§ 76. The Effects of Ordination

By ordination the person concerned becomes a full member of the hierarchy, and receives all those rights and privileges that both the canons and the civil laws recognize as belonging to members of the hierarchy, while at the same time taking upon himself all the duties that the priestly order in general, and the particular hierarchical degree in especial, lay upon him.

In keeping with the mysterious significance of ordination, it has, for the person who has received it, particular effects that arise from that significance, and which are precisely set forth in the canons.

1. Whoever has rightly received ordination to a hierarchical degree from the competent bishop cannot seek and obtain a new ordination for that same degree. As with baptism, so ordination too cannot be repeated.[1] “A bishop, presbyter or deacon who receives another ordination from someone (δευτέραν χειροτονίαν) shall be deposed, both he and the one who ordained him,” prescribes the 68th Apostolic canon. Cyprian of Carthage compares ordination with baptism, and argues for the importance of ordination by its significance, just as of baptism, for the one brings a person into the number of the members of the Church, and the other into the number of the chosen servants of the Church, and just as baptism cannot be received a second time, so neither can ordination.[2] Zonaras, in his commentary on the aforesaid Apostolic canon, holds that some may have sought a second ordination after a first one correctly performed because they found some fault in the bishop who had ordained them the first time, or because they held a particular faith in some other bishop, and hoped that if that bishop ordained them anew they would receive a greater grace of the Holy Spirit.[3] The opinion of such persons is mistaken, for an ordination performed by a bishop strictly according to the canonical rules has unconditional validity, even though that bishop may have personal faults and be a sinful man, for, in the words of Chrysostom, God does not ordain all bishops, but through all bishops He works.[4] The canons allow ordination to be repeated only in such a case where it is proven that the person concerned was ordained by some heretical bishop, since heretical ordination has no value whatsoever;[5] just as an ordination obtained through simony likewise has no value whatsoever.[6]

2. Whoever has once lawfully received ordination can never again, of his own will, renounce it. “Those who have once entered the clergy, or have devoted themselves to the monastic life, and who then desire to enter military or civil service, and who, having dared to do so, do not return with repentance to what they chose for God’s sake, let them be anathema”—so prescribes the 7th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council.[7] The severity of this ordinance is explained by the constant conviction of the Christian Church regarding the close bond between a priest and the ecclesiastical service that he has received through a mysterious consecration, which binds a person to the Church for his whole life—for that same consecration he received solemnly, in accordance with his own inner calling, and so he cannot, nor may he, renounce the service that he voluntarily took upon himself and solemnly vowed to keep faithfully unto the grave, and give himself to another service, which is not the service of God and the Church, without incurring anathema, as the same Chalcedonian canon says. This conviction of the Church is founded on divine law. In Holy Scripture we read the commandment that a priest must be faithful (πιστός) to his service until the grave, for this God Himself requires of the stewards of God’s mysteries and the servants of Christ (1 Cor. 4:1–2). It is on divine law, then, that the canons on this subject are founded, canons that condemn the faithlessness to the Church of Christ’s servants and stewards of the divine mysteries, who thereby become transgressors of the oath sworn before God and betrayers of the Church. And the very significance of the priesthood and of the priestly order itself entails a close bond between the Church and its servant who has become such through mysterious consecration. The priestly order would lose that significance were it permitted for anyone to lay it aside at will and with impunity for the sake of worldly reckonings and earthly advantages, or from levity and instability of soul. The canons make no mention at all of such causes as might in some way compel individual clergy to give up the priestly order—for instance, some infirmity of soul that might hinder the successful performance of the priestly service. The canons do not even presuppose such causes, which, for the rest, lose their significance of themselves the moment attention is turned to the words of the Saviour Himself about undertaking the priestly service and about carrying it out (Luke 9:62; 14:28–30). And if anywhere, it is especially in the holy service of the altar that, by reason of its own importance, there is required not only great circumspection and self-examination upon entering that service, but the firmest constancy, even to self-denial and to death itself, in the discharge of priestly duties.[8]

In faithful exposition of the ordinance of Holy Scripture, the canons decisively condemn every priest who leaves the priestly service and enters worldly service. The 62nd Apostolic canon subjects to strict censure the cleric who denies his own name, even if he did so at the greatest peril to his life. The 81st Apostolic canon likewise condemns a bishop or presbyter who devotes himself to worldly service; so too the 53rd Apostolic canon. In these latter two canons, it is true, mention is made of clergy who wish at the same time to perform both priestly and some worldly service, so they do not speak of leaving the priestly order as such, but they nonetheless bring out the principled idea that one who has devoted himself to the priestly service can no longer take up worldly offices. The leaving of the priestly order and entry into worldly service is already discussed by the 7th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council[9], which decrees anathema—the severest ecclesiastical penalty—for those who dare to do this and do not return in repentance to what they chose for God’s sake. But the most resolute and clearest condemnation of the wilful abandonment of the priesthood and the tendering of resignation from priestly service is found in the letter, or 9th canon, of the III Ecumenical Council to the council of Pamphylia concerning Metropolitan Eustathius, who had tendered a written resignation from his office, and this is likewise condemned in the 3rd canon of Cyril of Alexandria. On the first of these, that is, on the 9th canon of the III Ecumenical Council, we have spoken sufficiently in our commentary on that canon.[10] The canon (3rd) of Cyril of Alexandria resolves our question in the clearest and simplest way. He condemns it when some priestly person tenders a resignation from his office, or in other words, when he seeks to be released from priestly service, on account of some threat from certain persons, or out of fear or some necessity; and he adds further that, even were none of this the case, it is nonetheless not consonant with the church institutions that written resignations from priestly service be tendered, “for if they are worthy to serve, let them remain in that service; if they are not worthy to serve, let them not remove themselves by resignation, but rather let their own deeds condemn them (μὴ ἀπὸ παραιτήσεως ἐξίτωσαν, κατεγνωσμένοι δὲ μᾶλλον ἐπὶ πράγμασιν, nec per renuntiationem exeant, sed rebus ipsis potius condemnati).” This is clear and plain: no priestly person may seek to be released from priestly service, whatever the reason urging him to it, for this is contrary to the church institutions (οὔτε τοῖς τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἀρέσκον θεσμοῖς, ecclesiasticae consuetudini non placet); if he is worthy to serve, he must remain in that service; if he is not—that is, if he is guilty of some canonical offense, as the 21st canon of the Trullan council puts it—then the competent ecclesiastical court will judge him and subject him to whatever penalty he deserves, and so, if need be, not only to deposition, as the 62nd Apostolic canon says, but even to anathema, as the 7th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council ordains.[11]

3. Whoever has once been ordained cannot afterward enter into lawful marriage. Canon 6 of the Trullan council decrees: “Neither subdeacon, nor deacon, nor presbyter, after ordination, may enter into the marriage bond; and whoever dares to do so shall be deposed (καθαιρείσθω).” By this canon the ordinance of the 26th Apostolic canon is renewed and proclaimed a general and unalterable law for all time, that no one may enter into marriage who has already once been appointed subdeacon, and still less one who has been ordained deacon or presbyter. Should any of those who have entered the clergy (§ 73) wish to join himself to a wife by lawful marriage, let him do so before ordination (πρὸ τῆς χειροτονίας, antequam ordinetur) to the subdiaconate, says the aforesaid Trullan canon; but afterward he may in no wise do so. This ordinance of the canon law of the Orthodox Church has always held good and must unconditionally hold good always. In the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles is cited the law of 18 October 530 of the Emperor Justinian, in the sense of the 26th Apostolic canon, which speaks of the unconditional prohibition against marrying for one who has already received ordination; such a marriage is held to be unlawful and disgraceful, and children of such a marriage are regarded not as natural (naturales) children, but as wholly unlawful and unworthy of the right of inheritance. By the fact that this law of Justinian was received into the fundamental canonical collection of the Orthodox Church, its full binding force for the Church has been acknowledged. Balsamon, in his scholion on the passage of the Nomocanon mentioned, adds that the marriage was held void and the children illegitimate no matter by what means the clergyman concerned had been released from his order when he then married.[12] Basil the Great, in his 6th canon, condemns as fornication every marriage that a cleric contracts after ordination, and decrees that it must be dissolved. And Zonaras and Balsamon, in their commentaries on this canon of Basil the Great, remark that this must be done all the more promptly, so as to remove every occasion of sin from the clergyman concerned even when he has been deprived of the priestly order[13] — in other words, if a clergyman has been deprived of his order by the competent authority and has thus become a layman, and as such has married, the Church does not regard that marriage of his as lawful, but that same marriage must be dissolved, “so that thereby the heretics be deprived of the occasion,” as Basil the Great says in the canon mentioned, “to reproach us, as though by indulgence we drew someone to ourselves in sin.” This conviction of the Church regarding the prohibition of marriage for clergy of higher orders, even though they have been deprived of the priesthood, is expressed most clearly in Balsamon’s commentary on the 44th canon of Basil the Great, where the marriage of priestly persons is decisively condemned. “To priests,” it is said there, “who have once renounced a second marriage by receiving consecration and vowing themselves to God, it cannot be permitted that, for the sake of carnal pleasure, they renounce the priestly dignity (διὰ τὴν σαρκικὴν ἐπιθυμίαν παραιτήσασθαι τὴν ἱερατικὴν ἀξίαν), trample the vow made to God, and serve carnal pleasure; but even if they cease to belong to the priesthood, it must be forbidden them to defile with a second marriage bodies once consecrated (κωλυθήσονται τὰ ἅπαξ ἱερωθέντα σώματα αὐτῶν δευτέροις γάμοις βεβηλῶσαι, corpora sua quae sunt Deo semel consecrata prohibebuntur secundis nuptiis profanare).” In this sense speaks also a decision of the patriarchal synod of Constantinople of the year 1655.[14] And it could not have spoken otherwise, standing as it does upon the canonical teaching of the Orthodox Church.

4. Ordination binds the priestly person to a particular daily prayer, independent of the liturgy, which he is bound to serve at appointed times. This is conditioned by the mysterious consecration that the person concerned receives through ordination, and by the extraordinary grace he has thereby received. A written ordinance to this effect is contained in the 126th canon of John the Faster and in the 48th canonical prescript of the Patriarch of Constantinople Nikephoros the Confessor. In the fourteenth century the patriarchal synod of Constantinople established the offices (chinoposledovaniya) that priestly persons must read every day, privately, in their own home. The book “On the Duties of Priests” has a particular section that speaks of prayer as a priestly duty, and article 203 in particular provides that priests are bound to fulfil this duty not only publicly in the churches on Sundays and feast days, but also privately in their homes and in other places.[15]

5. In accordance with the mysterious significance of ordination, and in connection with its hierarchical character, it lays upon those who have received it the duty of canonical obedience (ὑπακοὴ κανονική, obedientia canonica). This obedience arises from the canonical relations between the members of the hierarchy, and is conditioned by the seniority of persons on the higher degrees of the hierarchy over those on the lower, and, consequently, by the subordination of these latter to the former (§ 63). Canonical obedience, in its gradation from deacon upward, is regulated by the 13th, 14th and 15th canons of the ninth local council (of Constantinople, 861). The canons speak in particular of obedience to the bishop, whom they designate the spiritual father of the presbyter (ὅς πατήρ ἐστιν τοῦ πρεσβυτέρου κατὰ πνεῦμα).[16] For disobedience to the bishop the canons prescribe the deposition of the priestly persons concerned, branding such conduct on the part of the disobedient as lust for power and self-will.[17] It happened that certain priestly persons refused obedience to their competent bishop on the ground that they were in service at institutions that were not under the bishop’s immediate administration. The 8th canon of the IV Ecumenical Council subjects such persons to canonical penalty, determining that every cleric, without any distinction, must be unconditionally subordinate to his bishop and dependent on him in everything.[18] By the canons, priestly persons are likewise punished for disobedience when a bishop wishes to advance someone to a higher rank in the Church and to raise him from one degree of service to a higher one, and that person opposes this.[19] Balsamon, commenting on this canonical ordinance, sharply condemns such disobedient persons and demonstrates that they must submit to their bishop even when there is no pressing necessity for such an advancement.[20] To justify their disobedience to the bishop, certain priestly persons have alleged as cause certain transgressions of which the bishop was supposedly guilty. The Council of Constantinople of the year 861, by its 13th canon, determines for such a case that the person concerned shall be deprived not only of his hierarchical rank in the Church, but even of the very name of priest, while for the laymen concerned who approve such disobedience to a bishop, the same canon determines that they be wholly cut off from the Church (παντελῶς ἀφοριζέσθωσαν). The only case in which priests may refuse obedience to a bishop at any moment, without waiting for the relevant synod’s decision, is when a bishop begins publicly to preach some heretical teaching in church. In such a case the 15th canon of the aforementioned council says that the priests concerned shall not only not be subject to canonical penalty, but shall on the contrary be worthy of the honor due to the Orthodox, for thereby they have condemned not a bishop, but a pseudo-bishop.[21]