The meaning of Mystery

When we say MYSTERY, what do we mean?

The word mystery stems from the Greek word myeo and this in turn from myo, which means "I close my eyes". Therefore mystery is that thing to which the eyes of man are closed, they cannot, that is, see, explain logically the mysterious energies, that are of a divine origin. Therefore mystery is something which goes beyond the human understanding.

This is the broad sense of the word mystery. The Orthodox use this word to express the transmission of the invisible divine grace via visible signs. We call the transmission of the invisible grace via visible signs a mystery, because the way of connecting invisible grace with visible signs is mysterious, incomprehensible, a mystery.

Baptism as a Mystery

Are there such "mysteries" mentioned in the Bible? Are there such ways where the invisible grace is transmitted via visible signs?

Many people believe that baptism is a ceremony, a symbol. It pictures an idea, it symbolizes a concept, but does not transmit the divine grace. For this reason, they claim, it must be done at an older age, in order for the faithful to become conscious of it.

So such people differ from the Orthodox in two things: 1) The denial of Baptism as a mystery and 2) The rejection of infant baptism (infant baptism commonly known as nepiobaptism) or the neglecting of it (neither rejected nor enforced).

As testimony for our arguments, we will use, as always two sources: the holy Bible and the Tradition. And to please most, only the Tradition of the first four centuries AD will be used (however, read Theme One and the additional notes below on Tradition).

A few additional notes on Tradition

First of all, Christ did not say that His Church will exist until the 4th century AD (if we accept the Tradition of the first four centuries only) but "all the days until the end of the eon". Was the Lord deceived then by 1,000 years plus, from the 4th century till the 16th when the Protestants, e.g., showed up?

The Church that the Lord established is both divine and human. She is divine, because her founder is God. She is human, because her substance is humans. As divine, the Church has something inside her that is unchangeable; as human she has something changeable. Unchangeable is her soul (the doctrines and her ethics). This is the (pure) tradition. Changeable is the external expression of worship. In the same way, that is, every organism has something permanent via which it is connected to the past, with ancestry, so that it does not leave the species in which it belongs to, it also has something changeable, because it evolves, it receives new external form and thus is connected with every present, the future; this way, the Church, as a living organism, has ancestry, past, but also evolution, future. The former internal structure is unchangeable, the latter is externally changeable, the external worship. The double constitution of past and future, namely ancestry and evolution, unchangeable and changeable element, is the same for every organism. Only dead bodies, the mummies, have only past, namely only ancestry and no evolution (back to main page).

The Bible tells us about the Lord that He "increased in wisdom and stature" (Luke 2:52), namely that He was evolving naturally like every man. Thus, His hairless boyish form became hairy during puberty, His boyish voice gradually changed to deeper, His small boyish clothes became long male's vestments, and His former title "child Jesus" became later "Lord Jesus". Despite this multiple external evolution of the Lord's body, no internal change took place to the Word of God (*).

Why is it not possible then for the same thing to happen to His Church too, so that the once hairless look of the priests to become now hairy (long hair and beard), the once short clothing to become now long (the vestments), the once simple title "holy" to be changed now into Archimandrite, the once simple liturgical voice of the Lord's Supper to become now liturgical music?

Every organism has its evolution. Only dead bodies, I repeat, have no evolution. The Church evolved externally, but internally she stayed the same.

BAPTISM AS A MYSTERY

We call baptism a mystery because the Divine Grace is transmitted via the visible water, in a depleting sense as regards the remission of sins, and in an additive sense as regards the "completion" by the Divine Grace . Some groups however (e.g. Free Evangelicals) believe that baptism is a symbol and a formality, a model.

Therefore, they consider baptism as a model, whereas the Orthodox as a carrier of the divine grace.

Let us first make the distinction between MODEL and CARRIER.

Model or symbol is that which introduces to something essence and reality. When this reality arrives however, the model and the symbol become unnecessary. And even better: model and symbol is the shadow of a body, essence and reality is the body itself. For example, in the Old Testament, we have many such symbols and models such as the copper snake, circumcision, sacrifices etc. These were all shadows, symbols and models of Christ's. However, when the body arrived, i.e. Christ, these shadows, these models were "ceased".

So let us start by looking at the Holy Bible, to show that baptism is not a model but carrier of the divine grace.

In the Acts 2:38 after Apostle Peter's speech during the Pentecost, when his listeners asked him what it is they must do, Peter replied: "Be baptised each one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins". The ones that posed the question had faith. But the absolution of sins will be given by baptism. Therefore it is clearly shown here that faith was not sufficient for the absolution of sins, they had, i.e., to be baptised as well. Therefore baptism is not a symbol, but a medium, carrier of the remission of sins.

Also, in Acts 8:36-38, where it is mentioned that the eunuch is baptised by Philip, after the teaching took place; his faith was not sufficient, he had to be baptised too. If baptism was a symbol, this was unnecessary after the eunuch's entry to the faith. Therefore baptism here is carrier of the remission of sins and not a model and a symbol.

In Acts 19:1-5, we see that the ones that had been baptised by the symbolic baptism of John's (symbolising repentace), are re-baptised by Apostle Paul. Apostle Paul asks them: "did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?";"We have not even heard what Holy Spirit is", they told him. And Paul asks them: "In what then were you baptised?". From this it is seen, that baptism "gave" Holy Spirit, it was carrier, and not a symbol of the divine grace. This is even more evident in the Acts 10:44-48. There it is mentioned, that the listeners of Apostle Peter's regarding Cornelius, believed in Christ and the Holy Spirit came to them. Even though the Holy Spirit came to them before they had been baptised, baptism was not considered unnecessary, but it was done as well. How essential baptism is! It is a true carrier indespensably connected to the Holy Spirit.

Paul in his epistle to Galatians 3:27 says clearly: "those that were baptised in Christ, were dressed Christ". If baptism is an image, a figurative model and not reality, "wearing" Christ must also be figurative and not real. Since however Christ's clothes were real, baptism must be a real medium of wearing Christ, therefore it is a carrier and not a symbol.

In Romans 6:3-4, the Apostle writes: "those of us that were baptised in Christ, were baptised in his death, buried with him thus via baptism ...". Here the word "via" indicates a medium of a reality, it is not a figurative image. In the same way, that is, Christ entered the grave and left it anew, this way, we are immersed in the water of baptism and leave it reborn. (Please note that the so-called "sprinkling" is only kept for the seriously ill that need be baptised; however, under normal circumstances, full immersion is necessary as this, and other verses, show us clearly: Jesus immersed from the baptism Himself in Jordan, the Bible talks about the bath of baptism etc. etc. Also, remember that the word baptism itself stems from the Greek word baptizo which stands for to immerse, in old koine Greek). The baptism here, too, is carrier of rebirth and not a symbol.

A little point here: many Orthodox converts are told erroneously (even though the Church provides always with Her Economy) that they need only be chrismated when they return to Orthodoxy and not re-baptised. While there is of course only one baptism as we said above, we must not forget however that the priests are the stewards of the mysteries (sacraments) of God and only the priests. It is to them He has entrusted the mysteries of His Church. When we establish below that the (hiereus) priests of the Church of Christ are the Orthodox priests only, then we will be able to deduce immediately that any mystery that was attempted to be conducted by non Orthodox "priests" is not a sacrament. After all, the mystery does not only entail a simple immersion in the water but there is a whole ceremony (telesiourgia) of course, as with every mystery. This telesiourgia is not -I repeat NOT- an external assertion but essential part of the sacrament as it was given to us by the Divine Tradition. Therefore the convert is not getting re-baptised but baptised for the first time, as the previous one was not real baptism as it was not conducted by a steward of the mysteries of God.

Sometimes heterodox converts will be accepted to Orthodoxy through chrismation only, if the typos of the Baptism had been conducted in the name of the Holy Trinity; this, however, is the exception and not the rule. To understand this better, we shall need to discuss Oeconomia ("dispensation") and Akribeia ("exactness") at another part of our website. (Notes in progress). However, the canonical baptism is the one conducted by an Orthodox priest.

In his epistle to Titus 3:5 Paul says: "He saved us via the bath of revival and via renewal by the Holy Spirit". Bath of revival is baptism. How is it possible for the Apostle to call baptism bath of revival were it not a medium and carrier of renovation?

The Lord Himself together with the command He gave His Apostles to baptise "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matth. 28:19), also told Nicodemus that "if one is not born from water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). Therefore, He is talking here about two things necessary: baptism (which means full immersion baptism) and the Holy Spirit.

Let us look now at the tradition of the first four centuries AD I will simply list the names of the Fathers and some appropriate sentences; more can be found on the notes on Baptism.

• St. Irenaeus (b. 140 AD) "renascuntur in Deum infantes ..." (Against heresies II, 22)
• Tertullian (b. 155 AD) "remissionem peccatorum" (Speech on baptism)
• St. Cyprian (b. ~ 200 AD) "remissa peccatorum datur" (Epistle 64, Ch. 2 and 4)
• St. Gregory the Nazianzene (b. 329 AD) c.f. Baptism et al.
• St. Basil the Great (Migne 31, 433)
• St. Gregory of Nyssa (b. 335) (Migne 46, 580)
• St. John Chrysostom (b. 345) (Bareille, Tom. 3, pp. 382-383)

In which part does the Bible oppose infant baptism? You might say; the Lord said "the one that believes and is baptised will be saved"; the infant cannot be baptised, since it cannot believe. But, when the Lord said that, was He referring to the infants or to mature men? He was referring only to mature men, for only they are in a position to believe before being baptised! Faith requires maturity of mind! Therefore it does not even make common sense to think that this was referring to infants.

Admittedly though, direct evidence of infant baptism is not present in the Bible. This omission however is not due to its opposing this mystery or neglecting it as secondary, but because "there are many other things that Jesus did, which are not written in this book" (John 21:25 and 20:30). In the same way a lot of the Lord's acts have not been written in the New Testament, similarly we can say that many acts of the Apostles' were not written in the Acts and the Epistles. One of them is infant baptism. Thus, the implicit hagiographical actions and commands of the Lord and of the Apostles on one hand, and the Tradition of the first four centuries on the other, will be used as testimony in our discussion.

The infants are able to receive blessing, as our Lord showed us by His example (c.f. Matth. 19:14). The Lord, that is, welcomed the children and would place His hands on them, not of course playing with them, but blessing them and thus transmitting to them the grace of the Holy Spirit. From this, it becomes evident that the Lord declared that we ought to become partakers of the divine grace from a young age, from childhood. Why then should the Church deprive them of the grace of baptism, via which absolution of the forefatherly sin is given, since the Lord's love towards children is so clear?

Of course, this action of the Lord's shows the possibility of nepiobaptism but not its certainty. For that we need an explicit command.

We have one.

The Lord declared to Nicodemus explicitly that: "if one is not born from water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3:5). The one that will not be baptised has no hope of salvation. The Lord's declaration is general. It does not only refer to older men but to all. Therefore towards children too, since they too are in need of salvation. The infants therefore carrying the forefatherly sin, if they are not baptised, in order to rid themselves of it, have no hope of salvation. Here is the explicit command of the Lord!

But even the Apostles, too, indirectly, talked about nepiobaptism. Apostle Paul in his 1 Corinth. 1:16 says: "And I baptized also the household of Stephanas" and in Acts 16:33 it is mentioned "And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway". Whole families were baptised, wouldn't they have small children too?!

Apostle Paul in Colos. 2:11-12 explicitly states: "in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead". Therefore circumcision is considered a symbol of baptism. In the same way circumcision was being done at an infant age (8-days old), this way too baptism can be done at a young age.

Is it logical though for the grace of the Holy Spirit to be received via baptism by the infants unconsciously? It is, for what rejects the grace is not passive acceptance but conscious denial, for the Lord declared that "the one that will not believe, will be judged". The child therefore does not enact such a conscious denial. Therefore it is not unworthy of the divine grace.

And something even more logical. The forefatherly sin entered the infant without it realising it. Isn't it logical for it to be erased unconsciously too, without it knowing it, via baptism?

TO RECAP

• The Lord blessed the children, therefore they too must partake of the divine grace.
• The Lord explicitly and generally declares that the one not baptised will not be saved. Small children are in danger of dying and, as partakers in the forefatherly sin, to be deprived of the kingdom of God. Why not be baptised?
• Children against their will and knowledge are partakers of the forefatherly sin. Why shouldn't this sin leave them without their knowing, via baptism?
• Conscious denial repels the divine grace. Children being uncapable of conscious denial, why shouldn't they be cleansed spiritually via baptism?
• Whole families were baptised and therefore small children too.
• Circumcision is a symbol of baptism and was done at an infant age.

So why reject infant baptism?

TRADITION OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES

Tertullian was the first to mention the words god-fathers and god-mothers and wondered why did the innocent age rush to absolution of sins (meaning via baptism). From this we are informed of two things: 1st) that the tradition of infant baptism had become common (c.f. Hippolytus Eccl. Disposition ch. 46 and 64, Cyprian's epistle 64, ch. 2 and 4), and 2nd) that another tradition had started to emerge, that of postponement baptism, postponing it to an older age (the time varied depending on whether you were ill or healthy and whether you were laity or clergy). Tertullian supported this new "trend"; indeed, until 300 AD, postponement baptism was quite popular. However, nepiobaptism, as Origen informs us, was still being performed. So which "trend" is the right one?

Clearly the one having Apostolic succession and continuation. And nepiobaptism is the one having Apostolic succession and not postponement baptism, because postponement baptism appeared for the first time around 150 AD, during Tertullian' times, whereas nepiobaptism is characterised by Origen, who confesses this in his memorandum to Rom. 5:9, as Apostolic Tradition. Irenaeus (150 AD) explicitly states: "renascuntur in Deum infantes parvulos juvenes seniores" (Against heresies II, 22), namely, "reborn in God infants, small children, young people and old people"; the infants how are they reborn if not via baptism? Tertullian himself (150-220 AD) admits that nepiobaptism did exist in his times, even if he is opposed to it, saying "quid festinat innocens actas ad remissionem peccatorum", i.e. "why does the innocent age rush to the remission of sins (via baptism)?".

St. Cyprian (250 AD) supports nepiobaptism; note that he lived during those times when both "trends" existed, the old "trend" of nepiobaptism and the new one of postponement baptism (c.f. notes on nepiobaptism). Similarly, Gregory the Theologian (c.f. nepiobaptism) and Gregory of Nyssa in his speech to those delaying baptism, motion. St. John Chrysostom talks in favour of nepiobaptism (Bareille, tome 7, p. 598).

So, from 150 AD to 300 AD, together with the newly arrived tradition of postponement baptism, the old tradition of nepiobaptism existed and eventually (after 300 AD) became again the predominant tradition and was enforced once and for all.

And I ask you now... which Tradition (postponement baptism or nepiobaptism) is in accordance with the Lord's command "I am with you all the days", nepiobaptism which had Apostolic Tradition (according to Origen), which was still being done during the period 150-300 (by a few or many is irrelevant), and afterwards was enforced once and for all and is continued to date by the Orthodox, or postponement baptism which neither does it have Apostolic Tradition, as Origen admits, nor was it continued afterwards until 1500 AD when the first Protestants showed up?

And if anyone asks "what about the objections to nepiobaptism during the period 150-300 AD?", may I only remind them that there were five books of the New Testament, namely James' epistle, Peter's second epistle, John's second and third epistles and Revelation (c.f. historian Eusebius III, 25), for which there had been objections during the first three centuries. Historian Eusebius calls these books "αντιλεγόμενα" (antilegomena) which means that they had become "the epicentre of argumentation". They were estabished in the 4th century AD So, regarding objections to these books, they do not take these into consideration, but "worry" about objections to nepiobaptism for 150 years (as opposed to 300 years plus)! And in any case, since postponement baptism had no apostolic succession and continuation it could not have been a God-inspired phenomenon.

CONCLUSION

Baptism is a mystery and nepiobaptism as an institution are confessed by both the holy Bible and the Fathers of the first 4 centuries AD

ON DIVINE EUCHARIST AS A SACRIFICE AND ON PRIESTHOOD

Plan: Let us first look at eucharist (thanksgiving). If it is proved that it is a sacrifice then it will be easier to examine priesthood, as priests must exist in order to offer the sacrifice (priests in the hiereus sense).

The Orthodox accept that the divine eucharist is a sacrifice, because the bread and the wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus, who had been sacrificed on Golgotha.

Protestants, however, accept the bread and blood of the Lord's (Sunday) Supper only as symbols of the body and blood of the Lord; therefore to them the divine eucharist is not a sacrifice.

We will base our arguments once again on the holy Bible and the Tradition of the first 4 centuries AD

Let us start by looking at the holy Bible. The Lord and apostle Paul speak explicitly about this mystery. The Lord mentions it twice. Firstly, in the 6th chapter of John's gospel, where He promised to give us the mystery of divine eucharist and secondly, during the last supper, the day before His death, when He gave it. Let us first look at the John 6:52-67.

But before we do so, let us establish first what we mean by SACRIFICE.

The meaning of Sacrifice

Sacrifice has two meanings, the broad and the narrow. In a broad sense, it is the offering or destruction of a thing or living being towards a higher purpose; the narrow sense is when we deal with a living being, animal or man, and, when we offer that for a higher purpose, the body is separated from the blood.

In the broad sense of the word, we have "living sacrifice, the logical worship" (Rom. 12:1), "sacrifice of praise to God ... the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name" (Hebr. 13:15), "but to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased", and in general the "spiritual sacrifices" of Apostle Peter 1:2,5, and the bloodless sacrifices of the Old Testament: flour, incense, oil etc.

Sacrifices in the narrow sense, are the sacrifices of the animals in the Old Testament and the sacrifice of Jesus on Golgotha and nothing else.

The above definition was originally given by an Evangelical, Mr. Makris, back in 1955 (Dial. Conv. of Orth & Evang., 1955). I found his definition concise and to-the-point, hence this is why I have copied it here.

The promise of the Divine Eucharist

The Orthodox agree with the above definition. We will clearly examine if the divine eucharist is sacrifice in the narrow sense i.e. to see if there exists in it separation of body and blood.

Let us come to Jo. 6:52-67. The Lord says during the promise of this mystery: "Amen amen I tell you; if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in you. The one eating my flesh and drinking my blood has eternal life. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. The one eating my flesh and drinking my blood lives in me and I in him".

Here we see the Lord stressing FOUR TIMES that the divine eucharist is a sacrifice, for FOUR TIMES does He mention flesh and blood in separation.

Could these verses have an allegorical meaning? The "eating flesh", some Evangelicals support for example, means "communicate spiritually". So the one eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Lord is the one that has eternal life. The one that does not eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord, i.e. does not communicate spiritually with Him, does not have eternal life.

If we take the "eat" allegorically, based on the Bible, we will see that this has a hostile intention. For example, in Psalms 27:2 it is mentioned "when the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell". In Job 19:22, "why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?". In Micah 3:3 "who also eat the flesh of my people". In all these verses, and in other similar ones (c.f. Ezek. 39:17.18, James 5:3) "eat the flesh" in an allegorical sense has a hostile intention. Therefore applying this allegorical meaning here, we get: The one that does not eat the flesh of man, namely, the one that does not have hostile intention against Jesus Christ, will not have eternal life! And, therefore, the one that eats the flesh of the Son of man, namely, the one that has a hostile intention against Jesus, will have eternal life!!! Do you see where we get if we take "eat" in an allegorical sense?

You might still say that the Lord also says further down that "the flesh benefits no one, the spirit is that which is life-giving"; therefore, we cannot take the facts "in flesh", i.e. word for word, but "spiritually", i.e. allegorically.

But ... did you notice a small detail but of enormous difference, between the "flesh" of this verse and the "flesh" of the aforementioned verse?

The Lord removes the "my" from this verse and does not say "my flesh" but "the flesh", whereas beforehand He repeats the "my" 6 times: "The one eating my body and drinking my blood ...". Therefore here, with the word "flesh", He wants to express something different from the thing He expressed before. By "flesh" He means here, as Chrysostom also tells us, the "thick" (word-for-word) conviction: "my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh" (Gen. 6:3). The Hebrews, that is, thinking word-for-word, thought that the Lord promises to give His flesh in the same way they would buy meat from the butcher's, i.e. flesh and blood away from the Spirit, the soul, bringing no spiritual benefit. Therefore He promises to give flesh, blood and spirit united, i.e. His whole self.

And how can we be convinced that this verse has precisely this meaning?

From the shock of many of the Lord's disciples. The text says: "many thus of his disciples hearing this, said: 'these words are hard, who can hear [= obey] them?'". If the Lord meant spiritual communion and not literal communion of His body and blood, of His self, there would be no reason for his listeners, and his disciples, to be shocked.

But, you might say, couldn't they have been shocked because they mistook the spiritual communion, faith in Christ, as real eating of His body and real drinking of His blood?

The answer is no! Because: a) the "scandalism" happened twice, and b) the Lord insists explicitly on the first "scandalism" ascertaining the real eating interpretation, whereas in the second scandalism, He goes as far as to threaten His twelve apostles!

More specifically:

First scandalism: In verse 6:52 we read: "the Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat?". Here is their first scandalism. The Lord replies straight away "if you don't eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves". If the scandalised listeners had misinterpreted the Lord's words, shouldn't the Lord or at least the evangelist (like he does in other cases c.f. John 2:22. 21:33) explain that the interpretation should not be literal but allegorical?

The Lord however, insisting on His original words, not explaining otherwise (even though He would have known that they had misinterpreted His words), stresses that if they do not eat His flesh, they do not have eternal life. And the Lord's insisting on this matter is so strong, that in the following verses 54-56 He repeats FOUR times that they must eat His flesh and another FOUR times that they must drink His blood, in order to have eternal life.

This explicit and repeated affirmation of the Lord's words to their scandalised ears, don't you think that it wants to declare real eating and drinking of His body and blood?

Second scandalism: John 6:60: "many thus of his disciples, hearing this, said; these words are hard, who can hear them?". The Lord had already made it crystal clear to them via the "the flesh does not benefit anyone, it is the spirit that is life-giving" that He was not giving His body and blood without soul (butcher meat), but giving His whole self. Then He insists on this literal interpretation of the eating of His body. This is evident from the fact that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him"; many of his disciples went behind Him and would not walk with Him, i.e. distanced themselves from Him, immediately on hearing these shocking (to them) words. If the Lord meant spiritual (i.e. symbolical) communion, especially after His clarification, His word should not have been "hard", incomprehensible. The scandalism therefore and the distancing of many of His disciples would not have happened. The actual distancing, however, of many of His disciples, shows that the Lord insists on this literal interpretation.

Apart from the disciples' scandalism, we even have a certain spiritual "wavering" from His twelve Apostles too! We see this here: The Lord, immediately after a lot of His disciples moved away from Him, as the evangelist tells us, "then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?", perhaps you too want to leave, like the others did? In order for the Lord to say this to His apostles, He must have seen a certain amount of spiritual "hesitation" inside them. This "hesitation" is due to the same reason the scandalism and moving away of the other disciples took place. It is as if the Lord told them; I told you that you must eat my flesh and drink my blood; my body is real food and my blood is real drink. If you do not accept this, get out of my sight!

So here is the double scandalism of the Lord's listeners, regarding the eating of His body and His position in both these scandalisms. This position is categorical during the first scandalism and categorical and threatening during the second scandalism of the disciples and the hesitation of His Apostles. What do the above show? Allegory or real assurance regarding the eating of the body of the Lord as food?

The granting of the Divine Eucharist

Let us now turn to the Last Supper. The Lord there, says: "Take, eat; this is my body, drink from this all, this is my blood of the New Testament, the one shed for you for the remission of sins". The element of sacrifice is clear here, because the shedding of blood for others constitutes the essence of every propitiatory sacrifice.

Could the "is" (in the "this is my body") have an allegorical meaning and mean "symbolises"? For example, elsewhere the Lord says "I am the real vine...". He wasn't really the vine so the "I am" means "symbolises".

Answer: No! In no language is the verb "I am" taken to have an allegorical meaning. For example, in the "vine" verse, it is not the "I am" that has the allegorical meaning but the "vine", for the Lord truly was that spiritual vine, whose cultivator was God.

But was it another Lord that gave the mystery and another one the one in the cup and the bread? Were there two Lords? And since the Lord had not been crucified yet, how come He gives now His blood and His body truly, as the Orthodox believe?

The Lord speaks clearly saying: "my body the one being broken for you, my blood the one being shed for you, is being given". These participles are in the present tense, speaking thus about a sacrifice present at that time and therefore talking about a sacrifice before the one on Golgotha. How this happened, however, is incomprehensible to the human mind; it is however a fact, for the Lord states it. After all, what is beyond our logic is not necessarily illogical; this is religion and not philosophical debate. Regarding the question on "two Lords" (one giving and one being given), there is no reason to deny the "second one", since the Lord talks about that too. After all, in the same way we are able to light a lampad from another lampad, without the light of the first one be reduced, this way too, the Lord, the Light of the world, gives Himself to the bread and wine without losing His hypostasis, in other words be one and the same in both circumstances.

And something else. The Lord, presenting the mystery of the divine eucharist, did not say "this bread is my body and this wine is my blood" but vaguely said, only pointing to these things, "THIS is my body and THIS is my blood". He used the pronoun "this" pointing to the bread and wine, because the bread was not bread and the wine was not wine. If He had said, "this bread is" maybe people would have had some right in saying that the bread and wine truly are such, as the Lord names them such. But because the Lord omits to call these "bread and wine" but calls them "body and blood" of His, don't you think, He considered these truly as His body and blood?

Let us look at something else too. The Lord in Luke 22:20 says the following during the Last Supper: "this cup, the New Testament in my blood, (is) the one shed for you". Matthew adds "for the remission of sins" (26:28). Mark speaks similarly in 14:24. The phrase "the New Testament in my blood" is similar to Moses' phrase, who, sprinkling the people with the animals' blood, would say "here is the blood of the Testament" (Exod. 24:8). The "blood" therefore "of the Testament" mentioned by Moses, and "the Testament in my blood" mentioned by the Lord are similar phrases, declaring sacrifice in blood. Thus, in the same way blood sealed the Old Testament, this way the "cup" (i.e. its contents) is the blood of the Lord via whose blood the New Testament will be sealed.

(Please read and digest the above carefully before proceeding to the next paragraph and onwards, the material being slightly harder than normal).

Real? Commemorative?

In his 1 Corinth. 11:25, he says: "This cup, the New Testament, is in my blood; this do, whenever you drink, in my remembrance". (Please note the highlighted-in-yellow punctuation). From this it is evident, you might say, that the cup of the divine eucharist is conducted in remembrance of the Last Supper. Every commemorative thing presupposes lack of the real element, thus the contents of the cup, the wine, are commemorative of the blood of the Lord, and not real blood.

I think, that the Lord separates things here. First, He says what the contents of the cup are and secondly He defines for what purpose its use will be. Regarding the former, He explicitly defines "this cup is the New Testament". He doesn't say "this cup is commemorative of my New Testament established by the shedding of my blood on Golgotha". Therefore the Lord's declaration is clear regarding the contents, that they are the blood of the New Testament. Regarding the latter, its use, He defines it to be done in remembrance of Him. Therefore what something is and what its purpose is are two different things. Bread, for example, is flour, water, fire, dough. Its use is as food. This way it is too, regarding the divine eucharist The eucharist itself is body and blood of the Lord's - here is the contents, what it is - and is given in remembrance of Christ - here is its use.

But, you might say, is it possible for something to be real and commemorative? The thing in remembrance is placed when the real thing is missing. When the real thing is there, however, the commemorative thing is unneeded!

Well, the divine eucharist, being offered in a bloodless manner, i.e. not as meat with blood but as bread with wine, has both characteristics, it is i.e. both real and commemorative. This sacrifice is commemorative, because it consists of bread and wine, and via them it is that we remember the sacrifice on Golgotha; it is real, however, because we are explicitly told so by the Lord, that it is His body and blood.

Hmmm... OK, you could now tell me, though, that Apostle Paul in 1 Corinth. 11:27 calls bread and wine the ingredients of the divine eucharist, saying "wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord". Thus, the body and blood must be taken in an allegorical sense.

Let us then consider this verse in an allegorical sense. We will have the following: "this is my body", namely, this is the symbol of my body, "the one for you", which symbol is for you. Therefore it wasn't the Lord's body that was sacrificed for us, but its symbol! I continue. The one that eats the bread and drinks from the cup is unworthily guilty of the symbol of the body and of the symbol of the blood of the Lord. We are guilty, the ones receiving communion unworthily, not of the Lord's body but of the symbol of His body, therefore not guilty at all! Let us continue. Further down, the Lord says: "for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body". Since he unworthily eats and drinks the body's symbol and not the body itself, how come he eats and drinks in "damnation"? And how come he "cannot discern the body of the Lord", namely cannot discern the other foods from the divine eucharist, which is body of the Lord? The discerning of the divine eucharist from the other foods presupposes that this sacrifice is not common food but the Lord's body.

So, we see that applying symbolic meaning to these verses does alter the text semantically.

Let us now then look at other verses of Apostle Paul's in 1 Corinth. 10:15-21. Apostle Paul, wanting to prove to the Corinthians, that the participation of Christians to idolatric symposia is a scandal, for it is illegal and dangerous, says the following trying to get to their conscience: "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? ". Here we see clearly, that the cup of the divine eucharist is communion, participation to the Lord's body. And he continues: "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils". Because Paul here compares the table of demons, namely the idolothytes (offerings) of the idolaters, with the Lord's table, we are forced to accept that, in the same way the table of the demons was real sacrifice, this way too the Lord's table, the divine eucharist, must also be real sacrifice.

OK OK..I hear some saying...Isn't there a verse that explicitly talks about a sacrifice and an altar of the Christians then?!

There is! In Hebr. 13:10, Paul says explicitly: "we have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle". Since we have an altar (in the sense of sacrificing altar; thysia = sacrifice, the original uses, as always, the word thysiastirion for altar; c.f. koine text), there must also be a Hierateon (clergy) and a sacrifice.

You might say the altar here is Golgotha, and not the Divine Altar, as the Orthodox believe (where the Precious Gifts are sanctified).

But it says "have no right to eat" ... can Golgotha be eaten?!

The "eat" you might say, allegorically, means "I believe".

We established before that the word "eat" taken in an allegorical sense means not of a friendly disposition, faith, but of a hostile one. But let us, for the sake of argument, apply this allegorical meaning here. "Altar" is Golgotha, you say. "Eat" is believe. Therefore the "we have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle" means "we have Golgotha on which the Israelites have no right to believe in"! Doesn't Christ accept the Israelites to faith? Apostle Paul himself who writes these things was a fanatic Israelite and he became not only a Christian but chosen vessel of the Spirit. Do you see where the symbolic interpretation of the verse leads us, once again?

The One sacrifice on Golgotha and the Divine Eucharist

There is another point to be tackled. Apostle Paul in his epistle to Hebrews says "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever ... for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Hebr. 10:12-14). Therefore we have one sacrifice, the one on Golgotha, and not two: one on Golgotha and one on the Divine Altar.

The sacrifice on Golgotha and the one on the Divine Altar is the same. It started on Golgotha and is continued on the Divine Altar. If we compare the Golgotha sacrifice with the divine eucharist's sacrifice, we will see, based on the word of the Scriptures, that both sacrifices are but one, because they are the same in nature, but only differ in the way and the purpose of the offer. They are the same in their nature, because it is the same Christ that is being sacrificed both on Golgotha and on the Divine Altar. They differ, however, in the way, because the nature of the sacrifice on Golgotha is bloody, whereas the nature of the sacrifice on the Divine Altar is bloodless, for it is offered by bread and wine, in a bloodless manner, and not by body and blood, i.e. in a bloody manner. They also differ in their purpose, because the sacrifice on Golgotha was objective, general, for all men. The one on the Divine Altar however is subjective, namely only for those wishing to receive it. Apart from this, the sacrifice on the Divine Altar is relative, for it depends on the one on Golgotha. And its energy too, depending on the preparation of the one receiving the divine eucharist, is again relative.

The above may sound a little confusing so let us look at this from a different angle.

To understand better the concept of the one sacrifice on Golgotha/Divine Altar, let us bring an example. A town's main water supply comes from a reservoir which is situated on a small hill near town. The taps on the streets of this town are the only means of receiving water for drinking, washing clothes etc.

In the same way the tank has water for all men in town and the taps are only for those wishing to receive water, this way too, the sacrifice on Golgotha is the big tank, for everyone, whereas the Divine Altars of the temples in town are the taps, for those wishing to drink the Living water, the Lord's blood. In the same way the water which runs in the tank and also in the taps is the same water, this way the sacrificed Jesus is the same on Golgotha and on the Divine Altar. In the same way though the tank's nature differs from the nature of the taps while they carry the same water, this way too the offer of Christ's sacrifice on Golgotha, which is bloody, differs from the sacrifice on the Divine Altar, which is bloodless. In the same way the tank is for all and the taps for those wishing to receive water, this way the sacrifice on Golgotha is general, objective, whereas that on the Divine Altar is subjective.

Having the above in mind, we are in a position to say that the divine eucharist is a sacrifice that continues and repeats the sacrifice on Golgotha. It continues it, because it is of the same nature as that on Golgotha; it repeats it, because its purpose is subjective as we said, bloodless. The sacrifice on the Divine Altar is a symbol and a reality of the sacrifice on Golgotha. It is a symbol, because the bloodless offering of the bread and wine symbolises the sacrifice on Golgotha. It is a reality, because this symbolism is not imaginary, but really Jesus Christ Himself being sacrificed on Golgotha.

Since the divine eucharist is a sacrifice, we must also have priests to offer the sacrifice (hiereus priests).
 

ON PRIESTHOOD

So then ... do we have priests?

In a broad sense, you might say, we are "a royal priesthood, an holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9), all Christians. There is no special class of priests.

The "royal priesthood" does not cancel specific priesthood because "royal priesthood" mentioned in the New Testament (1 Peter 2:9) is also mentioned in the Old Testament (Exod. 19:6. 23:22). In the same way, that is, the royal priesthood who were the people of God in the Old Testament does not cancel the specific priesthood of the Levite Jews, this way the "royal priesthood" of the New Testament does not cancel the specific priesthood of Christians.

Of course not, you will agree. It does not cancel it, provided it exists though! Does such a specific priesthood exist?

Since it has been proven that the divine eucharist is a sacrifice and since the Lord suggested to His Apostles to "do this ...", we must accept that the Apostles were priests.

Apart from this, Apostle Paul, talking to the Corinthians, as we saw before, told them "the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?", which means that Apostle Paul and others - for he says "which we bless ... which we break" - would be priests.

Of course, in this new light, the notes here regarding priesthood in the Church and on the mystery of Priesthood should suffice. We can finally understand why the Lord commanded His Apostles to "this do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19). They were priests and He thus gave them the power to do what He had done - change bread and wine into His body and blood - namely, to consecrate the Holy Eucharist, which is the highest form of Thanksgiving to God that man has in his power to render.  Indeed, God enjoins man to render this Thanksgiving in the form of the Divine Liturgy. The Holy Eucharist is the repetition of the Last Supper. It is also the self-same Sacrifice on the Cross, repeated sacramentally when offered by the priests during the Divine Liturgy ("repeated" does not mean "begun all over again" but "once again made actual and present to us living today, 2000 years after the Crucifixion").

The Apostles and the first Christians, obeying the Lord's command: "this do in remembrance of me", gathered together every day in private homes and celebrated the Breaking of Bread, or what we know as the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist.

Let us now turn to the Tradition of the first four centuries AD regarding the divine eucharist as a sacrifice and priesthood in the narrow sense (corresponding to the narrow sense of the word "sacrifice" defined above) i.e. as participation in the unique Priesthood of Christ (and therefore, since Christ offered us His Body and Blood with His sacrifice, they offer Christ's Body and Blood by participating sacramentally in His one and unique Sacrifice and are thus called hierees priests complementing the hierees priests of the Old Testament that would offer animal sacrifices; please also note that hiereus is the word used in the Bible for priest when it wants to declare the sacrificing nature of his task, and not simply his rank i.e. deacon or presbyter or apostle).

TRADITION OF FIRST FOUR CENTURIES AD

St. Ignatius (d. 107 AD), in his epistle to the people of Smyrne (ch. 7) writes: "They keep themselves away from the eucharist [means the Docetes] by not confessing that the eucharist is flesh of the Saviour who suffered for our sins".

St. Justin (b. 100 AD) writes: "We offer in His name sacrifice which the Lord commanded be done during the eucharist of the bread and the wine" (Convers. to Tryn., 4).

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (b. 312 AD), in his 22a catechism, writes: "The Visible bread is not bread, even though it tastes like bread, but body of Christ, and the Visible wine is not wine, even though it tastes like wine, but blood of Christ".

Basil the Great (330 AD) in his Liturgy says: "Bless these gifts present here, and raise this bread into the precious body of the Lord and God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and raise [meaning the contents of] this cup into the precious blood of the Lord and God and our Saviour Jesus Christ".

St. John Chrysostom (345 AD) wrote a Eucharistic Liturgy, which we still conduct every Sunday in Orthodox Churches around the globe, when the Eucharist is being offered. His Liturgy, in fact, is a slightly abridged version of the Liturgy of St. Basil (excluding some of the non-sacramental parts esp. those read secretly by the priest). In case some people worry that this Liturgy is not in fact "Apostolic", it having been used since the fifth century AD, I will refer them both to the antilegomena books of the first three centuries AD (see above), but more importantly perhaps, we should remember that St. Basil's Liturgy is itself an abridged version of the non-sacramental parts of St. James' liturgy, the  Brother of our Lord, which was the post-apostolic Liturgy used by the first Christians and is kept intact in our Tradition. So in effect we are still performing the original first-christian service of eucharist that was written by St. James (identical sacramentally, abridged on certain non-sacramental prayers). In fact the actual Liturgy of St. James is still being performed on a few occassions (on his nameday etc.) .

Mainly in order to show the way how the Tradition clarifies and enriches the Bible, I will quote Chrysostom's words on the tradition of the Last Supper regarding the "take, eat" etc. and the "I have made a wish to eat this passover"; he says: "In order not to hear these things, the disciples would say: what then? We drink blood and eat flesh, and were noisy - for when He told them these words (in the 6th chapter of John) many were scandalised - and in order for them not to be shocked, He first did this, drinking His blood, thus bringing them in a calm state [meaning introducing them step-by-step] to the communion of the Mysteries".

St. Cyprian (250 AD) has written many epistles to priests and considers unworthy those that approach the sacrificing altar while accepting earthly powers: "the clerics ought to offer their services only to the altar and to prayer"; and the original: "altari et sacrificiis et orationibus" (epistle I).

Apart from the above, the keeping of the Precious Gifts piously in Churches (Commands of the Apostles 8:13), their transfer by deacons to the sick at home and to captives/prisoners (Justin's Apolog. 1:67, Euseb. Ecclesiast. History 50:44), their delivery to the faithful for receipt at a later date (Cyprian, de lapsis 26. Tertul. , ad uxor II, 5), all the above show that the Precious Gifts are not symbols but body and blood of Christ.

Thus the holy Bible and the Tradition of the first 4 centuries AD admit the divine eucharist as a sacrifice and that priesthood in the narrow sense exists in Church.

ON THE MYSTERY OF DIVINE CONFESSION

Can we sin?

In 1 John 3:6, we read: "whosoever abideth in him sinneth not ...". The one, that is, that stays near Jesus, does not sin. In fact, the same evangelist, in the same epistle in verse 3:9, writes: " Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; ... he cannot sin ... ". The same evangelist in this epistle writes saying: "whosoever is born of God sinneth not" (5:18) . In other words, the one that is reborn, the one staying near Jesus, does not sin.

So clearly, from the verses 1 John 3:6.9 and 5:18 it seems that not only is confession not needed but we cannot even sin. In other words, not only is there no point in discussing the mystic confession of these thematic notes, but also there is no need in considering the "direct" confession (through prayer) that many Protestants still adhere to, for, after all, we cannot sin. Or is that not the case?

The same Bible that tells us the above, however, also tells us in other parts that we (christians) are all sinners and we sin on a daily basis. And more specifically, James says: "My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. For in many things we offend all" (James 3:1-2).

The Lord in His Prayer (Luke 11:2-4; Matth. 6:9-13), explicitly emphasizes that we must say "and forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us" (Luke 11:4) and similarly that "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matth. 6:12). Debtor is the sinner, and debt is the sin (this is clear even by a simple comparison between the two aforementioned verses). Therefore we are all sinners in the eyes of one another, and in the eyes of God.

Also, John, in his first epistle, verses 1:8-10, writes: "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, and just to forgive us our sins. My children I write these to you, in order for you not to sin. And if one does sin, we have a Paraclete, towards the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous".

So how can we say that we do not sin?

You might say, well, the Holy Spirit saying through the Scriptures "and if one does sin, we have a Paraclete" etc., is not talking about real sin, but is placing a hypothetical situation, where the Lord will forgive a sin, if that happens, and the forgiveness is given then without mystic confession.

But that is not the case, however; the Spirit is not talking here about a hypothetical situation of a sin occurring, but about real sin, because in the other verses mentioned above, He talks about facts and not suppositions. For example, "in many things we offend all" says James in 3:2; "forgive us our debts" we say in our Main Prayer. Also, John, in his epistle, writes explicitly: "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves". "If we confess our sins", John writes, "he is faithful and righteous, and just to forgive us our sins". Therefore the Spirit is not talking here about hypothetical sins, but about real ones.

Therefore, we can sin (and, of course, do sin).

And how about the aforementioned Biblical passages that seem to go against the above deduction? Should we reject them?!

No, we will not reject them, because we assume in these notes that the reader accepts the Bible as divinely-inspired. So, what we will do is harmonise these apparently different verses; and to do this, we must understand how sins occur between those staying close to Jesus and those staying away from Him.

Sin

Let us think of the sins of the people staying away from Jesus, as being done continuously and non-stop, like a straight line

A_______________B

whereas the sins of the people staying close to Jesus, not like a straight line, but as dots, instances,

A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .B

more dense or less dense, depending on the spiritual progress of each.

Consequently, the christian, when he is a true member of Christ, he is not of course sinless on one hand, but on the other, he is not sinning continuously, in a straight line, but discretely, in dots. He does not sin continuously, but discretely, because he does not sin by wish, but he sins by weakness. Only the people away from Christ do they sin continuously and non-stop, for they sin by wish; by the wish of the devil and by the wish of their unrepentance. This difference is partly expressed by the Bible too, when it talks about the christian. "If one does sin"; it places the verb sin (amartano)  in the past perfect  (amarti) in order to show the "instantaneous" sins, whereas the "sinneth not", strictly speaking "is not sinning", of the 1 John 5:18 verse (oux amartanei), it places it in the present tense, in order to express that his sin is not continuous. Therefore the sins of the people away from Christ are sins that occur in a continuous straight line, whereas the sins of the people near Christ are not done by wish, in a straight line, but by weakness at certain instances, at intervals.

Therefore, when it says "he is not sinning" it means "he is not sinning continuously but at intervals", not "does not sin at all"!  And when it says "he sins" or "has sinned" etc. it means he has sinned by weakness (discretely). This completely harmonises the apparently "offending" verses 1 John 3:6.9 and 5:18.

Confession?

Now that we have established that christians can (and do) sin, and that the sins occur (or, rather, should occur) discretely, let us consider how these can be wiped clean.

These sins are forgiven, you might say, via the direct communion with Christ, namely via prayer and via public confession (c.f. Acts 19:18). Nowhere in the Bible is there mention about mystic confession. And neither does the Bible, you might say, talk explicitly about such a confession, nor do the fathers of the first four centuries AD

So we must examine, based on the Holy Scriptures and the fathers of the first 4 centuries AD, whether Confession is a mystery or not.

HOLY SCRIPTURES

So then, what is the source of the remission of our sins?

The blood of our Lord, you will say, which cleanses us from every sin (1 John 1:7).

This is the objective, the general right, which we all have, in order to receive the remission of our sins. This is the source, the spring of the living water. How will we, though, receive subjectively this blood, in order for our sins to be forgiven? What is the medium, the vessel with which we will receive this water of life?

Faith and faith alone, you might say; "And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9). If we believe, we will be forgiven.

Is faith the only way for the remission of our sins or the first one?

It must be the only one, you might say, since the cleansing will be real. If there are other ways of cleansing our sins, this means, that faith is not sufficient for the cleansing, that it is insufficient; which is a contradiction.

But the Bible talks about many ways for forgiving our sins. And specifically: The Lord's prayer, with the words "forgive us our sins", talks about remission of sins via prayer. Verse Acts 2:38, with the words of Apostle Peter "be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins", talks about remission of sins via baptism. Also, verses Mark 16:16 (with the words "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved") and Ephes. 5:26 (with the words "that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word") talk about remission of sins via baptism. Verses Luke 11:41 (with the words "but rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you") and Matth. 6:4 (with the words "that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly") talk about remission of sins via charity. Verse Matth. 18:16 (with the words "but if he [your brother] will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established") talks about remission of sins via brotherly understanding and communication. Verse James 5:15 talks about remission of sins via confession to each other; "confess your faults one to another ... that ye may be healed", whereas John's verses 20:22-23 talk about the mystery of confession with the words "... receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (referring to the first confessors, the Apostles), i.e. talks about remission of sins via mystic confession.

Don't you think, you might tell me, that if we suppose that there exist all these different ways of forgiving sins, this means that one cancels out the other one, because each one does not fully forgive the sin, needing one of the other ways to provide one with "full" remission?

This question is very reasonable indeed. How are we going to harmonise all these verses so that they do not cancel each other out, but complement one another?

The various ways of confession

The Orthodox believe that faith and baptism are means of forgiving the sins which we committed before believing to Jesus and before being baptised. The christian, however, as we saw above, will sin again. But because baptism cannot be repeated (due to the words of Ephes. 4:5, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism"), here comes mystic confession , a second baptism indeed, which forgives the sins committed after the baptism. Now, prayer, charity, brotherly communication and understanding, confession to each other, all these are means, via which God will inspire to the faithful person's soul feelings of remorse and repentance, so that he will thus be led to the mystic confession in front of a priest. This is the only way of harmonising the various biblical passages we mentioned above regarding confession of sins.

Hold on a second, you will tell me ... Why can't we place one of the other "confessions" in place of the "second baptism" and we have to place mystic confession? For example, we could have "prayer" as the second baptism and all the rest (including mystic confession) as the means that lead us to prayer.

This is a reasonable point indeed. But first of all, it does not make much common sense. Who would go to a priest and tell him their sins in order to prepare for direct prayer to God? Clearly, he might as well confess his sins directly to God in the first place rather than having to go through the ordeal of going to the priest. It would seem very odd that God would ask us something like this. Of course the ordeal will be a Cross the faithful will carry and its experience will be useful to him later for prayer or when visiting the infirm. Nevertheless, this ordeal of mystic confession is much harder than the other confession methods and it makes sense therefore that it be done last. The athlete warms up before running; he does not run in order to prepare for a warm-up! The pianist practices with scales before he goes to play in a concert. Even though the experience he receives from playing in the concert will help him when he starts practising again with scales, it is not the first step in his work but the last one!

All other confession methods are easier than mystic confession. Even "confession to one another" is easier, for we all have a few friends we can go to and burden them with our problems; again, going to the priest (even if he is a close friend) is much harder. We may hide things from our friends. We may try to find excuses. But we are not supposed to in front of the priest. This is why Christ placed the mystic confession as the last step; because it is the hardest step!

And clearly it makes sense that before we go to visit the priest and confess to God "formally", the priest being of course a mere witness of our confession, we have first repented with tears. It makes sense before we pay a visit to the Church that our heart not be selfish and arrogant but that we have grieved for our previous errors, by direct prayer to God, using our prayer rope to repeat the Jesus Prayer, asking for His forgiveness, or by remembrance of death, and thus of our mortality, with tears in our eyes. It makes sense that we first search our heart to find out what sins weigh it, and grieve for the sins we learn we have discovered, before turning up in front of the priest who will ask us what we have done. If we have not prepared how will we know? We will probably forget most of the things we wanted to say!

It stands to reason that we have warmed our heart first to repentance by giving to the poor and needy, becoming a witness of their hardships before we stand next to the witness of the Church. It is logical that we open up our hearts to our fellow Christians, who will help us carry our Cross by their kind words of love and support, before we go with hope and faith to have our heart warmed by the Light of the world. Often this way we find out our (faithful) friends' problems and we do not just think of our sins and problems but also hear other people's problems, temptations and hardships, and thus learn immensely, in a spiritual sense. We also receive great divine consolation learning we are not alone in this battle but every person is carrying their Cross, each to their ablity. And that they too fall, like we do, but also try to stand up, so shouldn't we also try to stand up too? Or perhaps we can help them stand up if we are stronger.

Since we often forget how much we have, a great way to prepare for obtaining the riches of the merciful God is by first visiting the infirm and needy. We will often be ashamed afterwards that we ever complained and be even more grieved for our sins. For God is not a punisher but loves us all and wants us to understand that to sin is to be away from His love. When we visit the ill at a hospital, and see that they lack health which we have plentiful in our lives, we will be even more ashamed for being so selfish and heartless, "thanking" God by doing sin! And with these divine thoughts we will go prepared, with the aim to promise to God we will do our best not to repeat the same mistakes. It will also help us hate the sins we do, or at least begin to hate them so that our spiritual progress becomes greater over time, and thus our promise to God becomes more reliable also.

Secondly, none of the other ways are exactly the type of mystery we are after (in the orthodox sense of the word). And clearly, the most important one that must take place last has to be the one that has the nature of a mystery. Of course, there is a mystery surrounding everything that helps warm our heart and prepare us for mystic confession, and in their own ways these are also mysteries. Explicit talk on "sacraments of the Church" does not mean that all the other parts of Holy Tradition are not mystical, forming a mystical whole. The enumeration of the sacraments to "seven" is the result of Medieval Roman Catholic scholasticism. Often, Orthodox theologians will talk of "the seven sacraments" because of a Latin influence. However, this is largely a linguistic adherence. This is one reason why we adhere to the word "mystery" for "sacrament" and never push such a point to an extreme. But using the slightly more specific meaning we allocated to a mystery, we note that what we have called "mystic confession" does have the nature of such a mystery because it involves the invisible divine grace ("receive ye the Holy Ghost ...") and a visible element in the Church (the confession of our sins in front of the priest), and thus the grace is transmitted to us through him (since he has the power to "remit" and "retain" sins), cleansing us of our sins.

But the "order of doing things" is not what matters here. What matters is that mystic confession is necessary for our salvation for if we stop in the other confession methods only considering mystic confession of no importance, we have achieved nothing; our sins are not forgiven! And since mystic confession will be useless, even harmful (i.e. sinful), if we ignore the other confession methods and try to approach it with cunning in our heart ("I will pretend I ask for God's forgiveness and mumble a few words so the priest will believe me and give me a blessing"), betraying Christ like Judas did, therefore the other confession methods are in a sense part of this mystery too. It is probably best to think them all as one mystery, one sacrament needed for our salvation.

Also do not confuse yourselves, dear readers, with the "unique mediation" of Jesus, thinking it may somehow contradict mystic confession. The Lord is the only mediator of our salvation, the source for the remission of our sins. Without Him the priest is meaningless; indeed without His unique mediation Christianity is meaningless! Think of the Lord as the electricity that gives us light, Him of course being the Light of the world, and the priest as the switch on the wall that can decide if the electricity (Light) will shine on us or whether the Light will not come to us to see. And in the same way the switch is useless when the light bulb has gone, the priest's presence would be of no use without Christ. (Incidentally, this is also one reason why priests in heresy cannot lay claim to absolution of sins.) The priest is used as a tool, as a steward of the mysteries of God (1 Corinth. 4:1). And furthermore, he is given in John 20:23 specifically the right to "retain" and "remit" sins (depending on whether we go to the confessor to confess our sins or not; and whether we are subjected to a censure by him or not). 

In other words, you will tell me, the Orthodox make all the verses referring to confession of sins after baptism dependant upon John's verse 20:23: "whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them".

That is correct.

This seems reasonable enough; however, this leads one to the following question. Thomas was absent from the gathering of the apostles, when the Lord told them the words of verses John 20:22-23 "... receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ..."; didn't Thomas, as an apostle, receive the authority to forgive sins?

We must remember now that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles during the Pentecost; therefore the Lord's command "receive ye the Holy Ghost" etc. which was given to them the day of His resurrection, is not granting the Holy Spirit, but promise that the Spirit will be granted. In the same way, that is, the mystery of the Divine Eucharist had been promised to be given in John's verses 6:52-67 (see above) but was actually given one year later, during the Last Supper; this is how it happened with the mystery of Confession: the Holy Spirit was promised to be given to them on the day of His resurrection, but was actually given on the day of the Pentecost.

But, you might say, it says here explicitly "receive ye the Holy Ghost", the verb being in the present tense.

Since the Spirit did not descend before the day of the Pentecost, we are in a position to say that Christ via the command "receive ye the Holy Ghost" did not give the Spirit to the apostles immediately, but made them susceptible to the Holy Spirit at that moment. In the same way, that is, the cultivator, in order to water his garden, first ploughs trenches, and via these trenches the water passes and waters the trees, something similar must have happened to the souls of the Apostles with the words "receive ye the Holy Ghost" and they became suitably susceptible to the Holy Spirit. Of course, Thomas was not present during the day of the promise of the granting of the Spirit; he was, however, present during the Pentecost, when the Spirit descended upon the Apostles, therefore he too received the authority to forgive sins.

Note also that the fact that Christ did not appear to the totality of the Apostles initially, agrees more with the fact that He only made a promise to them at the time and only made them "susceptible" to the Holy Spirit.

Thomas was not inferior to the rest in order not to deserve to hear the promise of Christ's granting of the Spirit; after all, the other Disciples told him after Jesus left, and the promise of the Holy Spirit was to be granted to all Apostles in common; Christ's command was meant in general. However Christ clearly wanted to also "test" Thomas' faith, so He appeared to the other Apostles first, in his absence.

Let us however examine what the other Tradition of the Church tells us on this extra-biblical issue.

Thomas' approach to things was always a no-nonsense down-to-earth logical approach. He is known as such among the Christian Tradition. Each Apostle had their own personality and his was more "logical", so to speak. Christ prefers faith with our heart more than with our mind that needs proofs and facts, as He clearly stated to Thomas (and through him to all of us). However Thomas was not condemned (and perhaps excluded on purpose for this from the rest of the Apostles, like some Protestants may erroneously support). God forbid! Christ only said that those who do not see and believe will be blessed. This does not mean that those that see and believed are to be condemned!

St. Thomas was a Holy Apostle, who "used up the faucets of theology by touching the speared side of Christ our God" as the ancient hymnographer chants on the day of his feast (today, in fact, on September 23 2004 with the New Calendar, when I write these words to you, dear reader; may he intercede for all of us).

As soon as he saw the proof, namely Christ's signs, he admitted immediately that this was his Lord and God. Immediately, St. Thomas the Apostle accepted the Truth when he saw Him. So he passed the "test". He had the choice to reject Christ using stubborn arrogance like many "intellectuals" today do, who do not however use their logic with ... logic, because the Devil and their unrepentance will not let them. But Thomas immediately announced the Truth, Christ. And Christ, who clearly "tested" him here, shows to us not only that those who have not seen will be blessed, but also that if we seek Christ, if we seek evidence on Christ, which is totally justified, especially in our troubled times of today, He will give us this evidence. Moreover, Christ clearly showed us here also that if He provides this evidence to those who, like St. Thomas, seek it, then they have no excuses to reject Christ as God, like the aforementioned "intellectuals" do. You want proof? Christ will provide it so that you know He is the Truth. But you must use your logic and common sense in a divine sense, exactly like St. Thomas the Apostle did. (This gift of his he used to great lengths when he later went to India to preach the gospel of Christ.)

After all, isn't this the purpose of these notes?

At any rate, by his admitting Christ as God, in a sense one can say that St. Thomas was already as "susceptible" as any other Apostle, for he was clearly ready to receive the Holy Spirit, as indeed it was granted unto him as well as everyone else on the day of Pentecost.

OK. Another point though, regards the actual meaning of the verse "receive ye the Holy Ghost", regarding the promise of the receipt of the Spirit by the Apostles so they can forgive sins. Some people think this promise is related to public confession, and not to some mystical confession; where the matters are in the hands of the whole of the Church, and not to one person specifically, the Confessor. This can be seen, for example, in the case of the incestuous christian in Corinth. There, some brother did a terrible sin of the flesh. Apostle Paul, starts speaking and says: "when ye are gathered together, and my spirit" (1 Corinth. 5:4 c.f. 5:1-13). Therefore the whole of the Church of Corinth takes part in this matter, and not one person, the confessor.

But indeed! In the case of the incestuous christian in Corinth, the main regulator of the matter is not the whole Church but her leader, apostle Paul. This can be clearly seen from the phrases he uses: "I have judged already", "you are all puffed up", "know ye not", "purge out therefore the old leaven" etc., and he finishes saying "therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person".

One can see the personal nature of the "binding and loosing" even better, when looking at the thing the Lord told apostle Peter in Matth. 16:19 "and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven". When the Lord, during the brotherly understanding and communication in Matth. 18:15-18, suggests "tell it unto the church" and apostle Paul suggests to the Presbyters of the Church of Ephesus to "take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock" (Acts 20:28), don't you think that he gives the primary role to the leaders and not to the totality of the Church?

So therefore we must accept that the Apostles were indeed the main regulators, based on the Lord's command regarding the remission of sins.

This regards the Apostles themselves, you will say though; not necessarily the Orthodox priests! How come the Orthodox priests receive the same right to become such regulators as well?

The Lord told His Apostles "I am with you all the days, until the end of the eon" (Matth. 28:20). The Apostles died. There must have existed successors of the Apostles, in order for the Lord to be with them till the end of the eon (c.f. Theme One). These successors for "all the days" are historically proven to be the Orthodox bishops (here is an example).

Even still, careful examination of the New Testament reveals no case when the Apostles called people near them in order for them to confess their sins.

This happens for three reasons:

• The Apostles were dealing mainly with unbelievers who were returning to Christianity. Their sins, as we said, can only be forgiven via baptism. Regarding their sins that would occur before baptism, confession (in the mystical sense) was not compulsory but optional.
• The zeal of the first Christians was very big and Christians hardly ever committed big sins, after being baptised, in order to need mystic confession.
• In any case, the Holy Scriptures is not a systematic book that contains everything that happened. John writes: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25).

We have though, you might say, the example of Simon the Mage, to whom Apostle Peter did not tell "come and confess your sins to me" but "repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God" (Acts 8:22).

This example is brought forward many a time by people; the answer is, of course, that as we said before, Mystic Confession forgave the sins after baptism which follows faith. Faith is not the only step, but it still has to be the first step! Simon had been baptised yet not truly believed. How could the Apostle then tell him to confess his sins, since he had not yet believed? After all, Simon the Mage replies to John and Peter saying: "Pray ye to the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me" (Acts 8:24). Thus, Simon even acknowledges a certain authority to John and Peter to forgive sins, since he asks for their help.

Finally, you might ask, why is the public confession of the New Testament times (and later on) now done only secretly by the Orthodox?

Apostle Paul says that there are many sins "which are filthy even to mention". For the public decency and in order to avoid a public scandal, for these reasons exactly do we conduct Confession in secret i.e. in front of the confessor only without other members of the Church being present.

If however, my friends, anyone wishes to confess their sins openly in the middle of the Church, the Orthodox accept that! It is not disallowed to confess one's sins in public.

General conclusion

From a hagiographical point of view, the Apostles were the main regulators of the remission of sins. The totality of the faithful people played a secondary role. When the Apostles were alive they were in place of the bishops (in the post-apostolic sense of the word; c.f. Overseers footnote). When the Apostles died, their successors took their place, the bishops, who were the main regulators of the remission of sins.

This can also be seen from the fathers of the Church. Let us now turn our attention to them.

THE FATHERS OF THE FIRST 4 CENTURIES AD AND THE MYSTERY OF CONFESSION

IGNATIUS, BISHOP OF ANTIOCH (30 - 107 AD)

Fr. Ignatius, in his epistle to Philadelphians, writes the following:

"All that repent will be forgiven by the Lord, provided they repent in unity of Christ our God and in front of an assembly of [clerics having as head] a bishop" (To Philadelph. ch. 8).

In other words, the sinners must confess in front of the church, which constitutes a divine unity, which is inspired and united, and in front of the assembly of the clerics, with the bishop as the head of the assembly.

TERTULLIAN (145 - 220 AD)

Tertullian was a teacher of Cyprian, even though he transgressed to Montanism, during the last years of his life. In any case, both Cyprian and Tertullian, constitute two continuous links in the chain of ecclesiastical Tradition and consequently the things witnessed and confirmed by Cyprian do not differ substantially from the things confirmed by his teacher. Regarding our matter, there are not many such testimonies from Tertullian; they imply however, quite clearly, that he too knew the existing status quo in Church regarding Confession. So what does Tertullian say?

"Confession, therefore, is instructive for man, who ought to fall on his knees and become humble. And apart from the sack and the ash, via which he must harden the body, and the grief which he must feel for the sins [he committed], he also ought to fall at the presbyters' feet" (De Poenitentia c, IX Migne 1, 1354); and the original reads "presbyteris advolvi" for the crucial-in-yellow part of this paragraph.

HIPPOLYTUS (170 - 236 AD)

Hippolytus mentions a few things only, however these are wonderfully substantial and important.

First of all, Hippolytus dissociated himself and renounced the bishop of Rome, Kallistos (218 - 222 AD), because, among other things, he, "first among people, invented the forgiveness for the people's lusts, saying that all  [note of translator: it becomes evident from the writing that it means all and not just those who conducted lesser sins] can have their sins forgiven via him" (Hippolytus' Philosophumena 9, 12:5). In other words, Hippolytus testifies here, with the above words, that the bishop of Rome Kallistos, would accept and forgive the sinners; his disagreement with Kallistos was, that the latter would even forgive the big sins of the flesh. The fact that Hippolytus does accept confession as an indespensable part of the episcopal authority and absolution of the sins of the repenting sinners, according to the "all the things you will loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven" etc., can also be seen quite clearly elsewhere.

We have a writing (which was saved in Latin, Ethiopian and Coptic translations only; the original was, however, in Greek), which is known by the title "Egyptian Disposition". This writing was examined independently by Ed Schwartz and Dom R. Hugh Connoly, and they both concluded, without one knowing the results of the other, that it coincides with one of the works of Hippolytus, from the ones mentioned in the list of his writings, which list is inscribed on the statue of Hippolytus that was found. This work of Hippolytus is entitled "Apostolic Tradition". The conclusion of these two scientists has become widely accepted, and in fact the "Egyptian Disposition" is already considered as one of the oldest writings, dating all the way back to the first quarter of the third century. Since Hippolytus died around 236 AD, and the writing entitled "Egyptian Disposition" stems from his works, we must deduce that it was actually written before 236 AD In this disposition, we have a benediction for a bishop's ordination. We read among other things, the following (in this benediction):

"Give, You that knows people's hearts, to this servant of Yours, who I will elect to have him see over your flock, the one that is holy and having You as its High Priest above all people, the strength to officiate faultlessly, day and night, and the strength to plead upon Your face continuously, and to offer You the gifts of Your holy church, and for him to have the power from the spirit of the High Priest in order to loose sins according to Your command, to give lots according to Your ruling, and to loose every binding according to the authority which You gave the apostles". (In Hans Achelis. Die altersten Quellen des oriental Kirschen rechtens. Die Canones Hippolyti, p. 42).

In other words, according to Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, the benediction for the ordination of a bishop and of a presbyter was sought out, in order for the authority to bind and loose be given to the ordained bishops and presbyters, because this was the Lord's command and "the authority which He gave the apostles".

This testimony is priceless for our matter of Confession. Firstly, it is dated in the year 230 AD approximately. Secondly, it comes from the writing of a scholarly and well-established ecclesiastical writer.

ORIGEN (185 - 254 AD)

Origen repeatedly talks about confession in front of the priests and about the authority which they have to bind and loose.

Firstly, Origen reveals that the bishops of his time claimed the authority to bind and loose as successors of the apostles. Interpreting thus the verse "and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven" from Matthew's gospel , he makes  the following trenchant remarks relevant to Confession:

"Because though the bishops claim that they, too, like Peter, have received the keys of the kingdom of heavens, and teach that those [sins] they have condemned here are also condemned in heaven, and those ones they have forgiven here are also forgiven in heaven, we must admit that they are right in saying so, since they have a work similar to that of Peter's, and for them the binding and loosing [of sins] holds , and not even the gates of Hades will be able to overthrow this". (Origen, on Matth., book XII Migne 13, 1013).

Elsewhere in his writings, Origen is even more categorical.  On his 5th speech on Leviticus (In Levit Homil V. 3 Migne 12, 415), Origen observes the following:

"Hence, according to the one Who gave Priesthood [ Hierosyne] to the Church, the clergymen [liturgoe] and  the priests [hierees] can receive the sins of the people and, imitating their Teacher, to give remission of sins" (in latin).

 Elsewhere he says: "Finally, hear the one who is saying: 'I delivered him unto Satan in order for his flesh to be destroyed so that his spirit may be saved'. Do you therefore see that God delivered the transgressors in the hands of the enemies, not only via the Apostles, but also via those who preside over the Church, and have authority not only to loose [sins] but also to bind [them]? The sinners are delivered unto destruction of the flesh, since, due to their sins, they separate themselves from the body of Christ" (In libr Judicum Homila III paragraph 5 Migne 12, 961).

Regarding the hieratical power of the levite priests of the Jews he says in In Homilia X, I, 12, 635:

"If the Israelite sins, namely the lay person, he cannot remove his sin on his own but he seeks the levite being in need of the priest; this is much more so, if he asks something much more than these; this is the work of the archpriest".

The following quotation has been given by a certain Evangelical group as evidence that the Tradition supports in places the direct confession through prayer, implying that the mystic confession is not needed. Of course, this is only because they give people only that part of the passage from Origen's speech that suits their needs (i.e. without the sentence in yellow following the second one).  I shall not name the treacherous people behind such a scheme; may God forgive them and help them return to the right path. I shall only warn the reader to read this material carefully in his own time and to look it up (which is why I give all these references). Knowledge destroys the lies (or the worst lies, the half-truths), and the Truth comes out. This is always our aim here (i.e. that of Orthodoxy): the One Truth.

So, on his 17th speech to Luke, we find the following:

 '' I confessed my sin to you and I did not hide my iniquity. I said: I will confess my iniquity to the Lord and I will attribute it to myself (Psalms 31:5). For if we do this and reveal our sins not only to God, but also to those who are in a position to heal our wounds and our sins, our sins will be cleansed by Him" (In Lucam Homilia XVII leque 13. 1846).

Also: "There also exists a seventh [method of confession] which is harsh [dura] and difficult, the remission of sins via confession; namely, when the sinner washes his bedding with his tears and his tears become for him morning bread and evening bread [i.e. his daily meal, breakfast and supper] and when he is not ashamed to show his sin to the priest and to ask for medicine, according to the saying: 'I said I will confess against myself my iniquity to the Lord: and thou hast forgiven the empiety of my heart' (Psalms 31:5). "

The above verses clearly show that the confession Origen suggests is compulsory and not optional.

CYPRIAN (200 - 258 AD)

St. Cyprian, bishop of Carchedon, talks a lot regarding the application of the hands of the presbyters providing remission of sins, i.e. of Confession.

Here is the first quotation from his writings:

"My brothers, please, let each one of you confess their sins, during the time while his confession can still be accepted, during the time while the granting [note of translator: i.e. of  the cleansing of the sins confessed] and the absolution given via the priests are pleasing to the Lord"   (De lapsis ch. 29, Migne 4, 503).

In another verse, he supports that "that one is the one who is led to confession, namely the one that does not forget the divine commandments, is kindly and patient, and obeys the priests of God, and by means of his deeds, his patience and his justice, he becomes worthy of the Lord" (Epist. XIII, 1 Migne 4, 266). Please note that "worthy of the Lord" is referring to the receipt of the Eucharist (which indicates something we may have not stressed too much beforehand; but indeed, it is a grave sin to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord without first having cleansed ourselves of our iniquities in front of our confessor).

More explicitly on the importance of confessing before receiving the Eucharist, he talks about those who proceed to receive the eucharist without having prepared themselves beforehand accordingly; he observes: "Despised be all them, who [do so] before their sins are atoned for, before the carrying out of the confession, before the cleansing of the conscience via the sacrifice and via the [application of the] hand of the priest [= ante exomologesin facfam ante purgatam conscientiam sacrificio et manu sacerdotis] ...  violence is done  against the body and blood of the Lord" (De lapsis XVI Migne 4, 403). The meaning is that not only do we not unite to our Lord via the eucharist in this case, but we also commit an act of violence against His body, in other words we do a terrible sin!

Similarly, we read elsewhere: "Those [who do so] before confession is conducted, before they confess the most grave and  supreme sin, before the hand of the bishop and clergy is placed on them regarding confession [= ante manum ab episcopo et clero in poenitantiam impositam] ..." (Epist X. 1. Migne 4, 260).

And elsewhere even more clearly: "Regarding the lesser sins, the sinners are led to confession in a reasonable amount of time and, in accordance with the pedagogical directions, they arrive to confession and via the application of the hands of the bishop and of the clergy they receive the right to communicate [= ad exomologesim veniant et per manus impositionem episcopi et cleri jus communicationis accipiant] ... those however who communicate before having repented, before having confessed, before the hand of the bishop and of the clergy is applied on them, they commit a most grave sin" (Epist IX, 2 Migne 4, 257-258).

Therefore Cyprian talks very clearly regarding confession in front of the priest.
 

GREGORY THE MIRACLE-WORKER (205 - 265 AD)

St. Gregory the Miracle-worker does not speak directly on confession in front of the priests, however he certifies indirectly the hieratical authority, for (himself a bishop) defines censures for the sinners.

Thus, we see in his canonical epistle (i.e. in the one defining canons - rules) him talk about transgressors that  must not be allowed to receive yet the benedictions [of confession] (canon 6) and about others, that they must not be allowed to "attend the hearing [of the eucharist]" (canon 8), and finally about those who must "be classified once again among those who have fallen into [sin]" (canon 9) and thus need be counted among those who have "fallen into [sin]" (canon 10). Defining more clearly the various degrees of the censures, to which the "fallen" faithful ones had to be subjected to, depending on what their deeds had been, he writes that those that commited grave sins must stand outside the entrance gate of the temple and plead the faithful who enter the temple to pray for them. On other occassions (lesser sins) it is allowed for the sinner to enter the temple by the gate, but to stay inside the narthex and leave the church together with the catechumens. On a less strict censure, the transgressor is allowed to stay inside the temple until the end of the liturgy, without leaving when the catechumens leave (i.e. something like a reproval).

Here, as we have already mentioned above, Gregory does not speak explicitly about confession in front of the confessor priests; he considers however imperative the creation of censures, according to the authority that has been given to him as a bishop, and he leaves such issues as is the extension of the period of the censure during which the sinning christians must be subjected to it, or the transfer of one censure to another one, on the discretion of the various bishops, since, the one to whom he is addressing the above, is a cleric, whom he calls a "most holy pope" [as is known, the above is just a title of respect towards a high rank cleric].

BASIL THE GREAT (229 - 379 AD)

Basil the Great talks many a time on the subject of Confession within the depths of the rich literature he has left behind.

Thus, this great father of Christianity has written among other things three canonical epistles to Amphilochius, bishop of Ikonion, which have been included among the canonical dispositions of the Orthodox church, and from him it is that the first 84 canons of the holy father were written. If we glance through them, we will easily see censures being defined for the christians repenting greater or lesser sins, depending on what their transgression was, and also the term e3agoreysis [=redemption] is used to denote the mystic confession; also, instructions on the use of the censures are given to the ones having authority to bind and loose sins. Thus, in his 182nd epistle to Amphilochius, canon 7, we read: "To those that in 30 years' time repented their filthiness which they had committed unwittingly, one must not doubt that absolution should be given to them. For their ignorance and spontaneous arrival at redemption, makes them worthy of forgiveness. Give, thus, an order in order for them to become accepted in the realms of the Church, since they shed so many tears that compassion was drawn to them".

In the above verses, we have an example of a long-term censure and repenting christians wittingly subjected to it, confessing their sins. Clearly, the term redemption is used on the mystic confession. And the repenting people are freed from this censure by the bishop ("order", asking this of bishop Amphilochius) who is drawn by their tears and moved by their repentance into compassion.

But in the 74th canon too, we read: "If everyone who fell to the above sins arrives at redemption, it will not be blameworthy at all for the one to whom God's charity has allowed to bind and loose [sins] to examine the attitude of the sinner and to reduce the time of his censure [= epitimion]".

Things are clear and straightforward here! Censures, confession, belief in binding and loosing sins, ability to reduce the time of the censure due to God's charity ... What else do we need? Here is Orthodox Confession with all its elements!

DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA (247 AD)

In an epistle written by Dionysius of Alexandria to Phabius of Rome, saved by historian Eusebius, Dionysius writes about someone called Serapion, who, during the persecutions, had converted separating thus himself from Christianity. He was thus subjected to a very strict censure, namely abstinence from the eucharist for the rest of his life. This man, Serapion, finally received the holy eucharist on his deathbed; "according to a command given by me", Dionysius writes, "if those who were moribund pleaded [for forgiveness], and especially if it was the case that beforehand [i.e. when they were still healthy] they had pleaded for forgiveness, absolution of their sins was to be given, so that they leave [this world] free from the weight of sin [= afies0ai], in the hope that they will find eternal life" (Eusebius eccl. 706, VII, 44). In other words, what we have here is confession of the established order of the Apostolic Commands. The sinning christians were subjected to a censure. The censure was initially defined by a command given by the bishop ("according to a command given by me") and was released (loosed) by a command given by the bishop again.

With the above, the hieratical authority is confirmed once again.

SAINT AMBROSIUS (333 AD)

It is well-known that St. Ambrosius, bishop of Mediolana, using the episcopal authority to bind and loose, would not allow emperor Theodosius to communicate the sacrament of eucharist, due to him being responsible for the murder of thousands of citizens of Thessalonica. Bishop Ambrosius also writes the following:

"The Church rightfully lays claim to this right [of the binding and loosing of the remission of sins], who has the real priests. It is not possible for heresy to lay claim to this right, who does not have the priests of God. Let her not herself make decisions to lay claim to this right, for, since she does not have priests, she must not lay claim to the hieratical authority" (De poeniut 1, 2).

In short, Ambrosius preaches that the heretics, not having real priesthood, cannot give absolution of sins. And he certifies that absolution of sins and hieratical authority are inter-dependent and inseparable.

JOHN CHRYSOSTOM (344 - 407 AD)

John Chrysostom, you might say, says that he wants one's confession "amartiron" i.e. without a witness, i.e. without some confessor being present, and thus he supports the idea that confession must only be done directly to God. Here are the words he uses that might lead you to the above opinion: "Amartiron let the judges be. God will see you alone to confession" and He "looses the sins from the confession" (Migne 50, 658). "Have you sinned? Tell God" (Migne 49, 285). "For what thing is it that you are ashamed of and you turn red with embarassment? Tell me your sins. For you must not tell them neither to a man, in case he accuses you or laughs at you, nor to some co-servant of yours, in case he chides you. To the ruler, to the guardian, to the philanthropist, to the doctor, you show your wound ... I don't force you, the Lord says, to stand amidst the theatre in order to be heard by many and for your deeds to become known by many. To me tell your sin only in private" (Migne 48, 10, 12). Therefore Chrysostom wants confession to be done in private, only to God.

But there are other speeches of Chrysostom's that suggest divine confession must be conducted. In his 3rd speech on Priesthood, Chrysostom writes: "Those on earth have the ones to whom it was allowed for them to participate in the doings in heaven and received such an authority, which [authority] was not given neither to angels nor to archangels by God. For He did not say to them 'those things you will bind on earth will be bound in heaven'... This binding touches the soul and reaches the heavens and the things priests do here on earth, God certifies, and the opinion of the servants is affirmed by the prelate". In his 86th speech, this holy Father says even more emphatically: "Great is the value of the priests. Those whose sins you loose, He says, they are loosed. Neither angels nor archangels can do something like that but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit determine everything ... And the priest lends his tongue and his hand [to the Holy Trinity, so that the sins of the people can thus be forgiven]". Here is what the holy Father believes regarding confession in front of the priests. The priests give absolution of sins, something that neither the angels nor the archangels are in a position to do. And the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, receive the tongue and the hand of the priest and forgive the sins.

So how will we harmonise the things confessed by Chrysostom in the second paragraph with the apparently different opinions of the first paragraph?

One possibility is the following (supported by some Evangelicals): Chrysostom served as a preacher in Antioch until 398 AD, when he became archbishop of Constantinople, succeeding Nektarius. In 391 AD however, when Nektarius was still archbishop, the following scandal happens in Constantinople: some priest reveals the secret confessed by some lay person. Nektarius, saddenned by this, abolishes mystic confession and lets people henceforth confess their sins only directly to God. Chrysostom thus has two opinions on the subject of confession: one before 391 AD when he was a preacher priest in Antioch and the confession in front of a presbyter was  supported, and one after 391 AD, after the scandal happened, when he was archbishop of Constantinople. In the first case he supports priests, that they have power to forgive sins, following Confession. In the second case he wants confession to be "amartiron", only in front of God. We could take the second opinion to be the last opinion Chrysostom had; therefore this is the one we should have, the corrected belief.

But these Evangelicals that mentioned the above, are in the wrong for they confuse the dates from Chrysostom's speeches.

In particular, the first passage from his 86th speech on John's gospel in which the confession in front of a priest is emphasised, was indeed spoken in Antioch but AFTER 394 or 395 AD, i.e. after 391 AD when the scandal happened. Therefore, the fact that Chrysostom insists in his opinion on the value of the priests, after the scandal came out to the public, means that the holy Father had the same opinion after 391 AD too. In this passage he writes, as we already saw above: "Great is the value of the priests. Those whose sins you loose, He says, they are loosed. Neither angels nor archangels can do something like that but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit determine everything ... And the priest lends his tongue and his hand".

In another speech of his on John's gospel, spoken in 394 or 395 AD, he writes the following: "Those to whom the divine energy has been given to, we honour them. For great is the value of the priests. Those whose sins they loose, He says, they are loosed. And even if the life of the priests is particularly scandalous [favloe = evil, provocative], you will not be harmed at all and you will lose nothing from the grace that God has given to the priests, for those things the priest is not worthy to do, are replenished by the Holy Spirit. Neither is the man whose heart is clean going to lose his cleanliness [by coming into contact with the priest], for everything is done by the divine grace".

But in his 14th speech too, on 2 Corinthians, which was spoken in Constantinople, Chrysostom says: "This way do with the sinners. Bind [with censures] the one who committed the fault until he is atoned for by God. If you leave him unbound [i.e. without censures] then he will be bound to God's wrath. If I bind him, then God does not bind him to His wrath. If however I don't do it, then the uncracked [which cannot be loosed] bonds [towards God's wrath] stay with him". Here is the hieratical authority to bind and loose, when Chrysostom was archbishop of Constantinople.

And the verses from Chrysostom's speeches which talk about confession in front of God? How will they be harmonised? Will they  be rejected?

Careful examination of these verses shows that they do not speak explicitly about abolition of Confession in front of the priests. They ask for the confession to be "amartiron" from a man; a man who will accuse you though, and from a co-servant who will chide you! They want the confession to be "amartiron" from many witnesses in some theatre and, as he explicitly says: "I don't force you, the Lord says, to stand amidst the theatre in order to be heard by many and for your deeds to become known by many". These words do not contradict at all the mystic confession in front of the priest, for they refer to different situations: when someone decides to let his sins become known by ordinary people, men in general or co-servants i.e. other lay people, christian brothers, who are spiteful and might harm him thus in more than one ways [of course it is not disallowed to confess our sins to our christian brothers who we know are not like the people described above; this is one of the confession methods discussed above, that will bring feelings of remorse in our soul so that we can thus be led to mystic confession, the seventh and hardest of the confession methods].

And when he says: "To me tell your sin only in private"? How will we harmonise this?

To examine this verse it is best if we write it out: "Emoi to amarthma eipe monw kat' idian" [= to me, the sin, said (he), only/alone, in, private].

The word "monw" [=only, alone] is not opposed to the priest, in order for us to deduce that it constitutes confession ONLY to God and not to the priest. The "monw" is opposed, based on the meaning derived from the other verses of the passage, to the co-servant who accuses him, to the man who laughs at him, and to the witnesses in the theatre. Read carefully the words of the holy Father! Therefore, since the "monw" is not opposed to the priest but to other everyday people, we are allowed to confess our sins both in front of God via prayer and in front of the priest via Confession. Confession does not abolish prayer and prayer does not abolish Confession!

OK. The above clearly harmonises all "offending" verses from Chrysostom's speeches. However, one notices that the abolition of Confession lasted for 100 years after that scandal that happened when Nektarius was archbishop of Constantinople. Will this fact be ignored? This would oppose Apostolic continuation and therefore Confession could not be a God-inspired phenomenon, let alone a mystery!

But even if we suppose for a minute that our holy Father Chrysostom followed Nektarius' opinion (which he didn't), so what? It must be emphasised that from an Orthodox point of view, it is not important what was supported by one or more bishops, or even by one particular church (in a town or even a country). For, even if the institution of confession in front of a presbyter was abolished by one bishop and in one specific church, historian Sozomenus explicitly tells us that  this institution which was abolished by Nektarius "is kept zealously in the western churches, and in particular in the church of the Romans". But in the east there were also oppositions regarding the abolition of this institution, for historians Socrates and Sozomenus do not agree with this innovation (which, incidentally, could not have been a God-inspired phenomenon being a - dogmatic - innovation!). For this reason, 100 years later this institution became prevalent once again in all eastern churches.

Except for the above, it would be worthy to note that both Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Honorius, the Pope of Rome, transgressed to the heresy of monotheletism. In the correct (orthodox) belief on two thelemata in Christ's teaching, stayed essentially only two monks, Maximus the Confessor, who died in exile, and Sophronius, the later Patriarch of Jerusalem. And momentarily it appeared as if the whole of the Church fell into fallacy, but indeed these two monks won in the end and destroyed the delusion. Who would today be in a position to say, then, that since monotheletism was at some point being taught almost to the whole of the Church, that therefore the teaching on two thelemata in Christ is erroneous? Also, in 476 AD, Patriarch Timotheus the Aelurus published a circular supporting the doctrine of monophysitism which was co-signed by 500 other bishops. Would we ever deduce that, just because 500 odd bishops changed the teaching on Christ's two natures, that Christ did not have two natures?! What importance, therefore, does it hold whether bishop Nektarius, moved by the publicity of the scandal and lacking probably a sufficient number of spiritually adept priests, worthy of their mission, dared abolish the ever-present institution of Confession, or not? But the conscience of the eastern churches caused the just riot one would expect, and in just over a century, this innovation was abolished once and for all.

Therefore, Confession was always present continuously, non-stop; during those 100 years when it was partially abolished (in some churches) it was still kept elsewhere. It would not have been possible for it to be a God-inspired phenomenon had it been abolished completely at some point by absolutely everyone. This however did not happen. So once again we see the promise of our Lord being fulfilled: "and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it".

CONCLUSION

It has been proven, via the ecclesiastical tradition, that from a historical point of view, the fathers of the first 4 centuries AD confirm that regulators of the remission of sins were the bishops, whose commands are obeyed by the presbyters.

EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED ABOVE & FOOTNOTES

• (*) evolution of Jesus' body and His beliefs = the Lord, as the perfect man, had beliefs which stayed constant throughout His life and never changed, despite His external evolution (from a child into a grown man). This however is not the case with the Apostles, for example, whose ideas changed by following Jesus, by seeing miracles, by doubting (St. Thomas), by betraying (Judas the Iscariote) etc. Even a lot of other Holy Fathers had different ideas for a long time, as well as other saints, such as St. Paul who was a fanatic persecutor of Christians for many years when he was still Saul. The apostle Judas the Iscariote, even though he was performing miracles with the power that Jesus gave him (as was with the rest of the Apostles), changed his ideas and after betraying Jesus decided to hang himself, not out of despair as some believe wrongly, since he knew so much about what was going on that it would be stupid of him to do so, but because he wanted to go to Hades before Jesus was crucified (and the New Testament i.e. the Latter Days, would begin). Instead of repenting to the Lord, he decided to hang himself so that he would be picked up among the ones that would accept Jesus in Hades. Of course, one cannot "fool" the Lord, but here Judas changed his ideas and thought he could; alas, he died unforgiven this way as he went to Hades after Jesus was resurrected, because for the three days that the Lord was in Hades he had fallen to the ground because the branch that held his rope snapped under his weight, as the Tradition informs us, and his stomach opened up as a result of this fall and he was dying slowly for three days; he finally gave his spirit immediately when Jesus was resurrected and then went to Hades, where he still is, waiting for the resurrection of the flesh and (in his case) the eternal fire. One should also note here that God was not cruel to Judas because when he first went to hang himself the tree bent its branches and his feet were only a foot away from the ground. But what did Judas do? He ignored the chance given to him to repent and bent his knees so they do not touch the ground! (The Monophysites however believe to this day that Judas the Iscariote is a Saint!)
• mystic = in the sense of it being a mystery. The grace is transmitted and forgives the sins via the visible sign of the confessor, who "looses" the sins of the confessing christian by praying to the Lord, who promised to "loose" the things the confessors will "loose".
• my remembrance = the Greek word is anamnesis which literally means to re-present or make present. In the Holy Eucharist we do not remember the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross in the same way we recollect a past event in our own lives; rather, that sacrifice is made present to us. We participate in that sacrifice. Of course we do not offer a new sacrifice, but the sacrifice that Christ offered once and for all.
• Sunday = In Greek, it is Kyriaki, which stems from Kyrios that has two meanings: main and lord. For this reason, our Lord's prayer is called Sunday prayer (i.e. Kyriaki prayer) in Greek Orthodoxy. Not because it can only be done on a Sunday, but because Kyriaki here has the meaning of Main prayer and also Lord's prayer. It still has the meaning of Sunday prayer too, i.e. a prayer that must also be done on Sunday, not only because Sunday is the main day of the week (when our Lord was resurrected) but also because Sunday is the day when we conduct the eucharist and this prayer is used during the Divine Liturgy; only, on Sundays, when we read in Church "give us our daily bread", we now mean (by bread) the eucharist (the body of our Lord) and not simply our daily meal. This is the hidden meaning behind the word Kyriaki; it corresponds to the double meaning of the prayer. Similarly, Sunday supper is the Lord's supper and in the bible this corresponds to the Last Supper (but of course at the same time to the main supper that we receive on Sundays i.e. the eucharist). It is interesting to note that the other days of the week in Greek are as follows: Monday (Deutera, second), Tuesday (Triti, third), Wednesday (Tetarti, fourth), Thursday (Pempti, fifth), Friday (Paraskevi, as it is called in the koine), Saturday (Sabbato, Sabbath). In other words, the origins of the words are christian, unlike those of the English language that stem from paganistic origins (c.f. Sunday, day of the sun; Monday, day of the moon; Tuesday, day of Tiu (like Mars); Wednesday, day of Woden (like Mercury); Thursday, day of Thunor (like Thor or Jupiter); Friday, day of the goddess Frigg (like Venus); Saturday, day of Saturn) . We see therefore once again the importance of the Greek language with respect to Christianity. Certain customs kept in Western countries (such as birthdays because the day of our birth is important in astrology) stem from pagan origins; Eastern Orthodox Christian countries (such as Greece, Russia, Romania etc.) celebrate namedays i.e. corresponding usually to the day of martyrdom or falling asleep of a particular saint. We should add here that (Orthodox) Christians do not actually celebrate their namedays as if it were their own day of celebration! No! They co-celebrate with their Saint, in the sense that they are joyous that their Saint, who is victorious in Heaven, is honoured on this day by them. It is very wrong to consider our nameday as "our day"! (For the same reason birthdays are wrong -- see below why). While of course living Orthodox people do not celebrate their birthday, there are some exceptions to the rule "no birthdays" as relates to those fallen asleep that we have been informed are in Heaven, viz. the Saints, who intercede on our behalf. The Church accepts only four birthdays: Christ's, Mother Virgin's, John the Baptist's and her own, namely, Pentecost (metaphorically speaking of course: the Ecclesia simply became perceived to us on that day; it was not literally "born" as in "created" since the Ecclesia is uncreated!) and these are exceptions whose existence is pretty much self-explanatory. Regarding the birthday of people (saints asleep or living) it really makes no sense to celebrate these. We cry when we are born and hope to laugh when we die! This is the path a Christian must follow. Our birth has no significance in our spiritual life nor does our age since we do not know how long we are going to live. On the contrary, our birthday should be a day of remorse and of being thoughtful and of getting more prepared towards the Big Day of our departure: another year has gone by and we are closer to our deathbed. Certainly not a day for frivolous "celebration". Do we celebrate when we get into school or when we graduate successfully? Birthdays are yet another self-centred "celebration"; it is "our day", the day "we celebrate", as if we own the day; and yet there is no real reason. It is no surprise that we mainly see young people celebrating birthdays (yet another excuse for a party) whereas the older "secular" people usually try to hide their age let alone celebrate their birthday! Since they fear death, their birthday often makes them depressed! An (Orthodox, always) Christian, away from both frivolities and depression, should only hope to celebrate in an Orthodox manner; and in this case, after his death. Let us hope God grants this, dear reader, for all of us. If a Christian must celebrate something like a "birthday" he could celebrate the day when he entered the Body of Christ (i.e. when he was baptised). That would have a spiritual significance of some sort. It is the equivalent of getting accepted to get into university. But, no matter how happy we are when we get into university, all is in vain if we do not graduate. This is therefore the day of true celebration, namely the day when a Christian enters the glory of Christ in heaven.
• divinely-inspired = Of course, we use "crude" language here. Strictly speaking, it is wrong to claim that all the books of the Bible are divinely-inspired. To better understand the issues pertaining to the authenticity of the Bible and its place within the Orthodox Tradition, the reader is advised to read the following article here.
• episcopal = of the bishops.
• narthex = also known as the portico, it is the first and western division of the Church temple upon entering it, to which the catechumens withdrew after the end of their Liturgy (part of the full Liturgy). A lot of Orthodox Churches, in keeping with the historical memories, still retain the Portico, used now for different purposes.
• catechumens = people converting to Orthodox Christianity must first pass through a stage of preparation and being preached upon the Church's ways (from catecho = preach). When they and their spiritual fathers are certain that all is well and they are ready, that their faith into Orthodoxy is proper, they are allowed to be baptised as Orthodox Christians (by full immersion, done by an Orthodox priest of course) and immediately afterwards chrismated by holy myrrh. When they have become christs of God (hence the name christian) i.e. after their chrismation, they are full members of the One Church and can follow fully the Liturgy (unless some censure is imposed upon them by their confessor)
• no hope of salvation = ... as far as this relates to man. God however, through His Divine Oeconomia, can save the unbaptised child for it has no responsibility for the fact that it was not baptised into the Church. Obviously if a child dies in its mother's womb, or some time before it gets baptised, no one is responsible. Nevertheless, in all that relates to the Orthodox Christian, and barring obvious accidents and so forth, for then God decided to take away the child to heaven, they must baptise the child and not deprive it of its Guardian Angel. Otherwise they will have to answer for this at the future Judgment. We must understand that since Baptism aims to initiate us into the Church, we should not view it as removing some "guilt". In other words, our salvation is worked by living inside the Church. This is what we mean that there is "no salvation" outside the Church. When we refuse to baptise the child, we refuse to let it come to sweet Jesus Himself (which becomes truly lived as a member of His Body, the Church) who said we should not hinder children from coming to Him. To understand this issue better, we highly recommend that the reader studies Metropolitan Hierotheus' article here.
• seek evidence = It goes without saying of course that we seek evidence based upon the contents of the faith and not through miraculous events, cut off from the life and dogmas of the Church. Apostle Thomas already believed that Christ was our Lord and Saviour and God, and all the things that Christ had taught them. He only wished to ensure that this was Christ His God. Those who seek stand-alone miracles - like the Fatima followers in Papism - are guaranteed to receive many apparitions and pseudo-miracles.
• pseudo-miracles = These fake miracles may even include prophecies, which of course always turn out to be false, for the Devil cannot see into the future (although he can guess into the immediate future; c.f. mediums, necromancers etc.). To return to the previous example of the Roman Catholic Fatima "miracles": the Roman Catholic Church has essentially accepted the "Marianic apparitions" of Fatima, especially since many of these "prophecies" and "miracles" have been sanctioned as true by popes. But Lucia, for example (the Portuguese girl), claimed that World War I would end on October 13; in point of fact, it did not end for 13 more months. We also have prophecies and promises on "world peace by the Mother of God". However, the end of the age is to come with "wars and rumours of wars" (Mt. 24:6). To be sure, a (brief) period of worldwide peace will be ushered in, but not by the Mother of God, rather by the Antichrist. In short, the Fatima prophecies are demonic delusions. Incidentally, they also demonstrate how "binding" the voices of these popes actually should be for the conscience of the people!
• example = Here is an example of the succession of Orthodox bishops; from St. Andrew to date:

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