50 years after the departure of a saint...

Anthonypk7

I have heard that on the 50th anniversary of the Saint's departure to heaven, they are then canonized and are then allowed to have their names mentioned in the Commemoration of the Saints. Some people told me that their relics are finally exhumed from their shrines and relics are to be given to the churches. But my church has many cylinders with the relics of the saints whom haven't even been canonized by the Holy Synod. Does the Saint have to be canonized in order to have relics distributed in the churches ? And can anyone clarify if there is any truth to the special ceremony on their 50th anniversary ??

Holmes

+ Irini nem ehmot,

Canonization

The word canonization means that a Christian has been found worthy to have his name placed in the canon (list) of saints of the Church. This canon is read during the services of the Church. Every day in the calendar year is dedicated to a group of saints whose names are remembered by the people of God.

At the same time, when a Christian's name has been included in the canon of saints, it is a sign that the Church encourages the faithful to ask that saint for his prayers before God. Services may be specially composed in the saint's honor and celebrated in the churches by the Church -- the people of God.

The Church decides to include names in its canon for many reasons. Basically, underlying all possible reasons for canonizing this or that Christian is the idea that the person in question has preserved in himself the image and likeness of God in which he was originally created. When God created man, He created him in His own image. The words used for "image" is simply the familiar Greek word, ikon. In other words, God made the first ikon, and man is created to be an ikon of God, a faithful copy of the original.

The people of God see God's image in His saints. For this reason our church buildings contain many ikons of saints in order to remind us that we are meant to see the image of God in ourselves and in each other. The living people of God gather together in temples in the presence of the ikons of men and women who have shown in an especially notable way what it means to live life fully in Christ.

For the first thousand years of the history of the Church saints were recognized without any formal rite of canonization. Local congregations of the faithful simply began to remember certain well-known Christians in their liturgical gatherings, to ask them for help in prayer, to visit their relics, which frequently remained vehicles of the Holy Spirit, curing the sick in soul and body, as they had during earthly life.

In the 10th century, in the west, the then-Orthodox Church of Rome began to insist that saints be formally and officially "registered" as such with the Roman authorities. The first recorded canonization of this type was that of Ulrich of Augsburg, canonized in 993 by John XV. For the next 600 years -- during which time the Roman Catholic Church split off from the Orthodox community -- the west developed a very legalistic and precise method of determining who were saints.

The Holy Orthodox Church never developed any comparable methods for canonizing her saints. The situation remained very much determined by local practices, local cults, and local traditions. Holy men and women continued to be recognized as such during their own lifetime; they continued to be venerated (honored) after their death; Christian people continued to ask for their prayers and to visit their shrines.

In time, especially in the Slavic Churches, a more disciplined method of canonization became the rule, due to the influence of the example of the western Christians. But no Orthodox Church has developed a system as detailed and as legalistic as that of the western groups. Such a development would in fact be highly undesirable from the point of view of the Orthodox tradition.

The word saint means holy, thus "Saint John" means, in fact, "Holy John." This is not to say that he was always perfect; that he was a genius; that he was a great man according to the understanding of this world; that his views on politics, social life, or economics were desirable or correct. It means only that, within the context of his age, he manifested the image of God in himself in some way -- that he was an ikon, an original creation, a new creature in Christ.

Canonization does not make anybody a saint. Canonization recognizes that someone already was, in his own lifetime, a saint. Having recognized that the Church encourages its members to follow the example, the model, provided by the life of the holy person, to pray to him, to keep his memory alive. Praying to a saint does not mean that Orthodox confuse saints with God. Praying to a saint means something very easily understood: we ask the holy person to pray for us. We can, of course, ask for the prayers of those who are not officially saints. In fact, we often ask our friends and families to pray for us. We may ask a person who has died -- a mother or father or grandparent -- to pray for us. But we are especially interested in seeking out the prayers of those whose lives have been wholly devoted to prayer, who are in fact, "experts" in the matter of prayer and of praying. Thus the Orthodox Christian prays to a saint by asking the saint to pray for him. The Orthodox Christian venerates ikons -- he bows and kisses the ikon and in doing that he bows before and kisses the image of God which he sees in the saint. He bows to honor the image of God; he kisses to show his love for that image, and to express his hope that the image of God will also become evident and manifest in himself. In a similar way the priest censes the ikons and bow to them -- again, seeing the image of God, censing it, bowing to it; and then the priest turns and censes the people gathered in the Church and bows to them, just as he did to the ikons. He also sees the image of God in the people of God who are the Church of Christ on earth. In turn, the people bow to the priest, seeing also in him that same image, that same call to be an ikon.

Canonization does not make a man a saint. Rather, it establishes the fact, publically and for all to see, that the man is already a saint -- that is, that the holy man and God have so cooperated together at every level of the man's existence that the man has become, by grace, a god, just as God Himself is God by nature. The old saying in the Church is that "God became a man (in the incarnation of Christ) in order that man might become a god."

Source

Amdah

Hehe umm i dont like the word choice of the last few sentences

Holmes

+ Irini nem ehmot,

There's nothing wrong with it. It's perfectly Orthodox seeing as how it was St. Athanasius the Apostolic who said it.

Anthonypk7

Now I'm clear about canonization of a Saint... but is there a special ceremony after 50 yrs of his/her departure ?? And is it ok to have relics of Saints that aren't canonized ??

Holmes

+ Irini nem ehmot,

[quote author=✞Je Nai Nan✞ link=topic=12403.msg145315#msg145315 date=1317180264]
but is there a special ceremony after 50 yrs of his/her departure ??

No. The 50 years is more so that the person's contemporaries have all passed away and the Church can be objective about canonizing the individual.


[quote author=✞Je Nai Nan✞ link=topic=12403.msg145315#msg145315 date=1317180264]
And is it ok to have relics of Saints that aren't canonized ??


Sure. Why not?