Our topic today is the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Of course sacrament is a
Latin word which means sacred, dedicated to God, but the Orthodox term that we use
normally is mystery ... "Mysteria" ... the mysteries of the Church which the
meaning of a mystery is slightly different than just something sacred or
dedicated to God. It is when a mystical event occurs which cannot be seen with
human eyes or described with human words and in this process of the mystery we
have the outpouring of the grace of God upon a human being or an object or a
space through our special prayers and the invocation of God.
A mystery is an event where the outward material signs are pointing to the
inner spiritual outpouring of the grace of God in the world and more
specifically on the faithful involved in that mystery, in that sacrament, in that
service that we do. The purpose of the sacraments or mysteries is to enable the
transformation of the faithful and the fallen physical world to a transfigured,
sanctified, and perfected state. All mysteries open the channels of grace
to be poured upon us, to be poured out into the world. But they also lift us up,
lift the faithful up, the faithful who participate. They lift us up
spiritually and enable us to taste the kingdom of God in the here now. This
becomes possible because God has become man in our Lord Jesus Christ and through
his incarnation he provided the possibility of the sanctification of the
physical world and and he sanctified the world himself when he participated in
this life ... in our life, in the human life and walked on the earth.
He sanctified the River Jordan for example when he descended into it at his baptism.
He sanctified the Sea of Galilee by calming the waters. He sanctified
matter by taking it and joining it to his divinity and himself
when he took on our humanity. So, the second question the people ask is
how many sacraments or mysteries do we have and this is a question which people
ask because they know from the other Christians, the Roman Catholics for
example. They talk about seven sacraments and the Roman Catholic Church decided
that the sacraments are seven as a reaction to the Protestant reformers who
were claiming two or three. So, when in the Counter Reformation
process the Roman Catholics at the Council of Trent one of their major
decisions that they made in the years between the years 1545 and 1563 is that they
decided that sacraments are seven. But the Orthodox Church never officially
limited the sacraments to seven so we can talk of many more sacraments in the
Orthodox Church in addition to the basic seven which some people know. So, let's
go through them. Baptism is an important sacrament, it's a personal one
of the important personal mysteries or sacraments of the Church
and chrismation, which we do at the same time with baptism usually ...
... another personal mystery or sacrament of the Church. And then of course the Eucharist
which if we baptize an infant we always give it immediately after baptism and
chrismation. These are essential in entering the Church and receiving
sanctification and receiving the fullness of grace of God. And then as we
grow older we go to repentance or confession, another personal sacrament.
Those who will become clergy, they receive the sacrament of ordination
or Holy Orders entering the Diaconate, the Presbyterate, or the Episcopate ... and
again this is a personal one of the personal mysteries. And then if one were
to get married, marriage or Holy Matrimony is one of the personal
mysteries that involves two people. And then we also have the anointing of the
sick or Holy Unction where oil is used to transmit the grace of the Holy Spirit
for the healing of the person and healing of soul and body
actually and this can be a personal or communal mystery. And we also
speak of other sacraments. We have for example the consecration of a church, a
temple consecration or church building, this is one of the major sacraments of
the Church. And then we have the Great Blessing of the Waters on Holy
Epiphany which commemorates the Baptism of Christ and
sanctifies the waters. We invoke the grace of the Holy Spirit to to come and
and sanctify the waters and transmit the grace of the Holy Spirit through the
sprinkling of the water and the drinking of the water to all the persons, the
people who participate, as well as to nature, to the whole nature around us.
In this way we transform the world, we change the world, we sanctify the world. And then
we have the Lesser Blessing of the Water which we do any time in any place and we
do it usually on the first of every month to begin the month with that
blessing or we can do it at homes, we can do it at different times.
Then there is the Rite of Monastic Profession or the Monastic Tonsure,
another personal mystery, which brings us to eleven ... Over and
beyond the seven we reach with the other ones and then the Service of the Burial
of the Dead, the funeral, is one of our major sacraments that we only offer for
Orthodox Christians which is again a personal one of the personal mysteries,
the personal sacraments. And then we have the Service of the Blessing of the
Home, the blessing of a vehicle, the blessing of a boat, the blessing of a
business, the blessing of a school, the blessing of the children as they start
their new school year, as they close their school year, and the blessing of
animals, all of these are all mysteries of the church. They're
sacraments of the churches that are given to the people so that through our prayers,
through these mystical events we sanctify matter, we sanctify the water or
the oil, and through that we transmit the Holy Spirit to the individual persons or
to the objects or spaces and sanctification of time also through our
prayers most of these are done personally and
communally and most of these mysteries are done at any time in different times
and the names of the people participating are mentioned in the
prayers so that they become blessings on them in a very special and personal way.
All of these sacraments opened the doors of heaven so that the grace of God can
come and people can experience the grace of heaven and taste of the grace of
heaven even in the here now and be prepared to enter the Kingdom of God
when the time comes and that is available to us.