How many sacraments are there in
the Orthodox Church? The answer varies according to what one believes. The
number, according to the various Greek Fathers, varies dramatically. Some claim
there are five, others follow the Western tradition where seven is the number,
others claim there are thirteen, ten, nine etc. Following is an interesting
abstract written by Dr Nikolaos Matsoukas who gives an interesting explanation
of this key topic.
‘In the scholastic manuals of
dogmatic theology it is said that priesthood is one of the seven sacraments.
This numbering originates in the scholastics of the West, led by Thomas
Aquinas. Since the 14th century the Orthodox church imperceptibly
allowed the circulation of this view, which was later imposed mainly by
academic theology. The fullest theological analyses of the sacraments are found
in two works by Nikolaos Kavasilas, About
Life in Christ and Interpretation of
the Holy Liturgy. A numbering of the sacramental ceremonies is not even
implied there. On the contrary, Kavasilas emphasizes that the entire body of
the church is expressed through the sacraments. In other words, the church
itself as body is sacramental life in its gathering, participating in the glory
of the divine kingdom. No sacrament can be autonomous, since sacraments are
members and not parts of the ecclesiastical body. Thus Kavasilas (a) by using
wonderful pictorial illustrations tells us that the sacraments are like
chambers of the heart, like the branches of a tree and like vines spreading
from a single root; and (b) by adopting a language of physiology he tells us
that baptism is birth, chrism is movement and the eucharist is nourishment. No
one can move or be fed without having been born!
Therefore the numbering of the
sacraments may result in isolation or separation of the individual sacramental
ceremonies, which merely participate in the body, but are not the body itself;
it may convey the opinion that these are mechanical or magic ceremonies.
Numbering may also result in the adoption of the unacceptable distinction
between obligatory and voluntary. However, even the choice of a chaste life
constitutes a marriage with the church. Thus we come to realize that the
sacraments are not mechanical or magical, or symbolic rituals, because they
grew and still grow in natural and historical events: in the history of divine
economy, which is the continuous course of a living historical community
through constant epiphanies, Christ is the master of ceremonies and high
priest. In the gathering of the church body, the deacons, presbyters and
bishops perform the sacraments as charismatic ministers who received the
necessary grace through the ordination. In other words, there is no mediating
priesthood in the Orthodox church. All the members of the church participate in
all the sacraments and their participation in the gathering for the performance
of a sacrament is necessary – the presence of at least two or three members is
necessary. This is the meaning of royal priesthood, or of general priesthood.’[1]
[1]
Matsoukas, Nikolaos, ‘Women’s Priesthood as a Theological and Ecumenical
Problem’, in Tamara Grdzelidze (edit.), One,
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic – Ecumenical Reflections on the Church, (Geneva,
WCC Publications, 2005), pp.218-219.
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