Orthodox Reflections

Update 6/2/2023 – A commentator helpfully provided a list of Bible verses that go along with this article’s use of Orthodox prayers. The full comment has been added at the bottom.

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Controversy periodically erupts on Social Media over Orthodox Christians praying to the Saints, including the Blessed Virgin Mary. The arguments are usually between Orthodox Christians / Roman Catholics, on one side, and low-church Protestants on the other. From the Protestant side, Orthodox are often accused of worshipping the Saints (as prayer = worship in this mindset). The confusion is somewhat understandable given our chaotic cultural and linguistic environment. Therefore, it is necessarily for us to patiently teach our neighbors that while all worship is prayer, not all prayer is worship.

The first thing to note, by way of background, is that most Protestants have absolutely no idea about Orthodox Worship, Orthodox Theology, and Church history. They have no firsthand knowledge of any aspect of the Orthodox Faith. What many Protestants have done is absorb incorrect talking points from various pastors / teachers about Orthodoxy. In many cases, they have actually absorbed talking points about Roman Catholicism, but assume they apply to us because they don’t know any better.  The sources that Protestant laity rely on for this information have themselves usually never attended a Divine Liturgy or read Orthodox teachings or even real Church History. Rather, most of the pastors and Protestant theologians providing content about Orthodoxy are themselves relying on still other non-Orthodox sources to learn what they teach their people. In terms of anti-Orthodox polemics, it is truly a case of the blind leading the blind across multiple generations. They are not attacking the Orthodox Faith. They are attacking an ignorant caricature of it.

By contrast, many Orthodox Christians in America are adult converts from some flavor of Evangelical Protestantism. We know their prayers, worship, music, and Theology first-hand. It is up to us to present a coherent apologia for the Orthodox Faith in terms Protestants can understand. In that endeavor, nothing is more important to explain than the prayer life of the Orthodox Church. Protestants take prayer very seriously, though they do not understand it nor properly practice it.

A source of confusion for Protestants on the topic of prayer arises from the English language itself. Most Protestants have never really thought much about the nuances and history of their own language. Nor have they thought about how language changes over time, and how limited the online dictionaries can be.

Let’s look first at a complete definition of the verb to pray according to a popular online dictionary:

1- ENTREAT, IMPLORE —often used as a function word in introducing a question, request, or plea
pray be careful

intransitive verb

2- to make a request in a humble manner
3- to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving

Anyone who has read older English literature has come across the usage of pray as entreat or implore. Under that definition, which is perfectly valid, a prayer is an entreaty, and can be addressed to a person or to God. At one time, this was a common, everyday usage of the verb. Praying can be an act of worship, but not necessarily.

The problem is that the same online dictionary used to define the noun prayer loses the first definition provided for the verb:

1- a devout petition to God or an object of worship.
2- a spiritual communion with God or an object of worship, as in supplication, thanksgiving, adoration, or confession.
3- the act or practice of praying to God or an object of worship.

Depending on whether you look up the verb or the noun, you will get a completely different idea of what “praying” and “prayer” are. Protestants, unless they have a really good grasp of English, can be forgiven for either forgetting, or never knowing to begin with, that a prayer can be worship directed to God, prayer can be a devout petition to God, but prayer can also be a request / entreaty to a person.

To illustrate different forms of prayer, I would like to provide some examples that are: clearly worship, clearly requests for the intercessory prayers of the Saints (not worship), and clearly petitions directly to God. To illustrate these points, I’ll rely primarily on quotes from the Liturgy of St. Tikhon, for two reasons. First, in the Antiochian Western Rite I participate in this liturgy every Sunday. Though I was in the Eastern Rite for decades, right now this is the liturgy with which I am most familiar.  Second, this liturgy is relatively close to the Roman Missal that the spiritual forbears of our current Protestants would have rebelled against. The concepts I will discuss were not unique to the East.

For those who do not know, a Divine Liturgy is defined as: “the primary worship service of the Church”. Studying the texts of liturgies is an excellent way to understand the beliefs of the Orthodox Church. Why? Because of the ancient Christian teaching known as Lex orandi, lex credendi (Latin: “the law of what is prayed [is] the law of what is believed”).  Worship and belief are integral to each other in the historic Christian Faith. The sentiment is sometimes paraphrased as, “Show me how you pray (and what you pray for), and I’ll show you what you believe.” This may be shocking to some reading this, but the Church’s worship preceded the creeds, the canon of scripture, and the Church Councils. In truth, the Church’s liturgical traditions provided the theological (and doctrinal) framework for later establishing the creeds and the Biblical canon. Books circulating in the 1st Century were judged to be authentically Christian based on their adherence to established practices and beliefs as preserved through prayer and other Traditions. Not the other way around.

So if you really want to know what we Orthodox Christians believe and teach, examine our prayers. Which is what we shall do here to explore the oft repeated charges concerning prayer that we “worship” Saints (and the Blessed Virgin Mary), that we do not “go directly” to God in prayer, and that it is wrong for Saints to intercede for us.

For an example of prayer as worship, let’s use the section of the Liturgy of St. Tikhon called Gloria in Excelsis:

P. GLORY BE TO GOD ON HIGH,

 

R. and on earth peace, good will towards men. We praise thee, we bless thee, we (bow) worship thee, we (rise) glorify thee, we give thanks to thee for thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.

 

O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ; O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou that takest away the sins of the world, (bow) receive our prayer. (rise) Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us.

 

For thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord; thou only, O (Jesus) Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the Glory of God the Father. Amen.

That is clearly worship. By contrast, let us look at a passage from the section of the Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon called the Memorials where prayer is requested from the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints:

And give us grace so to follow the good examples of blessed Mary and all thy Saints, that, through their intercessions, we (with them) may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

What we can learn from the above text from the Divine Liturgy are the following things:

• The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints are held up as examples of how we should live.
• There is no worship directed towards the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Saints.
• The Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints are asked to perform intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is simply defined as prayer for the needs of others. Prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints is an entreaty for them to pray to God for our needs. In His resurrected glory, Jesus prays eternally to his Father on behalf of all. In the name of Jesus, Christians are authorized to pray for each other and for all creation. Protestants also practice intercessory prayer, though many seem to not understand the word “intercessory”, often confusing it with other concepts.
• There is a difference between intercession (which we are all encouraged to do for others) and mediation (only Christ is the One who effected salvation for us). The Divine Liturgy of St. Tikhon specifically states that Jesus Christ is our only Mediator and Advocate. It can’t be more plainly said than that.

Next, let’s look at a combination of petitions addressed to God and the Saints to see the difference between them. We will use this passage from the The Great Litany:

Priest: O God the Holy Ghost: Have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
People: O God the Holy Ghost: Have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
Priest: O Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three Persons in One God: Have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
People: O Holy, blessed and glorious Trinity, three Persons in One God: Have mercy upon us miserable sinners.
Cantor: Holy Mary:
People: Pray for us.
Cantor: Holy Mother of God:
People: Pray for us.
Cantor: Holy Virgin of all virgins:
People: Pray for us.
Cantor: Holy Archangel Michael:
People: Pray for us.
Cantor: Holy Archangel Gabriel:
People: Pray for us.
Cantor: Holy Archangel Raphael:
People Pray for us.

Cantor: Remember not Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our fathers; take not vengeance of our sins: Spare us, good Lord, spare Thy people whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy most precious Blood, and be not angry with us for ever.
People: Spare us good Lord.
Cantor: From all evil and mischief; from sin, the crafts and assaults of the devil; from Thy wrath and from everlasting damnation,
People: Good Lord, deliver us.
Cantor: From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred and malice and all uncharitableness,
People: Good Lord, deliver us.

Cantor: In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our wealth; in the hour of death and in the Day of Judgement,
People: Good Lord, deliver us.
Cantor; We sinners do beseech Thee to hear us O Lord God; and that it may please Thee to rule, govern and defend Thy Church.
People: We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
Cantor: That it may please Thee to illuminate all Bishops, Priests and Deacons,
People: We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.
Cantor: That it may please Thee to preserve all Abbots and congregations of holy persons in Thy service.

When addressing the Saints or the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are asking for them to pray for us. The Saints are alive in Christ and are able to pray for us the same as any other Christian can pray for us. Being in close proximity to God, however, their prayers are particularly efficacious. To deny that the Saints in heaven are able to interact with us is equivalent to denying the power of Christ’s Resurrection. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. If the Saints cannot hear us because they are “dead”, this denies that Christ gives them the power to live. We are not isolated from those who have gone before us in the Faith. There are ways for us still on Earth to engage with the heavenly. Denying this means rejecting the salvific work of Christ on the Cross and His victory over death.

When addressing God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), we are often asking the Holy Trinity to actually do good things for us. God, being all powerful, is quite capable of doing anything we ask that is in accordance with His will. Now one myth that exists within Protestantism is that Orthodox Christians cannot pray directly to God. As you can see from the prayers above, we address All Persons of the Holy Trinity directly. We do not have to “go through” a Saint, all the Saints, or the Blessed Virgin Mary to petition God. On the other hand, the prayers of the righteous availeth much. Why would we voluntarily choose to forego the prayers of the holiest people who ever lived?  Who among us is so righteous that he is in need of no more prayer?

Let’s look at one more example that often sets Protestant teeth on edge – the Hail Mary. The Hail Mary (especially as part of the Rosary) is not practiced by most Orthodox Christians (some Western Rite do pray it), nor is it part of the Divine Liturgy. While there are similar prayers in Orthodox services, the Hail Mary itself is really a Roman Catholic personal devotion. The common prayer used for meditation in Orthodoxy is the Jesus Prayer, but as that prayer is specifically to Christ, Who is God, it is not a good example for the point I am trying to make here.

Here is the text of the Hail Mary:

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

In this prayer, we again see the pattern previously illustrated. This is a petition to the Mother of God for her prayers to her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. The prayer does call her “full of grace” and “blessed among women”, but those are phrases from the Biblical account of the Annunciation. Who can object to using them? The Blessed Virgin Mary is Christ’s mother. Who would not want her prayers? An Orthodox hymn assure us that “the prayers of a mother availeth much before her Son.” 

Before continuing, we should note that the term “Mother of God” is used for the Blessed Virgin Mary to guard the Divinity of her Son, not to make her a deity herself. Jesus is fully God and fully man. He was both fully God and fully man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and when He was borne of her. Either Mary is the Mother of God (who eternally exists as Three Persons, one of Whom Mary gave birth to in the flesh) or Jesus was not God when she carried Him and bore Him. Protestants often argue over this point, but the truth of it is inescapable. If you downplay the Blessed Virgin Mary, you always end up unleashing a torrent of heresies concerning the Holy Person of her Son Jesus Christ.

We should encourage those criticizing, or engaging with, Orthodoxy to at least be courteous enough to learn something about the actual Orthodox Faith. Otherwise, it will not be a fruitful discussion on anyone’s part. Their misrepresentations of our Faith frustrate us, and often result in nothing but unhelpful invective back and forth. It is especially galling since many of us are adult converts from Evangelical backgrounds. We at least understand where they are coming from. As a courtesy, they should extend that same consideration in return.

As Orthodox Christians engaging with Protestants, perhaps it is best to avoid so much reliance on “proof texting” Bible verses and the Patristic Fathers. If Protestants are misrepresenting our beliefs, perhaps quoting our liturgies is sometimes a better way to educate others. It is impossible to over emphasize the role of prayer in the life of the Church. For anyone to truly engage with the Orthodox Faith, encountering our prayers is essential.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

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Comment originally posted by Colmcille:

As a former Evangelical who engages in doctrinal discussions with those of my former confession I always begin with Scripture:

Jesus as “the only mediator” and praying to the Saints.

Evangelicals like to say Jesus is our only intercessor pointing to I Tim. 2:5. If this is true then why do we ask for others to pray for us? And James 5:16 tells us to pray for one another. The problem is Protestant/Evangelicals only see the Church Militant which they believe to be separated from the Church Triumphant. Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living” in Matt 22:32 and Mark 12:27. Jesus’ death and Resurrection destroyed the power of death. His Body IS the Church –

” Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set [him] at his own right hand in the heavenly [places], Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all [things] under his feet, and gave him [to be] the head over all [things] to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.”- Eph. 1:20-23

How do we know the Saints are with us? Heb 11 describes the past heroes of the Faith. And Heb 12 begins by saying “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses,…” How do we know they are praying before God? Just read Rev 6:9-11.

So by Scripture alone we know the Church is NOT divided between those on Earth and those in Heaven. And as such the Saints are watching us and praying before God. And once again in James 5:16 we read, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Who can be more “righteous” and pray more “fervent” than the Saints who are in God’s presence?

If the above is true then there is no separation between the Church on earth and in heaven. I can ask the Saints to pray for me just like I ask my fellow parishioners to pray for me.

Most Holy Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary:

You said God is our Father, Abba, Daddy. And Mary is our Mother. Jesus tells this to John in his gospel Ch. 19, verse 27. She is the Queen Mother, just like Bathsheba, the mother of King Solomon (1 Kings 2:19), for Jesus is the Messiah, heir to the Davidic throne. She is Theotokos, the mother of God the Son. And we sing to her, “It is truly meet to bless you o Theotokos!” because it was revealed to Elizabeth who called her “blessed among women” (Luke 1:42)and to Mary that “henceforth all generations will call her blessed” (Luke 1:48).

Let me end with this. St. Paul writes in II Thess. 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” Protestant/ Evangelicals have no idea what those “traditions” taught “by word” are for they have historical connection with the Church. I am grateful for those Evangelicals who taught me Scripture when I was growing up. They are devout and dedicated but Orthodoxy has filled in the missing pieces.