On the Priesthood St. John of Kronstadt Christ is the only Chief Priest, the First and the Last... He Himself performs the duties of a priest in us and through us.... My priesthood and that of all others is Christ’s priesthood: the true, most high priest is Christ alone; He Himself ministers through us, He is the eternal priest according to the order of Melchizedek. The priest is sublime during the celebration of all daily services and especially during the fulfillment of the sacrament when he is invested by God with the greatest authority; he is all-powerful and can plead for the whole world. The value of the rank of priesthood can be measured by the greatness, the saving qualities and the miraculous power of its grace. By means of the priesthood God accomplishes great and redeeming works among mankind: He purifies and sanctifies people, animals and elements; He delivers men from the villainous works of the devil, He renews and strengthens; He converts bread and wine into the purest Body and Blood of God-man Himself; He marries people and makes marriage honorable and the nuptial bed pure; He absolves sins, heals illness, converts earth into heaven, unites heaven with earth, man with Himself; He joins angels and men in one gathering... what do they not lack, those people who have no priesthood! They are deprived of salvation. It is not in vain that the Lord, the Accomplisher of our salvation is called the Chief Priest. He is the Founder and the Accomplisher of priesthood, establishing it on earth, together with “the Sanctifier and the Accomplisher - the Holy Spirit.” What a high personage is the priest. He continually talks to God, and God continually answers him; whatever the ceremony, whatever the prayer - God answers it... the priest is an angel, not a man! The priest is a mediator between God and men; he is His close friend. It is as if he were a God for men, with the power to bind and to forgive their sins, to minister for them the life-giving and fearful sacraments and thereby to deify both himself and others. The bishop in his eparchy is, after God and the Mother of God, the source of sanctification for all the Christians of his flock, and therefore everyone must love and respect him greatly as the highest ministrant of the Holy Sacraments. The priest must in the first place acquire, through God’s grace, evangelical love; he needs this love every minute, every second... But he needs this love especially during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy which is wholly the mystery of infinite, divine love for the human race. In this sacrament, the sacrament of the Eucharist or the giving of Christ’s Body and Blood, the divine love manifests itself in its entire immortality: when the Lord Jesus Christ drains Himself to the uttermost in order to save us, giving Himself to us as food and drink... During the Liturgy the priest must be filled with love for God and men, - men who are redeemed, redeemed all together through Christ’s Blood.
In the priest there must not be even a shadow of anger or grievance, wounded feelings towards anyone, or predilection for anything terrestrial - food, clothing, adornment, official distinction, or for any person.
What a pure heart, alien to all worldly attractions, must a priest possess in order to be a receptacle and bearer of divine love, holy love, ardent love for all mankind... and in order to bring to God the bloodless sacrifice for the whole world. The priest must be a passionless angel wholly belonging to heaven, a flame of love for God and men. How pure must be a priest’s lips which so often pronounce the holy Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Still purer must be the heart in order to contain and to feel the sweetness of this glorious, splendid and exalted name! And how unremittingly must a priest avoid carnal pleasures not to become flesh wherein God’s spirit does not dwell.
How should a priest be interested in worldly pleasures when his constant need and delight is only in the Lord? What are worldly enjoyments to him who has so many spiritual children coming to him with their various spiritual and physical needs? What are worldly enjoyments to a priest when he must frequently celebrate in Church and stand before God’s Altar? You are God’s priest, servant of the Most High, the Creator, therefore celebrate the Liturgy in fear, especially if you celebrate it daily; take care how you treat your belly, not to let it become an instrument of gluttony. Keep strictly to the fast as commanded by the Savior; listen attentively to your inner voice and to that of others, and save yourself and the people. Whilst you serve God do not think about riches - do not offend God’s Spirit and do not sell God’s gifts, lest riches should become your downfall.
You stand in Church as the representative of the faith of God, you are a priest, you are a representative of the Lord Himself; you must be the image of gentleness, courage, fortitude, patience and an elevated spirit. You are doing God’s work and you must not be downcast before anyone; neither flatter anyone nor be servile, but consider your work to be higher than all other human activities.
A priest, as a angel of the Lord Almighty, must be above all passions and rebellions of the spirit, all desires and vain fears which are the operation of devils; he must be wholly in God; Him alone must he love and fear. Fear of men signifies that his adherence to God is not complete.
The Eucharistic Sacrifice, or Christ’s purest Body and Blood, is the inexhaustible, abundant source of reconciliation with God, of grace, purification, renewal, immortality and deification for all believers - the living and the departed, in this source resides the reconciliation and purification of the whole world, the greatest effectual invitation to all peoples of the earth to turn to Christ. Oh, priest! Listen! You are carrying out the most sublime sacrifice; be daring in prayer, believe, hope and love, conquer the devil and the adulterous world. Draw everybody to Christ, God’s Lamb, Who has taken the world’s sins upon Himself. A serving priest is always conscious of his unworthiness and his weakness and of God’s inaccessibility and greatness, of His Holiness and Truth.
The Divine Food - the purest Body and Blood of the Lord - daily works in me great miracles of grace; it destroys in me the powers of hell which attack me by means of various passions and sinful habits: it works miracles of purification, sanctification, peace, freedom, renewal of body and soul; but I forego these miracles when I experience sinful thoughts in my mind and heart. The miracles of the power of the Divine Sacraments dwell in me every day and for this I offer heartfelt thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ with the Father and Holy Spirit.
How deadly it is for the soul not to celebrate in Church, especially not to participate in Christ’s Divine Sacraments; how overgrown the soul becomes with weeds of sin, how it weakens. What high honor and happiness it is to pray for mankind, to pray for God’s precious acquisition and possession. With what joy, good spirits, diligence and love must we pray to God the Father for His people, bought for Him by His Son’s blood.
As a priest pray, in the first place, for the purification, sanctification and renewal of God’s people and for your own regeneration.
Judge for yourself how great is man - how great man may become. - God abides in him and he in God so that Christ Himself and not man lives in a devout Christian; the whole soul becomes Christ’s, just as iron in burning coal becomes fire as if it were burning everything is fire, everything is light.
After the accomplishment of the service of the Sacrament always thank God with a short prayer from the depth of your heart for having helped you to serve Him with faith
and love. But what do many of us do! We celebrate the service unwillingly, hurriedly and with omissions in order to finish the holy work sooner and to return more quickly to every-day worldly life! What a terrible illusion! In our blindness we disregard the words of the Holy Spirit which live in the prayers recited during the services and in the ministrations of sacraments; we neglect what could be for us the source of sweet peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and even physical health. It is a great sin to perform the sacraments negligently. We blaspheme when we do. What, then, are we to do in order to celebrate the Sacraments and the services befittingly? We must firmly believe that our God, reverenced in the Holy Trinity, is always with us, that He always sees us and that at our first word of prayer for help He is ready to help us in our holy work.
You, priest, must give due honor, importance, dignity and steadfastedness to the office of priesthood which you exercise, to the glory of God and to your own and the people’s salvation. And do not look at anybody’s face or at your own face, at your shortcomings and sins or at your virtues; but look only at the face of God, the Christ, Whose image you bear and Whom you represent as intercessor for both God and the people during the service. During this time you are wholly God’s and not your own. And all evil, your sins, even their recollection which is prompted by the devil’s influence, must be laid in repentance before the Lord-God’s Lamb, Who took the world’s sins upon Himself, and you must not be put out of countenance by the memory of their onslaught. Amen. So be it.
God has not made the angels who are holy, bright and terrible in their strength to be your mediators and performers of the heavenly sacraments, but men who, like you, are burdened with weaknesses and sins and who, therefore, are indulgent to your weaknesses and errings which are the same in you as in them.
When I was made a priest and a pastor I soon learned from experience with whom I am engaged in conflict in my spiritual life, namely with the powerful, cunning and vigilant prince of this world who is full of anger, destruction and hell’s fire. This signified that the Lord, my good Shepherd, had brought me into temptation and introduced me into the experience of spiritual training so that I should know with what enemies I had to deal; and I conquered them with the arms of faith, prayer, repentance and participation in Christ’s Holy Sacraments. And in this struggle I learned true faith, hope, patience and righteousness of spirit, purity of heart and the constant appealing to the name of Jesus Christ. We all love life, but we do not possess true life without the source of life - Jesus Christ. The Liturgy is the innermost source of true life because God Himself is in it - the Lord of life gives Himself as food and drink to those who believe in Him and gives life in abundance to His communicants. What happiness, what bliss for our nature which absorbs into itself the Divinity and humanity of the Lord Christ. Through frequent communion a priest receives God’s grace without measure, and from him all must draw
Christ’s grace in abundance, and he must try by all means to spread grace wider and wider and not to keep it only for himself.... The priest must shine, warm not with his own warmth, but with divine warmth. A priest himself must experience the power of faith and the sweetness of prayer the forgiveness of sins and the fact that prayer is not always successful, the sorrows of the soul and the blissful consolations. Then he can say in his prayers for the believers: “Give them, O God, the same grace which Thou always givest to me, the unworthy one” as well as asking for all those things which are outside his own experience. In order to control others we must in the first place learn to control ourselves. When we are possessed by many passions it is better not to undertake to rule others. The priest must sorrow for the whole world. He must be everything for all. Receive every man who comes to you, especially for a spiritual reason, in an affectionate and cheerful manner, even if he be a beggar, and humble yourself inwardly before each, considering yourself to be lower than him, because Christ Himself has made you a servant of all, and all are His members, although they, like you, bear the scars of sin. We must never forget that we are all one body and that we must encourage each other to love and to do good works: especially must we, the priests, remember this and act accordingly;... if the head is without sin, so are the members, and if our souls are darkened by passions, then the body of the Church - our congregation - will become darker. When we become spiritual stronger, then our flock will do so too; if we become weaker, so will it also. God, have mercy on me!
