Christian churches consist of clergy (clergy) and laity (flock). Clergy are ordained to serve. They are the successors of the apostles. This is the way it is in all Orthodox churches, in the Roman Catholic Church, among the Old Catholics, in the eastern non-Chalcedonian churches, partly in the Anglican and other churches. But each of them interprets apostolic succession in its own way.
In Protestantism
In most Protestant denominations, there is a provision for the universal priesthood of believers, according to which every Christian can be considered a priest. The priesthood is associated with a new internal component of the spiritual life of every Christian and is not associated with holy orders. Protestants explain this by saying that the personality of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, begins to live in them. “In Him you also, having heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the earnest of our inheritance, for the redemption of [His] inheritance, to the praise of His glory. »
(Eph. 1:13,14)
What do the laity do in the life of the church?
Clergy and laity have the same Christian and human dignity, as well as the hope of salvation. Singers, priests and sextons are recruited from the laity. In extreme cases, they are allowed to perform the sacrament of baptism. Lay people learn the basics of Christian teaching and teach other brothers and sisters in the church, if the priest has blessed them to do so, but not in church. They can become missionaries and church scientists. Theological educational institutions invite lay people to teach.
Passage characterizing the Layman
Balashev found Marshal Davout in the barn of a peasant's hut, sitting on a barrel and busy with writing (he was checking accounts). The adjutant stood next to him. It was possible to find a better place, but Marshal Davout was one of those people who deliberately put themselves in the gloomiest conditions of life in order to have the right to be gloomy. For the same reason, they are always hastily and persistently busy. “Where is there to think about the happy side of human life, when, you see, I’m sitting on a barrel in a dirty barn and working,” said the expression on his face. The main pleasure and need of these people is to, having encountered the revival of life, throw gloomy, stubborn activity into the eyes of this revival. Davout gave himself this pleasure when Balashev was brought in to him. He went even deeper into his work when the Russian general entered, and, looking through his glasses at Balashev’s animated face, impressed by the wonderful morning and the conversation with Murat, he did not get up, did not even move, but frowned even more and grinned viciously. Noticing the unpleasant impression this technique produced on Balashev’s face, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he needed. Assuming that such a reception could be given to him only because Davout does not know that he is the adjutant general of Emperor Alexander and even his representative before Napoleon, Balashev hastened to announce his rank and appointment. Contrary to his expectations, Davout, after listening to Balashev, became even more severe and rude. - Where is your package? - he said. – Donnez le moi, ije l'enverrai a l'Empereur. [Give it to me, I will send it to the emperor.] Balashev said that he had orders to personally deliver the package to the emperor himself. “The orders of your emperor are carried out in your army, but here,” said Davout, “you must do what you are told.” And as if in order to make the Russian general even more aware of his dependence on brute force, Davout sent the adjutant for the duty officer. Balashev took out the package containing the sovereign’s letter and placed it on the table (a table consisting of a door with torn hinges sticking out, placed on two barrels). Davout took the envelope and read the inscription. “You have absolutely the right to show or not show me respect,” said Balashev. “But let me note that I have the honor to bear the rank of His Majesty’s Adjutant General...” Davout looked at him silently, and some excitement and embarrassment expressed on Balashev’s face apparently gave him pleasure. “You will be given your due,” he said and, putting the envelope in his pocket, he left the barn. A minute later, the Marshal's adjutant, Mr. de Castres, entered and led Balashev into the room prepared for him.
Lay people
Orthodox laity.
2012 In the Orthodox Church, persons who are clergy are considered clerics (lower clerics) and, thus, like clergy, are not laity.
Lay people can independently (“in private”) perform all the services set forth in the Book of Hours, as well as, if necessary, the sacrament of baptism. The laity is charged with the responsibility of providing for the external economic, domestic and financial needs of the church.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a special people, to proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; once not a people, but now the people of God; who were once not pardoned, but are now pardoned.
— 1 Pet. 2:9-10
Remember your mentors who preached the word of God to you, and, looking at the end of their lives, imitate their faith.
- Heb. 13:7
Be kind to one another without murmuring. Serve one another, each with the gift that you have received, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
— 1 Pet. 4:9-10
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and the services are different, but the Lord is the same; and the actions are different, but God is one and the same, producing everything in everyone. But everyone is given the manifestation of the Spirit for their benefit. To one is given the word of wisdom by the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to others gifts of healings by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another divers tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. Yet all these things are done by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each one individually, as He pleases. For just as the body is one, but has many members, and all the members of one body, although many, constitute one body, so is Christ. For we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, and we have all been given one Spirit to drink. The body is not made of one member, but of many. If the leg says: I do not belong to the body because I am not a hand, then does it really not belong to the body? And if the ear says: I do not belong to the body, because I am not an eye, then does it really not belong to the body? If the whole body is eyes, then where is the hearing? If everything is hearing, then where is the sense of smell? But God arranged the members, each one within the body, as He pleased. And if everyone had one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. The eye cannot tell the hand: I don’t need you; or also head to feet: I don’t need you. On the contrary, the members of the body that seem weakest are much more necessary, and those that seem to us less noble in the body, we take more care of; and our unseemly ones are covered more plausibly, but our good-looking ones have no need for it. But God proportioned the body, instilling greater care for the less perfect, so that there would be no division in the body, and all members would equally care for each other. Therefore, if one member suffers, all members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it. And you are the body of Christ, and individually members. And God appointed others in the Church, firstly, apostles, secondly, prophets, thirdly, teachers; further, to others he gave miraculous powers, also gifts of healing, help, government, and different languages. Are all Apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are everyone miracle workers? Does everyone have gifts of healing? Does everyone speak in tongues? Are everyone interpreters?
— 1 Cor. 12:4-30
The role of the laity in Orthodoxy. Prot. Nikolay Aksakov
“Let us characterize in part the significance of the church people from the church point of view and consider its manifestations in church life.
First of all, people undoubtedly have a liturgical and prayerful significance. He influences the church and the state of the church with his prayers. Chrysostom directly says that “even in prayers, as everyone can see, the people cooperate...
During the very performance of terrible sacraments, the priest prays for the people, and the people for the priest. For this, and not anything else, is what the words mean: “and with your spirit.” And prayers of thanksgiving are also general. For it is not just the priest who brings thanksgiving (the Eucharist), but also the whole people” (18th discourse on 2 Corinthians).
Does the Church fundamentally exclude the laity from church governance or limit or limit the role of the believing people in the life of the church? Let us give examples of the reverse relationship. This is what Cyprian of Carthage says in his episcopal letter to the clergy and people: “In the ordination of clergy, beloved brothers, we urge you first to consult and weigh the morals and virtues of individuals with a common council.”
In the church rules of Theophilus of Alexandria there is the following: “For those who are ordained, let this be the rule. Let the entire council of clergy agree and elect, and then let the bishop test the chosen one and, with the consent of the priesthood, perform ordinations among the Church, in the presence of the people and with the proclamation of the bishop: if the people can testify about him. Let no ordination take place in secret” (Rev. 7).
It is clear that the Church does not look at the people as an inert mass that has neither church rights nor church responsibilities. It undoubtedly belongs to the people to consider the issue of accepting those who have fallen into ecclesiastical communion, into the bosom of the Church, and to testify and consider in the matter of appointing clergy, regarding not only the morality of those ordained, but also the degree of purity of their Orthodoxy. In former times, the people elected bishops together with the clergy and the assembled bishops of the metropolis.
Isn’t the people themselves, as part of the church body, the bearer and guardian of the tradition entrusted to the Church, and sometimes even its guardian and defender? The famous District Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs teaches quite clearly: “In the Church,” says this District Epistle, “neither the clergy, nor the patriarchs, nor the councils could introduce” anything (i.e., heretical teaching), but all because the guardian piety is the very body of the Church i.e. the people themselves."
If the people, as the body of the Church itself, were not the guardians of the faithful faith and religion, did not sometimes show resistance, but were saved only by unconditional submission to representatives of the hierarchy capable of making mistakes and falling into heresy, then the Church would not have one of the essential and necessary foundations for it, and without influence from the believing people, heretical movements, which were already tearing apart its integrity, would have acted even more destructively and even more boldly. Heresies did not begin among the people, but precisely in the hierarchy.
Thus, it turned out, for example, that simultaneously at the Council of Seleucia, under Constantius, 200 eastern bishops and at the Council of Rimini, 400 western bishops recognized the Arian Creed and through that “the whole Christian world (represented by its hierarchy) saw itself as Arian” (Ep. Joaii, History of the Ecumenical Councils, Issue 1, p. 150).
A contemporary at the VI Ecumenical Council characterizes the sad state of affairs as follows: “The hierarchs became heresiarchs and, instead of peace, proclaimed strife to the people, sowed tares in the church field instead of wheat: wine (truth) was mixed with water (heresy), and they gave their neighbors a muddy mixture to drink; the wolf was mistaken for a lamb and the lamb for a wolf; a lie was considered truth and truth a lie; wickedness devoured piety. All the affairs of the Church have become confused (Acts of the Ecumenical Councils, translated by the Kazan Theological Academy. Vol. VI, p. 546).
During the time of iconoclasm, under Constantine Copronymus in 754, the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople, convened as an Ecumenical Council, among 338 fathers, spoke out for iconoclasm and solemnly proclaimed anathema on the leaders of Orthodoxy and defenders of the veneration of icons of St. John of Damascus and the previously deposed St. Herman, Patriarch of Constantinople. Icon veneration was declared at the Council to be heresy and delusion (Lebedev, pp. 252-266). The immediate consequence of this Council was the expulsion of icons from all churches of the empire, to the great horror and indignation of the people and monasticism, but with the blessing of the hierarchy, which almost all of them had become feignedly or sincerely iconoclast.
These sad and deplorable examples serve, undoubtedly, without any interpretation, as the best proof that the hierarchy, no matter how great its significance for the structure of the church, cannot be considered, however, the only foundation of Orthodoxy and orthodoxy, the only and uncontrolled leader in the matter of faith, and that therefore, the words of the District Epistle are deeply true and based on historical experience, on the self-awareness of the Church, that “the guardian of religion (faith or piety) for us is the body of the Church itself, i.e. the people themselves."
While a relatively small number of hierarchs remained firm, due to the persecution imposed by the state, the prisons and mines, according to the same Hilary of Pictavia and Lucifer of Calaritan, were overcrowded with believers from the people who did not want to renounce Orthodoxy.” “The people,” says Basil the Great, “leave the churches and gather in solitary places and deserts. A terrible sight! Women, children, old people and the sick are exposed to the ferocity of rain, snow and winds, enduring frosts in winter and scorching heat in summer.
They prefer to endure all these disasters rather than risk being poisoned by the poison of Arianism (Letter 165). “The shepherds,” says Gregory of Nazianzus in his eulogy to Athanasius, “acted foolishly; they, in the words of Scripture, “have laid waste my grapes,” i.e. The Church of God, which cost so much blood before Jesus Christ and after Him. They dishonored her, forgetting about the suffering of the God-man. They all adapted to the times, with the exception of a small number of people who were despised for their insignificance, or who were brave enough to resist the flow. These latter were, as it were, the roots from which Israel was to come to life.
“Every person,” says Athanasius the Great, “having received from God the ability to discern the truth, is subject to punishment if he follows an ignorant shepherd and accepts false teaching as true: what kind of communication is there between light and darkness?” (Mont-faucon. Nova Collectio patrurn. t. II, p. 105). The Church must, of course, follow her shepherd, but not be mistaken or make mistakes with him, no matter how great or small these errors may be in themselves.
This is partly confirmed by the following expression of Basil the Great himself in a letter to the monks: “Remember,” he writes, “that the high priests, scribes, elders were the heads of the conspiracy against Jesus Christ; a small number among the people followed the truth” (Letter 24).
From the extremely limited number of facts cited by us from the short period of church life, it follows, as we believe, with sufficient clarity that the people, throughout the entire struggle against Arianism, were active agents and, along with a small handful of the best representatives of the hierarchy who remained faithful to Orthodoxy, were the guardians , guardian and defender of faith and right teaching, fighter for faith and Orthodoxy.
But it was precisely in these merits that he did not correspond to the ideal of Mr. Tikhomirov, for he did not show passive obedience to the hierarchy, he judged with his own judgment, and independently and on his own initiative distinguished the old, inherited tradition from its new interpretations. He remained the same during the appearance of subsequent heresies.
At the first sermon of Nestorianism, delivered in an extremely soft form by Nestorius’s disciple Anastasia, the entire listening junior clergy and people in the church became agitated. The excitement and resistance of the people manifested themselves even more strongly when Nestorius himself, the completely legitimate and canonical Patriarch of Constantinople, delivered his eloquent sermons.
These unrest, according to the testimony of Cyril of Alexandria, engulfed the whole of Constantinople, spreading further and further. All this, from the point of view of Mr. Tikhomirov, is completely criminal, because the purpose of believers is to be trained by the clergy, and the clergy requires, first of all, discipline... This is not how the representatives of Orthodoxy judged and thought. Pope Celestine writes to the people of Constantinople, who are moving away from the patriarch: “Blessed is the flock that knows how to judge pastures and distinguish healthy food from poison.”
***
We pointed out and proved in the previous chapter that the church people as a body of believers, as the body of the Church itself, should not be in the church’s economy a passive mass, blindly and unconditionally accepting the teaching of each individual representative of the hierarchy and blindly and unconditionally submitting to every decree and decision of the hierarchical majority, but is and must be the guardian, guardian and defender of right teaching.
The criterion (measurement) of truth and Orthodoxy is the same for the hierarchy and for lay believers.
But each individual representative of the hierarchy, as can be seen from the canon of the VI Ecumenical Council cited above, can be mistaken in the same way and “deviate from what is right, like every believer in general” (canon 19 of the Trullo Council). Possessing the same criterion, or measure, of truth and Orthodoxy, i.e. With the same Scripture and tradition, the laity and the clergy can and must test each other, and the faith of the laity should not be a blind trust in representatives of the hierarchy.
Even the German Schletser, speaking about the activities of the Thessalonica apostles Cyril and Methodius, pointed out the outstanding difference between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. "Trust your priest!" - preaches, according to Schlozer, Roman Catholicism. “Believe the Word of God!” - preaches Orthodoxy in his own words; “And so that you can believe it, here it is in your own native language.”
Scripture, according to the teaching of the Church Fathers, is also the source of faith for man. “What is the main feature, the main property of faith? - asks Vasily the Great. - Undoubted confidence in the truth of divinely inspired words, which cannot be violated by any reasoning, neither derived from natural necessity, nor composed like piety. What constitutes the peculiarity, the property of a believer? Staying firmly convinced of the truth and power of what was said and not wanting to deny anything from it or add anything to it.
Everything that does not come from faith is sin, according to the testimony of the Apostle; faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of God, and therefore everything external to inspired Scripture, as not coming from faith, is sin” (Ascetic. Definition. 80). “Every word and deed,” he says in another place, “must be confirmed by the testimony of inspired Scripture, for the certainty or complete conviction of the good and for the confusion of the evil” (Moralium summa. Definit. 26, cap. 1). Scripture contains the whole truth for John Chrysostom. “What is contrary to Scripture, or even not found in it, cannot be an article of faith.”
Yet all the Scriptures were sent to us, as written not by slaves, but by the Lord Himself, the God of all... Besides what we preached... Do not say contrary to what we preached, but even if a little were preached besides what we preached, - let him be anathema” (On Gal. ch. 1).
So, reading Holy Scripture is, according to the teachings of the fathers, the source and measure of faith for believers. It does not give rise to error and heresy, as the Roman Church, wavering in its faith, feared, but, on the contrary, it protects against heresies and supports the right faith. “Rightly,” teaches Chrysostom, “Christ calls the Scriptures a door. They lead us to Christ, open to us the knowledge of God. They guard the sheep and keep out the wolves. This strongest door resists the entry of heretics, keeps us safe and does not allow us to wander. And if we had not crossed its threshold, our enemies would never have been able to defeat us. Through it we come to know both shepherds and non-shepherds. He who does not use Scripture, but follows a different path, is a thief” (Conversation 59 on John).
Heresies exist, spread and flourish only as a result of ignorance of Scripture, only as a result of neglect of its study and inertia towards studying.
“This is the cause of all evil—ignorance of the Scriptures. We go to war without weapons - and how can we save ourselves? And it’s difficult to save yourself with them: how could you do without them? Don’t blame everything on us: you are sheep, but not devoid of reason, but intelligent” (Conversation 9 on Col.).
“The greatest protection from sin is the reading of the Scriptures; great rapids, deep abyss - ignorance of the Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is an important obstacle to salvation; this ignorance gave rise to heresies, corrupt life and general disorder” (Conversation 3 about Lazarus).
All believers must, to the best of their ability, read, study and research the Scriptures and thus believe in Christ speaking in the Church through the Scriptures, not allowing themselves to be seduced even by the Angel descending from heaven if he preaches anything that disagrees with this open and clear to all evangelism. If everyone fulfilled and could fulfill this duty, then the need for preaching and teaching would be significantly weakened, according to Chrysostom. But it is necessary due to the negligence and frivolity of believers, due to a certain negligence of the church people. Thus, every Christian believer, possessing the source and measure of truth, must always be ready to give an account of his faith.
Tradition, as inherent in the Church and accepted by the Church, is, strictly speaking, the self-consciousness of the Church, but not the local Church, but the Church everywhere, universal, and not the Church as a representative of time, but embracing and uniting in its consciousness the entire chain of times and thus coming , to its very beginning - to the primary source of truth. But for this, the Church must always have a retrospective view, a religious union of itself with antiquity, since this antiquity has received external expression in word and deed. In church disputes, the Church tests its self-awareness through verification, i.e. through analysis and synthesis of his tradition.
Father Nikolai Aksakov is the most famous Russian theologian and canonist of the 19th century.
“DO NOT quench your spirit!” (1892)
Edition 2: St. Florus Moscow Higher Orthodox Christian School, 2002.
