George Australia wrote:Lucian wrote:Conclusion: better to murder your wife than to divorce her.
If you do the former, you can be completely forgiven and eventually become a bishop.
Do the latter and you are marked like Cain forever.This is actually incorrect. Anyone who causes the death of another, even accidentally, cannot be ordained.
George
And if he is already ordained and he kills someone even if (like George said) it was by accident such as in a car chrash he would be defrocked.
This thread struck a cord, somewhere.
First, the priesthood was always something set apart even from the days of the Old Covenant or Testament. Marriage and its sanctity is very special too. Our Saviour's first miracle took place at the wedding at Cana.
Today, if anyone feels they are 'disqualified' or 'excluded' from ordination it appears to be taken as an equal opportunity issue. This a secular perspective, I would suggest.
I think the whole premise of the orginal question is flawed from an Orthodox viewpoint. My library is mainly stored, otherwise a more reasoned response would be given. For that please accept my apologies.
Today, if anyone feels they are 'disqualified' or 'excluded' from ordination it appears to be taken as an equal opportunity issue. This a secular perspective, I would suggest.
Also for those that feel that exclusion from the priesthood bars one from Orthodox life in general....I'd recomend looking at Saint Silouan the Athonite, Elder Joseph or Elder Paisios and notice the trend....
While I noticed this is more an issue in Roman Catholicism, I still notice in some Orthodox the tendency to view the Priesthood as an extension of piety - this is to say, that somehow being a Priest is the "next step" for someone who is really serious about the pursuit of religion.
This is of course, not the case - the Priesthood is a service to other men, not to the Priest himself. If anything, it's a path filled with incredible dangers and temptations to the soul of the one who receives it...and this only increases the more responsibility one takes on, and the higher the degree of the Priesthood one receives (the Episcopate in particular holding incredible responsibilities - though this will not concern most people, since as a rule Orthodoxy draws Bishop from monasteries, or when they consecrate widowed parish Priests to the Episcopate, they tonsure them as monks first.) I'm only speaking from my own personal bias, but I cannot imagine someone actually being desirous of the Priesthood at all - particularly given that at the dread Judgement, Christ is going to judge His Priest much more strictly than everyone else.
Seraphim
Lucian wrote:Has anyone ever noticed that besides blaspheming the Holy Spirit there is another unforgivable sin: divorce?
We know of saints who became priests and even bishops after having once been murderers, adulterers, homosexuals, fornicators, robbers - you name it - yet divorced persons are not supposed to be priests or even deacons.
Can someone explain this?
Divorce seems to be the one ineradicable blot on one's moral tally sheet.
Dear Lucian,
Although the lives of the saints tell of many saints who committed many different kinds of sins, and in some cases became priests, it is not the case that divorce is the only thing that disqualifies a man from the priesthood.
Strictly speaking, the canons don't allow the ordination of several of the categories of people you've listed above. It is true that not all bishops follow the canonical rules exactly.
Actually, divorce is not an impediment to the priesthood at all, though remarriage or marriage to a divorced woman is. On rare occasions, there may be exceptions even to these rules, but such exceptions are not in harmony with the canons.
Patrick
According to my knowledge, unforgivable sins are (to my brain, forgive me if I scandalize anyone for saying this): -the dreadful sinful of Transexuality. (As you all most probably know, there are sickos that change their God-given body parts permanently) which is something unforgivable. Like Suicide.
-But of course there is exceptions in Suicide (such as in the greek wars, to avoid tortures and death, suicide was acceptable).
(Anyways, sure the first thing I said is pretty discusting, but if you think about it. how can someone (who is an actual trans...) turn to GOD after death and think he can be saved after what he has done to himself/(herself, which is very possible.)
Anyways, sorry for twisted thinking ways of unforgivable sins.
romiosini wrote:According to my knowledge, unforgivable sins are (to my brain, forgive me if I scandalize anyone for saying this): -the dreadful sinful of Transexuality. (As you all most probably know, there are sickos that change their God-given body parts permanently) which is something unforgivable. Like Suicide.
Not scandalized so much as bewildered. Why on earth would that be unforgiveable?
Patrick