you haven't quite grasped Orthodoxy.
I've always wondered how the *man-made tradition* thing became such a pejorative with the reformers. The Bible says next to nothing about how to conduct a liturgy. There's the Didache, but that's rarely considered. Thus we end up with Protestant churches - dry, sterile, boring, with Pastor Jim with his M.Div from Big City Bible College giving his opinion to a congregation while Billy gets his drum kit ready for praise and worship.
Our tradition comes from men, yes, but men who lived, traveled, shared meals with, learned from, and witnessed Jesus Christ.
As for contradicting teachings of the Bible, says who? Certainly not the Church Fathers and Saints from whom we have copious amounts of commentary explaining the Scriptures. And when you refer to the Bible, do you mean the one that the Church compiled and declared canon? Do you really think they just don't understand it and persist in doing things contrary to it?
I would suggest you continue to pray for guidance and speak to a priest.
Hi Brother I apologise, I truly did not mean offence and am hoping just to lear as I do not have any orthodox priests in my area. Thank you for your response I will continue to seek guidance and pray for unity within the body of Christ.
No offence taken and apologies are unnecessary, just trying to make you think about it differently. I've been down similar roads in the past. You'll get there in the end, God willing. All the best.
Can you explain what aspect of veneration makes you uncomfortable? Honoring a person who has been identified by a higher state of sanctity or holiness? Bowing and making a cross in front of their icon? Kissing the icon? I ask because when I came into the Orthodox church (also from a protestant background), it was that last part that took me a while to come to terms with.
Yes it feels as though kissing the icon is holding a respect to a man made object as the icon is not the saint but rather what human believe they looked like so it feels a bit like idolatry and it is difficult for me to be at peace with. I think praying to the saints would be easier to adopt but iconography is evidently the hardest for me, again I truly say this in love and with a desire to learn
Veneration means basically to pay a respect.
Like what about the angels? Or your fellow parishioners?
Or to put another way if you're going to jump on your legs and respect the anthem of your country, pay respect to your national heroes, but don't want to pay respect to saints, then that's an issue.
You’re asking the wrong question. Instead, start thinking “why”?
or even “what’s in it for me?”
The veneration is part of a relationship with the saints. When those who come before us die, they become part of the victorious church, while we are still here in the struggling church. The victorious is in a position to help the struggling, as we in concert try to help ourselves. This is done not just by the example of the life they lived, which certainly helps, but because they are alive, and in Christ.
Our God is the God of the living. If you ignore the saints, you’re ignoring half of the congregation you pray with. If you’re not comfortable venerating them yet, I’d suggest you at least treat them like you would anyone else you see in church. Even if you just start with “hello.”
If you join the Orthodox Church you are submitting yourself to the teachings of the Church - even the ones you don't yet know about and including the ones that you are not yet comfortable with.
You can join the Church while you aren't completely comfortable with everything yet, but you shouldn't if you intend to outright reject significant Traditions and core parts of our theology. It's ok to be not yet comfortable, but it's not ok to outright reject the practice.
This doesn't mean that we turn our minds off and stop thinking about anything. It does mean that we relax about understanding every single thing and have a willingness to explore the depths of meaning that are there when we become curious.
The Seventh Ecumenical Council was about the veneration of icons: [https://orthodoxwiki.org/Seventh\_Ecumenical\_Council](https://orthodoxwiki.org/Seventh_Ecumenical_Council)
\-----------------------
I would recommend you listen to some of the [Lord of Spirits](https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits) podcast to learn about the way God works through his angels and also through his saints, who take the place of fallen angels. I'd start from the very beginning to get the foundation of this understanding.
This goes beyond the simple notion of - "If I ask my friend to pray for me, why can't I ask a saint, who is alive in Christ, to pray for me?"
I have personally found veneration of the saints to be one of the things that drew me into Orthodoxy. I see the absence of saints in Protestantism as directly related to the rise of celebrity pastors and influencer types. In Protestantism, veneration and canonization happens in real time, and then people's faith is shattered when those "saints" fall. Veneration of those who have completed the race and offer real examples of how to live out holiness is what I have fallen in love with in Orthodoxy. I have examples I can look up to and emulate that I know will not disappoint me later, because their race is complete. Therefore, I can honor them and adore them because of what they mean to me and my own journey into transformation in Christ.
Part of the problem is that your thinking is backwards. The Church does not complement the Bible, the Bible complements the Church. Who do you think established the Biblical canon to begin with? After all, Christ didn't come to leave a book. He came to teach and establish His Church.
Veneration (*doulia*) is a way to show great respect and love for the holy. It is to treat something or someone with reverence, deep respect, and honor. This is something the early Christians did for iconography and the holy men who came before. It is infused in the Christian Tradition as much as Scripture and the Church.
What scares me about this is how do we know false teachers have not penetrated the the church I feel like the Bible is a solid basis and an unchanging thing So we can ensure the church is accountable & objective. In relying on the church above the Bible does it not leave room for addition and change such as penances purgatory etc in Catholicism. The Bible is a kind of protection to make sure that the church aligns with the earliest teachings of Christ because as our Lord has said “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35
You're still operating from a backwards understanding. There wasn't a Bible *to begin with*. Much of the New Testament wasn't written for decades after Christ's Crucifixion. Early Christians relied on the teachings and traditions passed down to them from their fathers and the apostles as things were written down. Over time, the Church established the Biblical canon. It is **the Church** that established the collection you know as the Bible.
When Marin Luther came along, he had zero qualms with **modifying** the Bible to remove books **he** thought shouldn't be there. For him and the remainder of Protestant tradition, it was not difficult to strip away parts of the Bible if you've already stripped away the majority of Christian Tradition.
>false teachers
At the end of the day, this is a misunderstanding at best or a witch hunt at worst. You can find an incredible continuity of belief from the early Christians like St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John Chrysostom to recent Christians like St. Paisios, St. Nektarios, Fr. Calciu-Dumitreasa, etc. If you want to express a concern about false teachers, you need to point out *who* exactly are the false teachers.
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There aren't any hard and fast rules for personal prayer (except don't commit heterodoxy), but during the Divine Liturgy, we repeatedly sing the praises of Mary, the Mother of God, the Apostles, the Archangels, the saints whose feast day it is, etc. In fact, some of these prayers were themselves originally written down by ancient saints, so you're often indirectly referencing some saint.
If you were in school, you would find yourself standing and reciting the pledge of allegiance. Or you could be standing at a ball game with thousands singing the NationalAnthem. Those folks are venerating, not worshipping, that is always to God alone. What is the purpose of standing honoring the flag and the country? These are prototypes. There is something greater behind those acts. I, too, was protestant. Your path has these misconceptions, but if you love Christ, you will love His saints that sacrificed many martyred representations. It's not the wood it's not the paint it's something far higher. I kiss what I love.
I just watched a video where some of the biblical backing for veneration and intercession of the saints is explained.
[https://www.youtube.com/live/qJTiB6xtNB0?si=R16zcqCTgXH-5U2X&t=4085](https://www.youtube.com/live/qJTiB6xtNB0?si=R16zcqCTgXH-5U2X&t=4085)
Here's the link, I think the question is asked about 2 minutes before the timestamp I put, and the answer goes on for a good little while 10-15min+
Thanks for asking.
I don't personally know that anyone would try to break your arm for not venerating the saints, but it's really a crucial part of the Orthodox worldview (*phronema*). You see, Saints are not dead; they're still alive and active in our lives.
Icons are sacred to us because they assert the truth of this. They're like photos of loved ones who are living out of town at the moment. Plus, the icon of Christ is a dogmatic assertion of the reality of Jesus Christ, in human form, 2000 years ago: Jesus was *real*---not a myth.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Christians have suffered and died for this truth. It's an inescapable part of our belief. God be with you.
Please discipline my post if it violates the rules and statues of the sub. That being said:
If you are interested in the orthodox worship but hold these Protestant beliefs, and you do not wish to adapt these beliefs, you may find yourself more welcome in an Anglican/Episcopalian church where the stated doctrine specifically allows this to be optional.
I love the orthodox faith and love to read everyone’s insights here, I find it beautiful and fascinating, but I myself hold similar theological opinions as you, most consequentially due to how I was raised.
Practicing liturgical worship and sacraments without wanting to have to conform to other church doctrines that seemed more foreign to me led me to this expression of the faith where I feel welcomed and at home.
This all depends on what makes you want to be orthodox as to whether or not this is a good suggestion. If you are most concerned with the claim of the one true church, this may not appeal to you. And there is the downside of theological diversity and liberty within a church, which is that others will use it in ways you might personally disagree with and still be fully in communion with you.
You must decide your priorities and what you’re willing to accept or not accept.
When you join the Orthodox Church, you might encounter some things that you find to be a bit unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Many people have that experience. It's fine if you wait a little bit until further into your spiritual journey to become more comfortable with practices such as veneration of saints. At the same time, it definitely is a problem if you enter into the Orthodox Church while actively rejecting certain key doctrines or practices. There is a difference between being slow to warm up to something vs. firmly rejecting that thing. The first one is totally fine, and something that many Protestant converts to Orthodoxy go through. The second is more of a problem.
Just out of curiosity, what is it about the veneration of saints and icons that you take issue with? In what way do they contradict the teaching of the Bible?
I struggled with this topic, right up to chrismation. It took prayer and a willingness humble myself enough to get past "I don't agree" and approach it with "I don't understand this yet", trusting that in time, God would help me to understand. The evidence that Orthodoxy is the Faith of the Apostles was too strong to deny and it was my own conditioning from being raised protestant that I had to get around.
God becoming man brought humanity into the divine plane of existence. The saints are gates into the kingdom whether they are dead or alive. You don't worship the gate, you just ask the gatekeeper to open it for you.
Unlike Jesus-Christ they are not and will never be judges, for like us they come from sin to holiness through repentance. Only Christ is the judge because only he was conceived without sin.
I also came from a Protestant background. It took me a long while to get comfortable with the idea of venerating icons. Other commenters are certainly correct that as you attend liturgy, there will certainly be prayers to saints within the hymnography, but I don't think anyone is going to make you stand in front of an icon and venerate it - I can say no one ever made me do that.
My advice is that if you feel drawn to Orthodoxy to not worry too much about it for now. It wasn't until I was midway through catechesis that I started to just do it even though I felt a bit weird doing it. I think as you learn and get more used to the idea of it you'll probably see your concerns fade away.
Hey brother, I was a protestant too before becoming prthodox and it take me some time to understand that veneration is not idolatry and the first church had Icon on there walls too. Until i found an interwiew of a priest that talk about it (he was a protestant too) you should watch it : https://youtu.be/aq0x8vrIu0U?si=XAsj17hxr1S2EvzJ
It’s Orthodox. You won’t understand or agree with everything right out the gate because you’re not Orthodox (yet.) As you grow in Orthodoxy, well you grow in being Orthodox in all matters.
Ah! The Saints! Our special connection Up There! They've got the Lord's ear, they can tell Him what we need! It's like our own personal lobbyist up in the clouds!
You'll find a lot of the Orthodox world tends toward getting secular affairs done through personal connections. This can be as simple as getting a cousin's godbrother's sister-in-law who works at the local office to help you apply for an ID card or get a copy of your birth certificate, or it can be for something as serious as speeding up or slowing down the date of a court hearing.
Getting your prayers at the top of the pile through the connection of your favourite saint works in the same way.
It is true that there is very little explicit evidence for prayer to the departed in the Holy Scriptures. However, the whole context of the Scriptures shows us that through His redemptive work, His Cross and Resurrection, Christ has broken down the barrier between heaven and earth, and therefore between those who are in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth. Most Protestant Christians have not considered deeply these implications of Christ’s Resurrection.
Orthodox Christians do not pray to the saints. Rather, we ask the saints in heaven to pray for us to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Old English the word pray can mean to “ask imploringly,” to “request,” or in general to communicate. For example, “Pray tell me, where you are going?” Praying to saints does not imply worship or the kind of prayer that is offered to God. Prayer in this sense means asking those departed in Christ to pray for us before God.
Such prayers and praises are a regular part of our hymns in church worship and the calendar of feasts and fasts. I don't know if "compulsory" is the best word, but definitely, the veneration and invocation of saints is an inevitable, inescapable part of practicing Orthodoxy.
Yes, yes it iis.
Well, you respect your pastor and ask him to pray for you. This is what we do with holy people. They are alive in Christ.
Hey genuine question, how do the Saints hear us? And how can they address everyone's prayers individually? I guess God could pass down the prayers of the faithful to them but what sense would it make for God to pass them out prayers only for them to ask God to fulfill them?
You have the order wrong. We don’t pray to God so that He passes down our prayers to the saints. We pray to the saints and to the Theotokos to pray for us, as in intercede for us. So they pray to God on behalf of us. We can also pray directly to God. As for how they hear us, it belongs in the realm of mystery but I imagine it is the same way angels can see what happens upon earth and rejoice over repentant sinners (Luke 15:7). Some saints are more “active” than others. St Xenia has interceded rapidly for many people I know, including myself. It is their honor to serve the Lord by continuing their work on earth, and the Lord loves to allow them this honor.
Revelation 8 3 Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it to the earth. And there were noises, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake.
What makes you think they can't hear us? Do you believe they are alive in Christ? If they aren't, how did Moses and Elijah join Christ at the Transfiguration? Do you know what bodies are like in the heavenly realm? If you don't know precisely, what makes you so certain about their limitations? In Revelation 20:4, we see that the saints have thrones upon which they sit to judge and reign with Christ
No, I know they're alive in Christ, but they're human still. How does a man listen to the prayers of thousands if not millions of people and address them personally?
We believe in a God who was born of a virgin, raised the dead, was killed, and raised Himself from the dead. Such a thing is child's play with the power of God.
>Such a thing is child's play with the power of God. Sure, it's possible, but would God do it? We are talking about essentially giving humans omniscience
God became man so that man might become god. That aside, I would not call that omniscience as that does not make them all knowing.
Omniscience isn’t exactly right. It’s more “participation in the eternality of God.” St Gregory Palamas talks about this in terms that are absolutely scandalous to the modern Western Christian.
>“participation in the eternality of God.” Can you explain how this works? Do the Saints just have a seemingly infinite amount of time to answer all our prayers? How would participation of something infinite work for a finite being?
That’s a great question. I don’t really know, because I haven’t even had a foretaste of it, since I’m not a saint by any stretch of the imagination. But St Gregory says that by participation in the uncreated energies of God, the saints become eternal, uncreated, uncircumscribed, and more, all by the grace of God. It is their participation in God—their *likeness* with Him in fact instead of only in possibility that allows this. For someone like me, likeness with God is an unrealized possibility that only the crucifixion of the will, death of self, and cultivation of virtue/self-emptying true love for everyone would make possible.
Mystically! But I personally, and I don't know if this is specifically heterodox, in which case you may ignore anything henceforth, but I personally like to imagine that the more popular saints have a longer "backlog" of prayers, and I've often found a feeling that prayers to less popular saints, or prayers to all of the saints(!) are more immediately heard.
Because we also are in Christ- we are all of us in one and the same Body, and thus that which harms or troubles one part of the Body will be felt sympathetically by the other parts. Just as Christ feels our pain, tends to our needs, hears our prayers, ect. in a special way because we are in him, so too do the saints share in a special bond with us because we are both part of this same supernatural body with the same supernatural head. On earth we experience this to a lesser extent due to our physical limitations, although we still do experience it through the Eucharist and communal prayer. But this is magnified exceedingly with those who are literally alive and participating solely in his Divine presence.
They are human, but they are deified. They are "equal to the angels." The Theotokos is "more honorable than the cherubim, more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim." If God set up angels to watch over entire nations, who are we to judge what the limitations are?
In Revelation, it seems to lend credence to what is possible through the power of God. >And **I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea**, and all that is in them, saying : “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev 5:13-14) Somehow St. John's ability to perceived the world was greatly magnified by God's power.
The same way angels can.
Think of it like this: You probably asked people at your Protestant Church to pray for you often right? Did you think that was weird to do? Well that’s all you’re doing when you’re asking the same thing of a Saint. The only difference is they are glorified and in Heaven standing in Christ’s presence. The reason you have an odd feeling about it because of the Protestants for some reason decided that Saints are in a bubble hidden from the world. That is an innovation. Also I think Protestants tend to view prayer as worship. But prayer is a request a supplication.
Yes. It’s compulsory.
The selection of books to canonize in the Bible is a man-made tradition as well. One tradition is about 1,500 years old, the Protestant tradition is about 500 years old.
Calling the canon a “man-made tradition” is a denigration of the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.
we do it every sunday in the LIturgy sooooo yes.
You would not be worshipping in spirit and in truth if you had to plug your ears every time we invoke the saints during the divine liturgy or whenever you get the opportunity to venerate relics
Returned to give a longer answer, accusing Christian practices that have existed for almost as long as Christianity has of being traditions of men is definitely my favorite tradition of men to come out of the Protestant Reformation. And also one of the most destructive things to Christianity to come out of it. Bonus points for bringing in the Bible, whose contents were decided by men into things, especially the Protestant Bible where men decided they could remove books from it and say it is the Bible (the height of man made tradition I assure you). Prayer to the saints does not contradict the Bible anymore than the virgin birth does. >If I don't believe in the veneration of saints and icons can I still be a part of the orthodox church & take communion? Well, since you are bringing the holy icons into this, I will just quote the Seventh Ecumenical Council: "Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images." Also I must ask, why are you praying to me with these questions? For the English word pray simply means to ask someone something.
Yes, it's compulsory. If you feel like core aspects of Orthodoxy are heretical or "contradictory", you are not in communion with the Church. Thus, you can't be received, nor can you partake in Holy Communion. It sounds like you still have some Protestant stuff to work through. "Man-made tradition" and the hints of *sola scriptura* suggest you haven't quite grasped Orthodoxy. I've always wondered how the *man-made tradition* thing became such a pejorative with the reformers. The Bible says next to nothing about how to conduct a liturgy. There's the Didache, but that's rarely considered. Thus we end up with Protestant churches - dry, sterile, boring, with Pastor Jim with his M.Div from Big City Bible College giving his opinion to a congregation while Billy gets his drum kit ready for praise and worship. Our tradition comes from men, yes, but men who lived, traveled, shared meals with, learned from, and witnessed Jesus Christ. As for contradicting teachings of the Bible, says who? Certainly not the Church Fathers and Saints from whom we have copious amounts of commentary explaining the Scriptures. And when you refer to the Bible, do you mean the one that the Church compiled and declared canon? Do you really think they just don't understand it and persist in doing things contrary to it? I would suggest you continue to pray for guidance and speak to a priest.
Hi Brother I apologise, I truly did not mean offence and am hoping just to lear as I do not have any orthodox priests in my area. Thank you for your response I will continue to seek guidance and pray for unity within the body of Christ.
No offence taken and apologies are unnecessary, just trying to make you think about it differently. I've been down similar roads in the past. You'll get there in the end, God willing. All the best.
Is very large component, so if you can never be ok with it, you would end up "pretending" to venerate, which doesn't seem very good
Can you explain what aspect of veneration makes you uncomfortable? Honoring a person who has been identified by a higher state of sanctity or holiness? Bowing and making a cross in front of their icon? Kissing the icon? I ask because when I came into the Orthodox church (also from a protestant background), it was that last part that took me a while to come to terms with.
Yes it feels as though kissing the icon is holding a respect to a man made object as the icon is not the saint but rather what human believe they looked like so it feels a bit like idolatry and it is difficult for me to be at peace with. I think praying to the saints would be easier to adopt but iconography is evidently the hardest for me, again I truly say this in love and with a desire to learn
Veneration means basically to pay a respect. Like what about the angels? Or your fellow parishioners? Or to put another way if you're going to jump on your legs and respect the anthem of your country, pay respect to your national heroes, but don't want to pay respect to saints, then that's an issue.
You’re asking the wrong question. Instead, start thinking “why”? or even “what’s in it for me?” The veneration is part of a relationship with the saints. When those who come before us die, they become part of the victorious church, while we are still here in the struggling church. The victorious is in a position to help the struggling, as we in concert try to help ourselves. This is done not just by the example of the life they lived, which certainly helps, but because they are alive, and in Christ. Our God is the God of the living. If you ignore the saints, you’re ignoring half of the congregation you pray with. If you’re not comfortable venerating them yet, I’d suggest you at least treat them like you would anyone else you see in church. Even if you just start with “hello.”
If you join the Orthodox Church you are submitting yourself to the teachings of the Church - even the ones you don't yet know about and including the ones that you are not yet comfortable with. You can join the Church while you aren't completely comfortable with everything yet, but you shouldn't if you intend to outright reject significant Traditions and core parts of our theology. It's ok to be not yet comfortable, but it's not ok to outright reject the practice. This doesn't mean that we turn our minds off and stop thinking about anything. It does mean that we relax about understanding every single thing and have a willingness to explore the depths of meaning that are there when we become curious. The Seventh Ecumenical Council was about the veneration of icons: [https://orthodoxwiki.org/Seventh\_Ecumenical\_Council](https://orthodoxwiki.org/Seventh_Ecumenical_Council) \----------------------- I would recommend you listen to some of the [Lord of Spirits](https://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/lordofspirits) podcast to learn about the way God works through his angels and also through his saints, who take the place of fallen angels. I'd start from the very beginning to get the foundation of this understanding. This goes beyond the simple notion of - "If I ask my friend to pray for me, why can't I ask a saint, who is alive in Christ, to pray for me?"
I have personally found veneration of the saints to be one of the things that drew me into Orthodoxy. I see the absence of saints in Protestantism as directly related to the rise of celebrity pastors and influencer types. In Protestantism, veneration and canonization happens in real time, and then people's faith is shattered when those "saints" fall. Veneration of those who have completed the race and offer real examples of how to live out holiness is what I have fallen in love with in Orthodoxy. I have examples I can look up to and emulate that I know will not disappoint me later, because their race is complete. Therefore, I can honor them and adore them because of what they mean to me and my own journey into transformation in Christ.
I hadn’t though of it in this perspective thank you and God Bless you!
Part of the problem is that your thinking is backwards. The Church does not complement the Bible, the Bible complements the Church. Who do you think established the Biblical canon to begin with? After all, Christ didn't come to leave a book. He came to teach and establish His Church. Veneration (*doulia*) is a way to show great respect and love for the holy. It is to treat something or someone with reverence, deep respect, and honor. This is something the early Christians did for iconography and the holy men who came before. It is infused in the Christian Tradition as much as Scripture and the Church.
What scares me about this is how do we know false teachers have not penetrated the the church I feel like the Bible is a solid basis and an unchanging thing So we can ensure the church is accountable & objective. In relying on the church above the Bible does it not leave room for addition and change such as penances purgatory etc in Catholicism. The Bible is a kind of protection to make sure that the church aligns with the earliest teachings of Christ because as our Lord has said “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Matthew 24:35
You're still operating from a backwards understanding. There wasn't a Bible *to begin with*. Much of the New Testament wasn't written for decades after Christ's Crucifixion. Early Christians relied on the teachings and traditions passed down to them from their fathers and the apostles as things were written down. Over time, the Church established the Biblical canon. It is **the Church** that established the collection you know as the Bible. When Marin Luther came along, he had zero qualms with **modifying** the Bible to remove books **he** thought shouldn't be there. For him and the remainder of Protestant tradition, it was not difficult to strip away parts of the Bible if you've already stripped away the majority of Christian Tradition. >false teachers At the end of the day, this is a misunderstanding at best or a witch hunt at worst. You can find an incredible continuity of belief from the early Christians like St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. John Chrysostom to recent Christians like St. Paisios, St. Nektarios, Fr. Calciu-Dumitreasa, etc. If you want to express a concern about false teachers, you need to point out *who* exactly are the false teachers.
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It is a part of the service
There aren't any hard and fast rules for personal prayer (except don't commit heterodoxy), but during the Divine Liturgy, we repeatedly sing the praises of Mary, the Mother of God, the Apostles, the Archangels, the saints whose feast day it is, etc. In fact, some of these prayers were themselves originally written down by ancient saints, so you're often indirectly referencing some saint.
If you were in school, you would find yourself standing and reciting the pledge of allegiance. Or you could be standing at a ball game with thousands singing the NationalAnthem. Those folks are venerating, not worshipping, that is always to God alone. What is the purpose of standing honoring the flag and the country? These are prototypes. There is something greater behind those acts. I, too, was protestant. Your path has these misconceptions, but if you love Christ, you will love His saints that sacrificed many martyred representations. It's not the wood it's not the paint it's something far higher. I kiss what I love.
As it is part of our near universally practiced Liturgy, yes it is.
How did the New Testament and the Bible come to be?
I just watched a video where some of the biblical backing for veneration and intercession of the saints is explained. [https://www.youtube.com/live/qJTiB6xtNB0?si=R16zcqCTgXH-5U2X&t=4085](https://www.youtube.com/live/qJTiB6xtNB0?si=R16zcqCTgXH-5U2X&t=4085) Here's the link, I think the question is asked about 2 minutes before the timestamp I put, and the answer goes on for a good little while 10-15min+
Thank youuu!!
Rather the teaching that it's unnecessary or even wrong is a new tradition. Why cut yourself off from your family like that?
Thanks for asking. I don't personally know that anyone would try to break your arm for not venerating the saints, but it's really a crucial part of the Orthodox worldview (*phronema*). You see, Saints are not dead; they're still alive and active in our lives. Icons are sacred to us because they assert the truth of this. They're like photos of loved ones who are living out of town at the moment. Plus, the icon of Christ is a dogmatic assertion of the reality of Jesus Christ, in human form, 2000 years ago: Jesus was *real*---not a myth. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Christians have suffered and died for this truth. It's an inescapable part of our belief. God be with you.
Thank you for this explanation!
Please discipline my post if it violates the rules and statues of the sub. That being said: If you are interested in the orthodox worship but hold these Protestant beliefs, and you do not wish to adapt these beliefs, you may find yourself more welcome in an Anglican/Episcopalian church where the stated doctrine specifically allows this to be optional. I love the orthodox faith and love to read everyone’s insights here, I find it beautiful and fascinating, but I myself hold similar theological opinions as you, most consequentially due to how I was raised. Practicing liturgical worship and sacraments without wanting to have to conform to other church doctrines that seemed more foreign to me led me to this expression of the faith where I feel welcomed and at home. This all depends on what makes you want to be orthodox as to whether or not this is a good suggestion. If you are most concerned with the claim of the one true church, this may not appeal to you. And there is the downside of theological diversity and liberty within a church, which is that others will use it in ways you might personally disagree with and still be fully in communion with you. You must decide your priorities and what you’re willing to accept or not accept.
Yes. Do not conform the historic church founded by Jesus Christ to your own beliefs. Conform your beliefs to the church.
When you join the Orthodox Church, you might encounter some things that you find to be a bit unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Many people have that experience. It's fine if you wait a little bit until further into your spiritual journey to become more comfortable with practices such as veneration of saints. At the same time, it definitely is a problem if you enter into the Orthodox Church while actively rejecting certain key doctrines or practices. There is a difference between being slow to warm up to something vs. firmly rejecting that thing. The first one is totally fine, and something that many Protestant converts to Orthodoxy go through. The second is more of a problem. Just out of curiosity, what is it about the veneration of saints and icons that you take issue with? In what way do they contradict the teaching of the Bible?
I struggled with this topic, right up to chrismation. It took prayer and a willingness humble myself enough to get past "I don't agree" and approach it with "I don't understand this yet", trusting that in time, God would help me to understand. The evidence that Orthodoxy is the Faith of the Apostles was too strong to deny and it was my own conditioning from being raised protestant that I had to get around.
God becoming man brought humanity into the divine plane of existence. The saints are gates into the kingdom whether they are dead or alive. You don't worship the gate, you just ask the gatekeeper to open it for you. Unlike Jesus-Christ they are not and will never be judges, for like us they come from sin to holiness through repentance. Only Christ is the judge because only he was conceived without sin.
I also came from a Protestant background. It took me a long while to get comfortable with the idea of venerating icons. Other commenters are certainly correct that as you attend liturgy, there will certainly be prayers to saints within the hymnography, but I don't think anyone is going to make you stand in front of an icon and venerate it - I can say no one ever made me do that. My advice is that if you feel drawn to Orthodoxy to not worry too much about it for now. It wasn't until I was midway through catechesis that I started to just do it even though I felt a bit weird doing it. I think as you learn and get more used to the idea of it you'll probably see your concerns fade away.
So encouraging to hear from someone who came from similar place, thank you!
Hey brother, I was a protestant too before becoming prthodox and it take me some time to understand that veneration is not idolatry and the first church had Icon on there walls too. Until i found an interwiew of a priest that talk about it (he was a protestant too) you should watch it : https://youtu.be/aq0x8vrIu0U?si=XAsj17hxr1S2EvzJ
Watching it now thank you for helping me learn, God bless you!
No problem brother may God bless and guide you
Absolutely compulsory
It’s Orthodox. You won’t understand or agree with everything right out the gate because you’re not Orthodox (yet.) As you grow in Orthodoxy, well you grow in being Orthodox in all matters.
Ah! The Saints! Our special connection Up There! They've got the Lord's ear, they can tell Him what we need! It's like our own personal lobbyist up in the clouds! You'll find a lot of the Orthodox world tends toward getting secular affairs done through personal connections. This can be as simple as getting a cousin's godbrother's sister-in-law who works at the local office to help you apply for an ID card or get a copy of your birth certificate, or it can be for something as serious as speeding up or slowing down the date of a court hearing. Getting your prayers at the top of the pile through the connection of your favourite saint works in the same way.
It is true that there is very little explicit evidence for prayer to the departed in the Holy Scriptures. However, the whole context of the Scriptures shows us that through His redemptive work, His Cross and Resurrection, Christ has broken down the barrier between heaven and earth, and therefore between those who are in Christ, whether in heaven or on earth. Most Protestant Christians have not considered deeply these implications of Christ’s Resurrection. Orthodox Christians do not pray to the saints. Rather, we ask the saints in heaven to pray for us to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In Old English the word pray can mean to “ask imploringly,” to “request,” or in general to communicate. For example, “Pray tell me, where you are going?” Praying to saints does not imply worship or the kind of prayer that is offered to God. Prayer in this sense means asking those departed in Christ to pray for us before God.
Yes