§ 74. Ordination

Ordination (χειροτονία) is the name given to that act by which a person enters the hierarchy and receives ecclesiastical power.[1] This act is performed within the altar, and through it divine grace is imparted to the person concerned to perform the holy mysteries. Distinct from this is another act, performed outside the altar, by which the person concerned is not granted the grace to perform the mysteries, but which likewise brings him into the hierarchy. This second act is called elevation (χειροθεσία, σφραγίς, προβολή). By the first, that is, by ordination, men become bishops, presbyters and deacons; by the second, the lower members of the hierarchy are made, or else those who already hold ordination of one or another hierarchical degree are elevated to some particular service of the Church or ecclesiastical dignity.[2]

In order that ordination be fully valid in a juridical respect, it must be performed exactly according to the canonical rules, which are unconditionally binding on all;[3] and once ordination to a given hierarchical degree has been rightly performed, it cannot be repeated again for that same degree[4] (§ 76.1). It must be conferred for each degree in the prescribed succession, from the lower to the higher, and such an interval of time must pass between one degree and the next that the candidate’s ability, and whether he is worthy to be raised to the higher degree, can be examined.[5] The act of ordination itself must be performed publicly in church, in the presence of the people, who are to bear witness that the person concerned is “worthy” of the hierarchical degree to which he is being raised,[6] and this during the liturgy,[7] and usually on a Sunday,[8] so that as many of the people as possible may be present at the act.

Every ordination must be performed with a designation of the person concerned to a definite place of service. The 6th canon of the Council of Chalcedon ordains: “No one is to be ordained without designation (ἀπολελυμένως, absolute)—neither presbyter, nor deacon, nor anyone else of the ecclesiastical order—but the one ordained must be specifically (ἰδικῶς, specialiter) appointed either to a city church, or a village one, or to a martyr’s shrine, or to a monastery. As for those who are ordained without such designation (ἀπολύτως, absolute), the holy council decrees that their appointment be void and that they perform no service whatsoever, to the shame of the one who performed the ordination.”[9] This canonical ordinance is founded on Holy Scripture,[10] and serves to supplement the ordinance of the First Ecumenical Council, according to which every bishop, presbyter and deacon was always held to be ordained for one definite place.[11] The Chalcedonian canon mentioned makes no statement that bishops too must be appointed with designation of a place of service, but this is self-evident already from the bond in which the canons place a bishop with his church, which is regarded as widowed without him.[12] The severity of these canonical ordinances regarding ordination to a definite place is justified by the age in which they were issued, when various heretical clergy caused disorders in the constitution of the Church. In the twelfth century, when the earlier troublesome conditions caused the Church by heretics no longer existed, it was no longer strictly watched that every cleric be ordained by name to one church or another, but this was left, as it is left today, to the discretion of the church authority, to appoint clergy even without a particular service attached to one definite church.[13]

Whoever has entered the priestly order through a lawful ordination can no longer withdraw from it of his own will[14] (§ 76.2).

Footnotes

[4] “A bishop, or presbyter, or deacon who receives from anyone a second ordination, both he and the one who ordained him shall be deposed.” Ap. 68. Ὁ καθ᾽ οἱονδήτινα τρόπον δὶς χειροτονηθεὶς ἐπὶ τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἑνὶ ἱερατικῷ ἀξιώματι, καθαιρεῖται, καὶ οὐ μόνον αὐτὸς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὁ ἐν εἰδήσει τοῦτον χειροτονήσας—thus Balsamon elucidates this canon (Ath. Synt. II, 87). Cf. canon 48 of Carthage: “Semel sanctificatis nulla deinceps manus item consecrans praesumit accedere. Nemo sacros ordines, semel datos, iterum renovet.” Cyprian. de ablut. ped. The canons speak of a regular ordination, i.e., of one performed by lawful Orthodox pastors and according to the established prescriptions, for, according to the same 68th Apostolic canon, an ordination performed by heretics (παρὰ αἱρετικῶν) is void. Such heretical ordination was always repeated when anyone passed from heresy to Orthodoxy and was worthy of holy orders. I Ecum. 19., II Ecum. 4., III Ecum. 5. For the rest, the church had, both with regard to baptism performed in a non-Orthodox communion and likewise with regard to ordination, its own definite and precise rules as to which to recognize and which not to recognize, and it recognized as such, even within its own communion, certain clergymen who had passed over from certain non-Orthodox communions to Orthodoxy and did not ordain them anew. See I Ecum. 8, canons 57 and 68 of Carthage, Basil the Great 1.

[5] See canon 10 of Sardica, canon 17 of the Protodeutera and Balsamon’s commentary on this latter canon (Ath. Synt. II, 702–704). The canons do not determine precisely how much time must pass between one and another degree of ordination, but say simply: ἐν ἑκάστῳ τάγματι τὸν νενομισμένον χρόνον ἀποπληρῶν—canon 17 of the Protodeutera, Ath. Synt. II, 701; ἕξει δὲ ἑκάστου τάγματος ὁ βαθμὸς οὐκ ἐλαχίστου δηλονότι χρόνου μῆκος—canon 10 of Sardica, Ath. Synt. III, 256). But this must be regarded as regulated by a legal command concerning the years which the persons in question must have when they are appointed to the various ranks. Canon 16 of Carthage prescribes that a reader may be appointed when he is of mature age, a subdeacon when he is 20 years old (Trullo 15), a deacon when he is 25 years old (Trullo 14), a presbyter when he is 30 years old (Trullo 14, Neocaesarea 11). Accordingly, five years may be regarded as the time that must pass between one and another degree; although the church has always paid more attention to the spiritual qualities of the person in question than to his years, and we know by way of example that some were raised to the episcopal rank within only a few days straight from the world: Ambrose of Milan, Nectarius of Constantinople, Photius, and others.

[6] See canon 7 of Theophilus of Alexandria and Balsamon’s commentary on this canon (Ath. Synt. IV, 347). Gregory Nazianzen blames Maximus of Constantinople above all because he was not ordained bishop in the church before the people, but in a house where entertainments were held (χοραύλου λυπρὸν οἰκητήριον. Carm. de vita sua). Likewise Socrates (Ecclesiastical History 4, 29) says of Ursinus, who wanted to snatch the high-priestly throne from Damasus in Rome, that he was ordained unlawfully οὐκ ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἀποκρύφῳ τόπῳ τῆς βασιλικῆς καὶ ἐπικαλουμένης Σικίνης. The idea of canon 7 of Theophilus of Alexandria—that the people must testify that the person in question is worthy of the hierarchical rank to which he is being appointed—is also expressed in the Apostolic Constitutions (bk. VIII, ch. 4), and then in today’s rite of ordination, when after the clergy the chanters, in place of the people present, say: ἄξιος, достоинъ

[7] Canon 5 of the Council of Laodicea and the commentary of Zonaras on the same canon. In Theodoret (Hist. eccl. c. 13) it is said that ordination must be performed τῆς μυστικῆς ἱερουργίας προκειμένης. According to Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6, 43) the objection was raised against Novatian that he had been ordained by drunken men ὥρα δεκάτῃ (at the tenth hour by the reckoning of that time, or at 4 o’clock after noon by our reckoning of time)—This 5th Laodicean canon, which speaks of those who belong to the rank of hearers (τῶν ἀκροωμένων), that ordination may not be performed in their presence, has been translated incorrectly in the Kormchaia, and by the text of this canon, in it, ordination would have to be performed concealed from the people. That text reads: “поставленіе на слусѣ людемъ не бываетъ;” and the commentary on the canon says the same: “Молитвы глаголемыя отъ архіерея надъ поставляемыми епископы и презвитеры и діаконы не глаголются велегласно, якоже всѣмъ людемъ слышати, но токмо внутрь сущимъ со архіереомъ святителемъ” (cited ed. I, 73). This entered the Kormchaia from Aristenus (Ath. Synt. III, 175). But that this is based on nothing is seen, first, from the fact that the original full text of the canon says otherwise, and, next, from the fact that this contradicts the old custom, which is preserved even today, that the bishop reads the prayer invoking the Holy Spirit upon the one being ordained (which is the chief moment of ordination) in a loud voice, so that it is precisely all who hear it, and after that prayer both the clergy and the people join their prayer with that of the bishop. Such an understanding of this canon, as it is in the Kormchaia, would contradict also the aforementioned canon 7 of Theophilus of Alexandria, by which the people are to bear witness in church that the one in question is worthy (ἄξιος) of the hierarchal rank, for that testimony on the part of the people would make no sense if ordination had to be performed concealed from the people.

[14] “Those who have once entered the clergy, or have devoted themselves to the monastic life, we command that they may no longer enter either military or secular service; but whoever dares to do this, and does not return, repenting, to that which he has chosen for God’s sake, let him be anathema.” IV Ecum. can. 7. A presbyter, therefore, who leaves his rank and wishes to take upon himself some other service, civil or military, is punished with anathema, the highest degree of ecclesiastical punishment, for deposition (καθαίρεσις) would be no punishment for him at all, since he has himself already relinquished the presbyteral rank. Archim. Ioann, in interpreting this canon, says: “Just as the vows of monasticism, so also the sacramental ordination of a spiritual person to the service of the church are already recognized as irrevocable; for they are chosen voluntarily, performed solemnly, and by their very essence require of a man already a decisive separation from worldly callings and affairs, and the whole and entire dedication of himself to God for his whole life. After this, a man’s return to a worldly calling would be perjury before God, a betrayal of conscience, a degradation of the sacred service to God, and a preferring to it of service to the world” (Course of Church Laws II, 273). Balsamon, in his Commentary on this canon, cites the 7th Novel of Emperor Leo: περὶ τοῦ ὁσάκις ἄν τις ἐκ τοῦ κληρικοῦ σχήματος πρὸς τὸ λαϊκὸν ἀπονοηθείη μεταβαλεῖν, τοῦτον καὶ ἄκοντα πρὸς αὐτὸ πάλιν ἀποκαθίστασθαι (Zachariae, Jus. gr.-rom. III, 78). This novel—that no one may dare to leave the presbyteral rank into which he has entered, and that if he has left it, he must again be returned to it, with the observance of strict penances—is cited as fully valid in the church, besides other canonists of the older period, in the 14th century by Blastares K, 32 (Ath. Synt. VI, 345) and Harmenopoulos, can. cod. III, 2 (Leunclavii Jus gr.-rom. I, 33).

§ 74. Ordination

§ 74. Рукоположење