§ 52. The General Composition of the Church

The Church, being a body of which Christ is the head, is composed of all those who have received baptism and who, in common fellowship, strive toward the attainment of the purpose for which the Church was founded.[1] As such, all members of the Church are called brothers, who hold equal honor in God’s justice,[2] all are alike holy,[3] and together they all compose a single priesthood.[4] But just as in every rightly ordered organism each member must know its place and know the duties it must fulfill, in order then to be able to make use of the corresponding rights, so too must this be the case in the ecclesiastical organism, and that, in view of the holiness of the Church herself, in an exemplary manner. Accordingly there must exist an established distinction among the members of the Church, which determines their particular activity, and the rights and duties which they have according to their position in the Church.[5]

According to the fundamental canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church, all members of the Church are divided into two main orders. One is composed of those who, through a special calling of the Holy Spirit upon them, are called to perform ecclesiastical service,[6] namely, to preach the true doctrine, to dispense the grace-bearing gifts, to care for the salvation of all and for the maintenance of the outward order of the Church. The other order is composed of all the rest, who, through this special calling, have not been called to the direct performance of ecclesiastical service, but who through baptism have become full members of the Church and, as such, have the right to participate in everything that concerns the life of the Church. The first are called by the common name clerics,[7] and the second, laity.[8]

The foundation for the distinction among the members of the Church was laid by the Founder of the Church Himself.[9] On the basis of His commandment, the Church then further determined that distinction, establishing the position in the Church of its various members, and the rights and duties belonging to them, as well as the conditions for the proper exercise of the established rights and the corresponding duties.

In the clergy, from the very founding of the Church, three main degrees have been distinguished: episcopal, presbyteral, and diaconal, with their precisely established rights and duties; and these three degrees form the basis of the sacred order, the hierarchy, so that those who have received one of these degrees are called sacred ministers.[10] Later, as the organism of the Church further developed, other, lower degrees were established in the ecclesiastical hierarchy; but those who held these degrees served only as assistants to those who held the higher degrees. These are called church-servers, or clerics in the wider sense.[11] The former receive their degree by ordination within the altar, the latter by cheirothesia outside the altar.[12]

To the laity the Church has granted the position which they held from the very beginning, recognizing them as full members of the Church and participants in ecclesiastical affairs within defined limits.[13]

Beside these full members there existed, in the early times of the Church, also such lay members who enjoyed only partial rights in the Church, namely the catechumens, who, having come over from some non-Christian religion, studied the foundations of Christian doctrine and prepared themselves to enter the Church.[14] In regard to these catechumens the Church prescribed corresponding laws, which today have force only in the missionary work of the Church among pagans or Jews.[15]

From the clergy in general, and likewise from the faithful laity, the monastics are distinguished in the Church.[16] Monasticism arose in relatively later times, and, according to their vows, the Church has regulated their position in the Church by particular laws.[17] Only when a monk has been advanced to some hierarchical degree does he become a member of the clergy, though even then he remains bound by his own particular regulations, which can touch the regular clergy only indirectly.[18]

Footnotes

[7] The words clerics and clergy are derived from Κλῆρος. In Holy Scripture this word designates the calling that someone receives from God, either individually (Eph. 1, 11. 14. Col. 1, 12), or together with many (I Pet. 5, 3), or else the calling that is received in an extraordinary supernatural manner (Acts of the Apostles 1, 17. 25). The word itself means “a lot” (sors), and the application of this word in the church is clarified by Jerome in his epistle to Nepotian: “Ministri Dei propterea vocantur clerici, vel quia de sorte sunt Domini, vel quia ipse Dominus sors, id est, pars clericorum est;” and, considering the first explanation more exact, he again says: “Duo sunt genera christianorum: est autem unum genus, quod mancipatum divino officio et deditum contemplationi et orationi, ab omni strepitu temporalium cessare convenit, ut sunt clerici, et Deo devoti, videlicet conversi. Κλῆρος enim graece, latine sors; inde hujusmodi homines vocantur clerici, id est sorte electi.” Augustine (in Ps. 67) agrees with this and cites it: “quia Mathias sorte electus est, quem primum per Apostolos legimus ordinatum.” In the Theodosian Code (de episc. l. 2.) it is said: “Qui divino cultu ministeria religionis impendunt, clerici vocantur.” Cf. the Nomocanon, tit. I, ch. 31 (Ath. Synt. I, 70 ff. [When we mention “nomocanon”, we always mean “nomocanon in fourteen titles”, and when we intend to mention some other nomocanon, we shall add which one we mean])

[8] In Greek—λαικοί, in Latin—laici; it derives from λαός—people (populus); hence λαικὸς ἄνθρωπος, which is spoken of already in the first century of the Church. Clement of Rome (first Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. 40) writes: Τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ ἴδιαι λειτουργίαι διδόμεναι εἰσι· καὶ τοῖς ἱερεῦσιν ἴδιος ὁ τόπος προσέταχται, καὶ λευίταις ἴδιαι διακονίαι ἐπίκεινται· ὁ λαικὸς ἄνθρωπος τοῖς λαικοῖς προστάγμασιν δέδεται. In another way they are also called simply λαός, or ποιμνίον, or πλῆθος τῶν πιστῶν, and more commonly: ἰδιῶται (Chrysostom, hom. III on Lazarus, hom. 35 on chapter 14 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians) and βιωτικοί, which would most nearly correspond to the expression men of the world, as used among us. Cf. title 13 of the Nomocanon (Ath. Synt. I, 275 ff.).

§ 52. The General Composition of the Church

§ 52. Опћи састав цркве