§ 69. Spiritual Qualities

Of the spiritual qualities which a candidate for the priesthood must possess, the first is faith. He must fully know all the truths of the Christian faith, must understand them in the sense in which the Orthodox Church understands them, and be capable of teaching others in these truths.[1] This faith must be firm and unshakeable, and church authority, for the sake of complete assurance of this, and lest the person waver in that faith, forbids ordaining those who have only recently converted to the Church,[2] and likewise those who were baptized under extraordinary circumstances—for example, during a grave illness—and of whom it may be supposed that they did not have time to fully embrace the Christian faith.[3] For the sake of assurance concerning the full and firm faith of the candidate for the priesthood, the canons require, besides other things, that, for someone to be ordained a priest, all his household must be Orthodox Christians, and, if they are not already so, that they must first all be converted.[4]

Beside faith, the canons require of a candidate for the priesthood full knowledge of everything that is to constitute his future service, and that he be capable of putting that knowledge to good use. Beyond the prior systematic scholarly training which the candidate must have, church authority, in order to be assured of his abilities, subjects him before ordination to a strict examination. The First Ecumenical Council forbids ordaining persons who are not sufficiently trained and examined,[5] and deprives of the right to perform priestly service one who has been made presbyter without examination through the negligence of a bishop.[6] Other councils repeat the same.[7] Byzantine legislation paid particular attention to this, and through its laws gave also state significance to this church ordinance.[8] This assurance of the Church concerning the knowledge of the one to be ordained is obtained through a formal examination to which he is subjected—for a deacon and a presbyter, before a special examining board composed of several senior and experienced priests,[9] and for a bishop, before the episcopal synod.[10] Besides this, it is prescribed for the candidate of the priesthood who is to be ordained that he must first, by oath, testify to his faith and to the fact that he will strictly observe what the Church commands him;[11] whereupon a special confessor must further examine him, and by a special charter testify publicly in church that he has found him worthy of the priesthood;[12] and the bishop who ordains him must, at the very act of ordination, remind him of the chief rules of his future conduct;[13] while for a bishop it is further prescribed that he must publicly confess before all in the church his faith, and take a solemn oath that he will keep the traditions and laws of the Church.[14]

Footnotes

[13] Carth. can. 18.; and Zonaras, in his commentary on this canon, writes: “At an ordination the bishop must point out to those whom he is ordaining the enactments of the council, both with regard to the faith and equally with regard to how they ought to live and perform the ecclesiastical duties, so that, knowing the prescriptions of the fathers, they may act in accord with those prescriptions” (Ath. Synt. III, 353–354). Ordinarily these rules are given to newly ordained presbyters in the form of an episcopal exhortation. Cf. the “Instruction to a Newly Appointed Priest,” which the synod of the Russian church issues, or the “Episcopal Exhortation on the Scroll Given to the Presbyter at Ordination,” which was compiled by the former bishop of Novi Sad Platon, and printed in Vienna in 1857, and in a Serbian translation in the year 1892 in Novi Sad.

§ 69. Spiritual Qualities

§ 69. б) Духовне каквоће