II (10)

The opponents of the glorification of Saint Seraphim that has taken place, as if to justify their refusal to participate in this celebration, pointing to the very act of canonization of the blessed elder—that is, his enrollment among the saints—and (hypocritically or sincerely, God knows) clothing themselves in the garb of religious reverence and humility, like the ancient Pharisees of the Lord’s time, say: “He” (meaning the Most Holy Synod) “blasphemes; for who can forgive sins except God alone?” (Mark 2:8–9). In other words, they deny the right of the Most Holy Synod to perform canonization—but is this denial just?

No. These speeches are just as unjust as the similar discussions that occurred two years ago regarding the excommunication of Count L. Tolstoy from the Church. Such perverse judgments arise now, as they did then, from a lack of clear understanding of the essence of the Orthodox-ecclesiastical act in question and its confusion with the Roman Catholic act in terms of outward ritual. From this perspective the Roman Catholic act of canonization is indeed expressed in the form of something like a judicial verdict, solemnly and authoritatively pronounced by the pope in his own name, and is preceded by a sort of judicial inquiry into the very person to be canonized, in which, after the manner of a civil court, prosecutors and defense attorneys appear as active participants—there is even a devil’s advocate opposing the glorification of the one to be canonized. Nothing resembling this theatrical, solemn, and proudly authoritative form of canonizing saints as practiced by Roman Catholics exists in our Orthodox Church; therefore the charge of blasphemy leveled against the council of our archpastors is inapplicable to it from this angle.

As to its substance, the groundlessness of this charge is admirably set forth by the estimable Archpriest P. A. Smirnov in his recently published booklet “The Glorification of Saints in the Christian Orthodox Church,” in these words: “To think that the reposed holy one of God, up to the time of his glorification, was as yet in need of intercessory prayer, and that the moment had at last arrived when all his sins were finally forgiven and he was being brought forth from his spiritual prison into the heavenly abodes, would be both excessively presumptuous and inconsistent with the circumstances and nature of the matter. Presumptuous, because who can set any bounds to God’s mercy? Who would dare to measure God’s mind and determine his decisions? The prayers of the faithful for reposed fathers and brothers, serving as an expression of love and respect toward them on the part of the faithful, may help to purify their spirit from sinful impurity; but their justification and sanctification is the work of God’s unspeakable and inscrutable mercy toward them and toward us. The Spirit breathes where he wishes, and you hear his voice, but do not know where he comes from or where he goes: so it is with everyone born of the Spirit (John 3:8), said the Lord Savior, and the glorification of God’s holy one is the highest manifestation of the spiritual life of a person reborn by grace, and elevates him to a height inaccessible to our sight. Inconsistent with the circumstances and nature of the matter, because the signs and miracles manifested through the venerated holy one of God customarily precede, and sometimes long before, his glorification in the earthly Church. Before his glorification has been established on earth, he already by the power of the grace given him by God both enlightens those in perplexity, and heals the sick, and delivers from misfortunes and calamities those who come to him in faith.” Therefore “the thought of any judgment by the Church over the saints prior to their glorification must be excluded from the concept of that glorification.”

What then, one will ask, does the enrollment of this or that reposed person—in this case of the devout elder Seraphim—among the saints mean, as declared in the ruling of the Holy Synod of January 29th of the current year? In no case does it mean his elevation from a state of sinfulness, for which one must pray, to the rank of a saint, to whom one must pray; rather it means only the universal ecclesiastical recognition of his holiness, already previously manifested by God himself in signs and miracles that occurred through prayer to him—just as the repeated investigations preceding his enrollment among the saints were not a judicial inquiry into him—a judgment on the holiness or lack of holiness of his life—but only an examination of the authenticity and reliability, and not the spuriousness or illusory character, of testimonies concerning the signs and miracles manifested through God’s holy one. This is clearly expressed in the act of the Holy Synod in these words: “The Holy Synod, having examined in full detail and with every possible care the circumstances of this important matter, found that the numerous cases of gracious help granted through the prayers of Elder Seraphim, having been duly investigated, present no doubt whatever as to their authenticity, and by their nature belong to events that manifest the wonder-working power of God, poured out through the intercession and advocacy of Father Seraphim upon those who with faith and prayer resort in their spiritual and bodily infirmities to his gracious intercession.”

But, it is said, if the Synod’s recognition of the devout elder Seraphim in the ranks of the saints was conditioned upon the miracles that occurred through his prayers upon those who with faith and prayer resorted to his gracious intercession, then it is clear that Elder Seraphim was already a saint before the ruling published by the Holy Synod. In that case, were the memorial services and other funerary prayers offered for the reposed before the nineteenth of July appropriate? And why, until that time, could supplicatory services not be celebrated in his honor? On the other hand, does the cessation of funerary prayer for the reposed from the moment of his glorification not impose, as it were, some limit upon his spiritual perfection, and does it not argue against the endlessness of that perfection, if prayer for him is considered no longer necessary?

These questions are not new; answers to them have long been given in our theological literature. “Is it superfluous to pray for the saints?” asks Metropolitan Filaret in one of his sermons, and answers: “And yet the holy apostle commands us to pray for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). “Is it superfluous to pray for the apostles, who are the dispensers of grace to all the rest and the first among the saints in the Church: ‘God has placed in the Church first apostles’” (1 Cor. 12:28)? “And yet the apostle requires that prayers be offered for him—and by those who are not apostles—and at a time when he had already drawn near to the crown for his apostolic labors. There is a prayer in favor of the very Gospel: that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified, even though the Gospel is itself the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16); can one be afraid of excess in praying for believers?“ And indeed; for who shall be clean of defilement? No one, even if his life upon earth were but a single day (Job 14:4). On the other hand, ”prayer for the departed,“ says Father Archpriest Smirnov in the book cited above on the glorification of saints, ”offered under the guidance of the Church, is not limited to a petition for the forgiveness of sins of the departed, but is at the same time a prayer for his repose—for his being settled in that rest which God himself received after the six days of creation and which, according to the words of the Savior, consists in the work of the Father“ (John 5:17)—in his governance of the world and of men, in his beneficence toward them. ”Imitating the Heavenly Father and the Lord Savior, the saints of God, for whose repose the Church’s prayer is offered, find the sweetness of their rest in the possibility of doing good to the earthly assemblies that raise prayers for them to the throne of the Almighty.“ This is why ”the certainty of the firm faith and good life of the departed ought in no way to diminish prayer for him; on the contrary, it ought to intensify and animate it with hope of being heard. The greater the certainty of the purity and holiness of the departed, the stronger and livelier is the prayer offered for them.“ ”There is reason to think,“ Father Smirnov continues, ”that in the Church prayer for the saints continues even after their glorification, united with the sacred act of the Eucharist.“ ”Prayer for already glorified saints,“ writes Bishop Vissarion in his commentary on the liturgy (specifically on the priest’s prayer after the sanctification of the gifts), ”is grounded in the desire that, for the sake of the bloodless sacrifice, their blessedness may grow more and more, so that those among them who stood at the lower degrees of nearness to God might attain the higher ones.“ From this prayer, as is well known, not even the Most Honorable, More Glorious than the Seraphim, the Theotokos Mary is excluded; and this is because there is and cannot be any end to that perfection which is indicated to all in the Savior’s words: ”Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect“ (Matt. 5:48). ”In this case the Church, as a great and true mother, rises above all—both her earthly and her heaven-translated children—and, resembling the Heavenly Father, embraces in her care both the living and the dead, both the righteous and the unrighteous, uniting all in concord and love.“”

Such, in general and in essence, are the answers of our best theologians to the questions raised.

In the sense of these answers, applied to the present case, it should be entirely comprehensible that prior to the moment of the glorification of Saint Seraphim, truly believing Orthodox Russian people prayed for him with special zeal—with the Church’s prayer, specifically the prayer for the forgiveness of his transgressions and for his repose together with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom—and the closer to the moment of glorification, the more earnestly; but from these very same answers it in no way follows that now, after the ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim, we—both each individually and all together, personally and of our own initiative, so to speak—may pray for him with this same prayer, entering his name in our memorial books for the departed and offering memorial services for him. The liturgical prayer for the saints is offered as a bloodless sacrifice for them, as a washing of them in the blood of the Lamb of God—which is the same blood that our Savior shed on Golgotha—and therefore it is offered only by the celebrant who performs the mystery of the Eucharist, not personally on his own initiative—not by individual will and not by personal authority—but only by the grace of the priesthood, by the power and action of the Holy Spirit with which they are invested in the mystery of holy orders. But we who are not invested with this gracious power of the priesthood, as well as those who are so invested but pray personally on their own behalf, in devout contrition “contemplating in the mystery” (of the Eucharist) “that same death and that same glorification,” participate in this bloodless sacrifice through prayer to the Lord that we may be visited by the prayers of the saints and through their glorification, and consequently through prayer to the saints for their intercession for us before God—prayer for our being joined to their glory, for our union with them, and not for their salvation. Therefore, apart from the aforementioned liturgical-sacramental commemoration, the Church herself does not offer any other so-called funerary services for the saints; and consequently, for Saint Seraphim as well, from the moment of his glorification, neither memorial services nor other similar commemorations are to be and shall not be offered.

If it is entirely in accord with the spirit of Orthodoxy, full of love and freedom, and with the truth in general, that the devotees of Saint Seraphim even during his lifetime sought and received from him both instruction and consolation and healing, and after his repose in their prayerful commemorations began to address him with petitions about their sorrows and needs—then it would be unreasonable and criminal presumption to take upon oneself what the Church herself performs only sacramentally by the Holy Spirit, rather than limiting oneself to earnest prayer for the gracious help of one whose wonder-working power in its authenticity and reliability has been attested not only by human testimonies but by the voice of the Church. But on the other hand, one must call it a violation of truth, contrary to Christian freedom and therefore a criminal coercion, the desire of some persons that priests should perform supplicatory services to Saint Seraphim and bless as icons the images painted of him even before his universal ecclesiastical glorification.

In what way and why? Why, prior to the universal ecclesiastical glorification of Saint Seraphim, could prayerful address to him not be universally obligatory, while after this glorification precisely such a relationship is the only one that can be recognized by the sons of the Orthodox Church as the “canonical” norm for all of us? What is the actual essence of the matter? That is the question to which all the preceding explanations naturally reduce.