by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
2. Spiritual Priesthood
Apart from Sacred (ordained) priesthood, there is also what is called spiritual priesthood. Orthodox Psychotherapy has a whole section analyzing this important subject. It is explained there that a person who has noetic prayer and prays for the whole world belongs to this spiritual clergy. I write:
“The faithful who have noetic prayer have spiritual priesthood, especially those who have reached such a degree of grace as to pray for the whole world. This is the spiritual liturgy on behalf of the world. The prayers of these people, who sacrifice themselves praying on behalf of all, sustain the world and heal men. Therefore by prayer they become exorcists, driving out the demons which rule in human societies. This the great work of those who pray unceasingly for the whole world.”
According to St Gregory of Sinai, noetic prayer, which is a sign that a person has reached the stage of the illumination of the nous, is “the mystical liturgy of the nous”. When the heart has the grace of the Holy Spirit within it and the nous is free from thoughts, it is a true sanctuary. He writes,
“A true sanctuary, even before the future life, is a heart free from thoughts, made active by the Spirit.”
St Symeon the New Theologian also refers to the issue of spiritual priesthood in one of his letters, as set out by Venizelos Christoforidis in his doctoral thesis titled, Spiritual Fatherhood According to Symeon the New Theologian.
Someone asked St Symeon,
“Is it possible for people to confess their sins to monks who are not Priests?”
St Symeon, in reply to this question, begins by acknowledging that the power to remit sins belongs to Priests, but not to all of them. This power belongs to those Priests who have been called to this ministry by God and have been inwardly reborn.
“The power to loose and bind and celebrate the Eucharist and teach is not given to those who were chosen and ordained only by men. ‘No man taketh this honour unto himself, says the Scripture, ‘but he that is called of God.’ It does not refer to the one who is chosen by men, but the one who is preordained and appointed by God for this purpose.”
On the other hand, those who have risen to high office in the Church by means of money and other unethical means do not have the right to remit sins, because
“they are thieves, stealing from men and through men, and robbers, as the Lord said.”
After this clarification, St Symeon the New Theologian goes on to say that monks who have been regenerated and have received the grace of the Holy Spirit can remit sins. Thus he accepts that,
“It is possible for us to confess to a monk who is not a Priest.”
This “confession” will be discussed later. However, the answer given by St Symeon the New Theologian should be examined in accordance with the question posed to him:
“Is it possible for people to confess their sins to monks who are not Priests?”
The Saint’s answer is positive. He asserts that we can receive remission of sins not just from Priests but from monks.
“In the same way, these things are also attributed to monks. Through confession and the forgiveness of sins granted by [monks] to [penitents], they receive forgiveness.”
Archbishop Basil Krivocheine observes that,
“The teaching of St Symeon the New Theologian on the subject of loosing and binding, as expressed in his Letter ‘On Confession‘, is a development of his views, based on his personal experience of spiritual birth and mystical resurrection, and on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, as well as on the conscious awareness of the acquisition of grace.”
The same author also notes that this viewpoint, which has been forgotten in our era and may surprise and scandalize those who hear it for the first time,
“was never condemned either directly or indirectly by the Church.”
On the contrary, it is cultivated even today in monastic environments, so that
“the ancient manuscripts do not omit the first Letter, which contains this teaching”
from their list of the complete works of St Symeon. There was actually a tendency to emphasize this teaching. For that reason, when doubts were expressed about it about it, they presented the Epistle as the work of St John of Damascus.
“Precisely in order to give it greater authenticity and to defend it from critics, they put it under the protection of someone whose Orthodox prestige was beyond all doubt: St John of Damascus.”
The assertion that monks who have the energy of the All-Holy Spirit within them, and so constitute the true priesthood of divine grace, can forgive sins has to be considered in the light of certain essential presuppositions.
The first presupposition is that they stay within the Church and accept all its teaching and its life. When someone consciously cuts himself off from the Church and enters the ranks of the heretics, spiritual priesthood is out of the question.
Secondly, monks who belong in this category greatly honour and respect members of the Sacred (ordained) priesthood. We see this in many contemporary monks of the Holy Mountain, who revere Priests and Bishops to the point that, even though they are Elders in age and in grace, they nevertheless prostrate themselves to the ground before them and regard it as a special favour to receive their blessing. I once visited the Holy Mountain and stayed in a Monastery for a while, and a certain Elder, who was 90 years old, did not realise that I was a Priest. Some time later, when he was told that I was a Priest not a monk, he was unbelievably upset because he had not been able to show me the respect due to the priesthood and had been deprived of the blessing of the grace of the priesthood. Monks endowed with divine grace revere all the gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows on the Church.
The third presupposition is that, although they belong to this true priesthood, these monks do not celebrate the Mysteries of the Church or administer the Mystery of Confession in the way that Priests do. They do not wear a stole or read the prayer of absolution. They give people guidance and help them to understand more clearly the problems troubling them. They set their nous free and show them the way to deification. This is basically the remission that they offer.
Thank you for posting this!
Can someone please clarify the difference in the “type of remission” that is offered? Other than setting the nous free, I’m not aware of any other kind of remission.
Thanks in advance! Christ is Risen!