The responsibility of the priesthood according to the teaching of St. John Chrysostom

Contents 1. Power-hungry aspirations 2. Responsibility for accepting the priesthood when unprepared and unfit for it 3. Inept or unworthy care for the souls of his flock 4. A significantly greater punishment for priests for the same sins compared to the laity 5. The priesthood implies responsibility before God not only for the personal sins of the priest, but also for the sins of his flock 6. Responsibility for admission to Holy Communion for unprepared and unrepentant people As the pre-revolutionary researcher V. Gladky wrote, “in the pastoral views of St. John Chrysostom found expression in the view of the best people of his time, a view based on a deep knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the words of which are so often repeated in the conversations of St. Chrysostom, and on a deep understanding of the tasks and goals of the ministry of a shepherd. That is why Chrysostom’s shepherd remained for all times the ideal shepherd, and his individual characteristic features are repeated by all those who wrote about the shepherd; and, it seems, not a single book on this subject could or can do without extracts and quotations from the works of this great father of the Church" 1 . I’ll immediately make a reservation that the sayings of St. John does not exhaust the fullness of this topic in the corpus of his surviving works, and I apologize if something is missed, but I tried to pay attention to his most important works, and of course, at the center of the thoughts found in him on this topic is his treatise “Six Words on the Priesthood”, written according to various assumptions either during the period of the diaconate (381) or during the period of the presbytery (386 - 387). Before moving on to the topic of priesthood responsibility, it is worth talking about the height of its Divine purpose. St. John Chrysostom speaks a lot about the greatness of the priesthood as a special type of service to God and the Church. Christian priests are higher than those of the Old Testament, closer to the flock than parents, because... they give birth through Baptism for eternal life and are nourished with the Body and Blood of Christ, they are given the power to bind and solve sins, which is higher than the royal one, they become mediators between God and people and reconcilers of people with God, etc. 2 “What can compare with such honor,” asks St. John Chrysostom. -What power could be greater than this? “The priesthood is as much superior to (any) authority as the spirit is superior to the flesh” 3 . However, Chrysostom also speaks about the responsibility before God of every representative of the church hierarchy for his service and the gifts given to him for this. This responsibility involves both rewards and punishments. And, on the one hand, Chrysostom speaks about Divine rewards for those who worthily fulfill this service: “a great and inexplicable reward is prepared for the one who takes upon himself that work that is dearly valued by Christ... He who acquired this flock for himself not with money or anything else, but with his own death [Christ], and instead of the price, who gave His Blood for it, with what gift will he reward those who shepherd it?” 4. Clearly great. So, the greatness of the ministry of Christian priests and the honor and obedience received from the flock require the priest to diligently and selflessly care for his flock. This is the main difference between a priest and a layman, and even more so the difference between a bishop, as Chrysostom says, already as a metropolitan archbishop, essentially a patriarch, in his Discourses on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (c. 402) he addresses his flock this way: “In everything you and I have equal advantages, and the most important of the blessings you and I have are the same. I, no more, and you, no less, partake of the Sacred Table, but we approach it equally - both me and you... Life that saves and strengthens our souls is served to everyone with equal honor. I am not of one Lamb, and you of another, but we all partake of the same one. We all have the same Baptism; all have been made worthy of the same Spirit; you and I are striving for the same Kingdom; we are all equally brothers of Christ; We have everything in common. What is my advantage over you? In worries, labors, worries, in grief for you. But for us there is nothing more pleasant than this sorrow,” 5 as Chrysostom says, clearly expressing his pastoral ideal. Even on the day of his ordination to the priesthood in 386, Chrysostom confessed his fear of the responsibility for this service: “Pray that I may not be among those bound and cast into darkness (utter darkness), but among those who will receive at least a little condescension, by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 6 Why is the young presbyter John Chrysostom so pessimistic about his eschatological perspective? Maybe this should be regarded as just a kind of hyperbolic figure of speech, as one of some rhetorical commonplaces of a demonstration of humility and hope for God’s help appropriate for this case? In the Conversations on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians (402), one might say, already from the height of the experience of five years of hierarchical service in the capital, Chrysostom suddenly remarked: “I don’t think that among the priests there were many who were being saved; on the contrary, there are many more people who perish, and precisely because this work requires a great soul” 7 ​​. What's the matter? What exposes priests to the danger from which they themselves are called to free others? Let's try to find answers to these questions from Chrysostom himself. 1. Power-hungry aspirations As Chrysostom says with regret in Discourses on the Acts of the Apostles (400) regarding the motivation of some to strive for the episcopal degree: “But I will say why this matter has become the subject of harassment: the reason is that we seek it, not as an obligation to rule others and take care of the brethren, but as an honor and a peaceful life.... So, if everyone aspired to the episcopate, as a duty to take care of others, then no one would dare accept it soon. Otherwise we chase after it just as much as after worldly positions. Because we are in glory, in order to achieve honor among people, we perish in the eyes of God. And what is the use of honor? How clearly it has been proven that she is nothing!” 8. 2. Responsibility for accepting holy orders if one is unprepared and unfit for it As Chrysostom says, “The priesthood itself will rightly condemn us who mismanage it. It is not this that is the cause of the evils I have outlined, but we ourselves denigrate it as much as we can, indiscriminately entrusting it to such people who, without knowing their own souls in advance and without looking at the difficulty of this matter, willingly accept what is proposed, and when they get down to business, then, due to inexperience, they themselves remain in darkness and bring a lot of evils upon the people entrusted to them. ... Why, tell me, in your opinion, is there such turmoil in the churches? I think, from nothing other than the fact that the elections and appointments of primates are carried out indiscriminately and as it happens” 9 . According to Chrysostom, the ordination of people incapable or unprepared for sacred service is reflected not only on their specific flock, but also on the whole - on the entire Local Church. “When the management of affairs is entrusted either to those to whom they are not at all characteristic, or to those whose powers are much exceeded by them, then the Church becomes no different from Euripus (the stormy strait between continental Greece and the island of Euboea. - P.D.) ... and those who present themselves as having renounced everything act no better than [the worldly leaders] ... ". A continuation of this evil of preferring the unworthy is, according to Chrysostom, the rejection of the worthy: “As if it were necessary to destroy the fortress of the Church on both sides... In my opinion, it is equally criminal to alienate useful people and admit useless ones; and this is done so that the flock of Christ cannot find consolation and joy in anything. Isn’t this worthy of a thousand lightning bolts and a more terrible hell than the one that threatens us?” 10. At the same time, Chrysostom emphasizes the responsibility not only of those who are not ready for it, but who willingly accept the offered holy orders, but also of those who did not even want this, but could not refuse the persistent offers: “You see that not only those who steal (the priesthood), but also those who receive it through the efforts of others, cannot justify their misdeeds in any way” 11. “For us, who are so far from its perfection, our consciousness that we did not at all seek this power for ourselves will hardly serve as a sufficient justification, especially when many of these elections are not due to Divine grace, but through the efforts of people” 12. In this regard, Chrysostom, of course, also mentions the responsibility of those who ordained: “If they are convicted of knowingly accepting an unworthy person on some pretext, then they will be subject to the same punishment as those who chose the unworthy - perhaps even more. Whoever entrusts power to a person harmful to the Church will be guilty of his daring actions. ... If there is no way for the one who has wasted wood and stones to escape punishment, then the one who destroys souls and edifies them carelessly, how can he think that coercion from others will help him avoid punishment? ... the punishment will be unquenchable fire, an undying worm, the gnashing of teeth, pitch darkness, dissection and destruction along with the hypocrites (Matthew 25:30)” 13. And in “Conversations on the Acts of the Apostles” (400) he adds: “Do not tell me: the presbyter or the deacon sinned; the guilt of all of them falls on the head of those who ordained him.” 14 3. Inept or unworthy care of the souls of the flock St. John Chrysostom says: “If the leaders of cities, when they are not very prudent and active, exposing the cities to ruin, destroy themselves, then he who undertakes to adorn the Bride of Christ, how much strength, do you think, should he have, both his own and that sent from above, so as not to sin?” 15. “The greatest punishment will be earned by those who, having achieved this power through their own efforts, will perform this service poorly, either through negligence, or through wickedness, or through inexperience. But for this there will be no forgiveness for those who did not seek power [and nevertheless agreed to accept it despite their unworthiness]; and they have no justification" 16. According to Chrysostom, the salvation or death of the priest himself depends on the salvation or death of someone from the flock: “to whom people are entrusted, this is the rational flock of Christ, he... by the death of such sheep causes damage not to property, but to his soul” 17. Chrysostom expresses this danger in relation to himself: “I am afraid that, having accepted the flock of Christ healthy and strong and then inadvertently causing harm to it, I might anger God against myself.” 18 4. Significantly greater punishment for priests for the same sins compared to the laity The reason is that God will question the bishop, priest and layman differently at the Judgment for the same sins. As Gladky writes, “The shepherd will give an answer before God, with all the severity corresponding to the exceptionally high position of the shepherd on earth and the powers granted to him for the salvation of human souls, on the one hand, and the dignity of these latter, on the other hand” 19. As Chrysostom writes, “If you sin simply, like a person, you will not tolerate anything like that; if you sin while being a priest, you are lost” 20 . “The sins of priests are subject to much greater punishment than the sins of common people... they are gravest not by their nature, but by the dignity of the priest who commits these sins” 21. “If any priest has committed fornication today, this is especially the height of all evils” 22. Chrysostom puts Judas as a negative example of extreme responsibility: “God chose Judas, and included him in the holy face of Christ’s disciples and gave him, along with others, apostolic dignity and even gave him something more than others - the management of money. So what? When he abused both of them, betrayed Him whom he was supposed to preach, and made bad use of what he was entrusted to manage for good, did he escape punishment? By this, he further increased his punishment, and quite rightly so, because the advantages granted by God should not be used to insult God, but to please Him more” 23 . The reason for the different demand lies in two points: in the magnitude of the gifts of the priesthood, in contrast to the flock, which we have already said earlier, as well as in the moral example of the sin of the boss, who turns out to be a role model for others. As Chrysostom writes, “Do you see with what force God inspires you that the boss deserves much greater punishment than his subordinates?... because the harm is not limited only to the boss himself, but also destroys the souls of the weakest and those who look at him” 24. Chrysostom writes about himself in the treatise “On the Priesthood”, without becoming a priest: “I am sure that now such a punishment awaits me as the gravity of my sins requires, and upon assuming power - not double or triple, but multiple for the temptation of many and for insulting God, who has honored me with greater honor” 25. Regarding the second, Gladky continues: “such effectiveness of example is also revealed in a negative way, through the influence of bad examples, the power of which is, perhaps, even much greater than the power of good ones... The power of the word with which the shepherd wants to show off, even if for a good purpose to influence the will of the listeners, will not have the proper effect in relation to people who know the bad life of the shepherd... Where will such a shepherd get the necessary apostolic zeal and courage to be a teacher of morality? If he preaches a law that he himself violates, praises virtues that he himself does not have, condemns sins that he himself commits, then his word is a sentence pronounced by him on himself.”26 5. The priesthood implies responsibility before God not only for the personal sins of the priest, but also for the sins of his flock In the treatise “On the Priesthood”, while still a deacon, Chrysostom, refusing priestly or even episcopal service, says: “How will we endure what is about to happen when we must give an account for each of those entrusted to us? There the punishment will not be limited to shame, but there will be eternal torment... [After all] what will they ever suffer and what punishment will they suffer who have destroyed not one, two or three, but so many? They cannot justify themselves by inexperience, resort to ignorance, apologize by necessity and coercion... to justify themselves in the sins of other people” 27. “And what destruction and what fire is gathering on his unfortunate head for each of these perishing, I don’t need to tell you about this: you yourself know all this well” 28. 6. Responsibility for admitting unprepared and unrepentant people to Holy Communion Chrysostom addresses his serving fellow priests in the following way in his Discourses on the Gospel of Matthew: “No small punishment awaits you if, having recognized someone as wicked, you allow them to partake of this meal. His blood will be required at your hands. Even if there was a commander, even the highest commander, even the king himself, wearing a diadem, but if he approaches unworthily, then forbid him: you have more power than he... But now you have been given a source not of water, but of blood and the Spirit - and you, seeing some who have sin, which is worse than earth and dirt, and approaching this source, will you not be indignant, will you not hinder? What kind of forgiveness can you receive? For this reason, God has awarded you this honor so that you can deal with such matters. This is your dignity, your importance, your crown, and not that you put on white and shining clothes... But even if someone foolishly comes to receive communion, forbid him - do not be afraid. Fear God, not man. If you fear man, you will be humiliated by God; and if you fear God, then you will be honored by people. If you yourself do not dare, then bring it to me: I will not allow this insolence. I would rather give up my soul than partake of the Blood of the Lord of an unworthy person; I would rather shed my own blood than commune with such a terrible Blood of someone who should not” 29 . And on the contrary, non-communion of one of his flock passing on to another world also entails a threat to the eternal life of this soul and the responsibility of the shepherd: “if only one person departs (from this life) without initiation into the Sacraments, will this not overthrow his entire salvation? After all, the death of even one soul constitutes such a loss that no word can express. If her salvation has such a price that the Son of God became a man for this and endured so much, then think what kind of punishment her death will entail!” 30. But declared and implemented by St. John Chrysostom in his life, the ideal of the bishop and priest was not always understood and accepted by all his fellow contemporaries. And as he said in his Letter 14 already in his declining years, in exile: “In the end, I fear no one as much as bishops, with the exception of a few” 31 . And as St. adds on this occasion. martyr John Popov, “and indeed, his most fierce enemies were precisely the bishops: Akakios of Veria, Antiochus of Ptolemais, Severian of Gabala and Theophilus of Alexandria” 32. And after a rather lengthy description of various unpleasant facts from the life of these bishops, who played a fatal role in the life of Chrysostom, St. martyr John Popov rightly concludes: “such were the enemies of the great bishop. They represent, as it were, a dark background against which the exceptional personality of the great bishop stands out all the more clearly.”33 And this is a paradox, but only at first glance. This is the reality of a world that has fallen and is only in the process of transformation even in the earthly Church, providentially, although rather involuntarily for itself, giving for eternity new great holy ascetics and representatives for this very world. The eschatological responsibility of the priesthood is implied not only for the sins of the priest himself or for poor-quality counseling of the flock, but for the death of the souls of the flock, doomed “to the abyss of fire, and death awaits them, not separating the soul from the body, but sending the soul and body to eternal torment” 34. “If we, thinking about accounting for our own sins, tremble, not hoping to escape eternal fire; then what kind of painful anticipation must there be for someone who will be responsible for so many? » 35. “The punishment will be unquenchable fire, an undying worm, the gnashing of teeth, pitch darkness, dissection and destruction along with the hypocrites (Matthew 25:30)” 36. “How will we endure what is about to happen when we have to give an account for each of those entrusted to us? There the punishment will not be limited to shame, but eternal torment awaits” 37. At the same time, I would like to note that Chrysostom does not look like a mystical seer in these matters, but rather is based on an understanding of the data of the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, we will not find systematic reflections and insights from him about the Heavenly Church and how representatives of the church hierarchy move from the earthly Church and where to it and in what state they remain there, as we find in the Venerable Church. Simeon the New Theologian, Rev. Nikita Stifat, Clement of Alexandria and some other authors. He rather speaks of eternal rewards and punishments, and of the degrees of the first and second, in contrast to the position of power occupied in the church hierarchy, but does not specify them. So, we have considered the views of St. John Chrysostom on the responsibility of the priesthood. Let us conclude our report with the words of the pre-revolutionary author V. Gladky, “The well-known gospel truth says: much will be given to him, much will be required of him (Luke 12:48). And the higher the talents that the Lord bestows on a person, the higher the power that is associated with his rank and position, the greater, the heavier the responsibility of the one to whom they are entrusted. From this point of view, the highest of human virtues – priestly – is the most responsible” 38. Gladky V. Teachings of St. John Chrysostom on pastoral ministry based on his conversations and letters. The first issue of the pathological department of the journal “Orthodox Interlocutor”. Kazan, 1898. P. 3. St. John Chrysostom. On the Priesthood III, 5 – 6. St. John Chrysostom. Discourses on the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. Conversation 4, 4. Conversation on the ordination of an elder, 4. Conversations on the Acts of the Apostles. Conversation 3, 4. Conversations on the Acts of the Apostles. Conversation 3, 5. Gladky V. Teachings of St. John Chrysostom on pastoral ministry based on his conversations and letters. The first issue of the pathological department of the journal “Orthodox Interlocutor”. Kazan, 1898. P. 13. St. John Chrysostom. Conversations on the Acts of the Apostles. Conversation 3, 5. Conversations on the Holy Evangelist Matthew. Conversation 75, 5. Gladky V. Teachings of St. John Chrysostom on pastoral ministry based on his conversations and letters. The first issue of the pathological department of the journal “Orthodox Interlocutor”. Kazan, 1898. pp. 46 – 47. St. John Chrysostom. On the Priesthood VI, 1. Conversations on the Holy Evangelist Matthew. Conversation 82, 6. Popov I.V. John Chrysostom and his enemies // Popov I.V. Works on patrolology. T. 1. Sergiev Posad, 2004. P. 385. Popov I.V. John Chrysostom and his enemies. P. 389. St. John Chrysostom. On the Priesthood III, 7. Gladky V. Teachings of St. John Chrysostom on pastoral ministry based on his conversations and letters. The first issue of the pathological department of the journal “Orthodox Interlocutor”. Kazan, 1898. P. 12.