Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Orders
Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Orders
The Orthodox Church has three orders of ordained ministry: deacon, priest (presbyter), and bishop. These are not offices of administration but sacramental roles in the life of the…
Question
What is the priesthood in the Orthodox Church?
The Orthodox Church has three orders of ordained ministry: deacon, priest (presbyter), and bishop. These are not offices of administration but sacramental roles in the life of the Church. Each order receives the grace of the Spirit through the laying on of hands by the bishop -- the apostolic succession. The bishop is the fullness of the priesthood; the priest shares in the bishop's priesthood; the deacon serves the bishop and the community.
The bishop is the centre of the local eucharistic community. He is ordained not to an abstract episcopal office but to a specific community -- he is the bishop of a specific place, the shepherd of a specific flock. The presbyters (priests) are his co-workers, sharing his priesthood in the local communities under his care. The deacons are his direct servants, assisting him in the Liturgy and in the service of the community's needs (the original deacons served the widows and poor in Acts 6).
The teaching
Deacon, priest, bishop -- the apostolic structure of the Church
The prayer of episcopal ordination expresses the full theology of the episcopate. The bishop-elect is presented by the people ("Axios!" -- he is worthy), ordained by the laying on of hands of at least two or three bishops (according to the ancient canonical requirement), and receives the Spirit for the fullness of the priestly office. He is then vested, given the Gospel book, and seated on the episcopal throne. The whole sequence is a theology of apostolic succession enacted in a single rite.
The Orthodox Church ordains only men to the priesthood and episcopate. This is not because women are inferior or incapable -- the Theotokos is above the Cherubim, and women have been among the greatest saints and spiritual guides of the tradition. It is because the priest, in the Liturgy, acts as an icon of Christ -- and Christ chose to be male. The iconic representation requires the same gender as the one represented. This is the traditional Orthodox reasoning, held without apology but also without triumphalism.
The priestly office is exercised on earth, but it ranks among heavenly things. And rightly so, for no man, no angel, no archangel ordained it -- but the Spirit Himself established this order.
Chrysostom is defending the dignity of the priesthood against those who treat it as merely human. The priesthood is not a human institution with divine sanction -- it is a divine institution administered through human beings. The Spirit establishes it; the Church receives it. This is why the unworthiness of the individual priest does not invalidate his sacramental acts: he is an instrument of the Spirit, who acts through him regardless of his personal state.
St. John Chrysostom
On the Priesthood III.4 · c. 390 AD
Apostolic Succession
Why the unbroken chain of ordination matters
The apostolic succession is not a bureaucratic technicality. It is the guarantee that the Church's sacraments are genuinely those that Christ instituted and not human inventions. When a bishop lays his hands on the head of a newly ordained priest, he is passing on what he received from his bishop, who received it from his -- back to the apostles who received it from Christ. The chain is the visible sign of the Church's continuity with its origin.