What
are the Holy Mysteries?
Anyone can pray to God. In many religions people understand prayer as reaching out to a God who is far beyond them. But because God became one of us in Jesus Christ, prayer in the Church is different. Through Christ we are joined to the Father, Christ is in our midst and the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Christian prayer is not just us reaching out to God; it is the Spirit of God praying within us.
The Holy
Mysteries ― what the
Just as many people saw and heard Christ during His earthly ministry but did not follow Him, people today may receive the Mysteries for social reasons, but without faith. To experience the transforming power of Christ in them we must receive and embrace them as God at work in me. Otherwise we will have encountered Christ and gained nothing from the experience.
Why do we call them
Mysteries?
The New Testament speaks of the saving work of Christ as the great mystery of our faith. “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up into glory” (1 Timothy 3:16). Using the term Mystery to describe Baptism, the Eucharist and the rest reminds us that these prayers connect us to the saving work of Christ, which is the great mystery.
The word Mystery also suggests something hidden. In the Holy Mysteries it is Christ who acts, but His work is hidden. We see the priest baptize, for example, but we do not see Christ joining the new Christian to Himself through Baptism. The real work of these Mysteries is hidden in the spiritual realm, which is not visible to our eyes.
Why do we speak of seven
Holy Mysteries?
The Church has always seen the Mysteries as connected to the saving work of Christ as practiced in the ministry of the apostles. Christ Himself baptized (John 3:26) and commanded Baptism (Matthew 28:19). His own baptism was marked by the descent of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16, for example) and His disciples laid hands on the newly-baptized for the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:5-6). Christ told His disciples to celebrate the Eucharist (for example, Luke 22:19) and sent them to anoint the sick (Mark 6:13). He gave them the power to forgive sins (John 20:22-23) and to minister to His Church (Matthew 18:18) and they in turn encouraged the confession of sins (James 5:6) and ordained by the laying-on of hands (Acts 6:5-6). They saw marriage as the mystery of unity representing Christ’s love for the Church (Ephesians 5:32).
While the historic Churches
(Catholic, Orthodox and the other
What happens in Baptism?
Christ is the Victor over sin and death. He conquered sin by dying innocently, not opposing His persecutors but forgiving them. He conquered death by His resurrection. In Baptism we are united to Christ in this victory. We mystically die and are buried with Him (the sign of this is our ‘burial’ in the water) and we rise with Him (we are raised from the water) to a new life. We are born from above (John 3:3) as members of God’s family. We become children of the Father who “…destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:5).
Some of the other signs in Baptism include:
- Rejection of Satan and profession of faith in Christ (our baptismal promises)
- The joy of union with Christ (the “oil of gladness”)
- We “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27 - the white garments)
- We are filled with the light of Christ (the baptismal candle)
- We are “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17 - the new name)
- We are welcomed into the Church (the procession into the assembly)
Why are we chrismated?
Baptism in
water is the first Mystery of Christian Initiation. However Jesus said that our
initiation into the
The gift of the Holy Spirit is the “seal” on our baptism, the “pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (Ephesians 1:14). The gift of the Holy Spirit is like a down payment or token of the life of God which awaits us in the kingdom to come.
When we are chrismated we are anointed with chrism (also called Myron) on different parts of our bodies (face, breast, hands, and feet). Chrism is a mixture of oils and perfumes sent by the bishop or patriarch to show that he is present as a new Christian is joined to the Church (Western Christians are usually chrismated or confirmed later in life, when the bishop come to confer this mystery personally).
This sealing
of our bodies with chrism represents that we have been sealed mystically by the
gift of the Holy Spirit. Anointed with chrism we have become Christians: other
anointed ones or “other Christs.” We now have the calling to build up the
Once we are born from above in this way the Holy Spirit dwells in us: “…your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God”(1 Corinthians 6:16). The Spirit within us is our Paraclete (Advocate, Counselor) to help us in accepting this call by living the Christian life to the full. We are able to call on the Spirit for help and guidance
What is the Eucharist?
Once we have been born from above through water and the Holy Spirit we are able to join God’s people in worship, call on God as “Our Father” and partake of the Holy Eucharist. At the Divine Liturgy we remember all that God has done for us in Christ (the cross, the tomb and the rest); we give thanks for this saving gift of Christ; we receive Christ in the Gospel and in the Eucharist.
The Lord Jesus told His hearers, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in my will never thirst” (John 6:35). In the Eucharist Christ nourishes the divine life which we received in Baptism and Chrismation. Without this spiritual nourishment the believer’s life in God will wither away. As Jesus said, “…unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you” (John 6:53). What makes the Eucharist such a life-giving food? It is nothing less than the body and blood of Christ mystically present in the antitypes of bread and wine. When we partake of this food we are receiving Christ Himself.
All Christians frequently repeat Christ’s words at the Last Supper: “Take and eat, this is my body…this is my blood” in celebrating the Eucharist. Many Protestants, however, do not believe that the bread and wine mystically become the body and blood of Christ. They believe they are only symbols of His body and blood and not real. The historic Churches of East and West believe that these “symbols” actually contain what they symbolize (Christ’s body and blood) in a mystical way.
What about Confession?
When the Lord Jesus was on earth people often approached Him to heal their diseases. One time a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus (Luk3 5:17-26). His friends had to lower him through the roof to get to Jesus. The Lord did not begin by healing his body but by something He knew was more important: telling the man that his sins were forgiven.
Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask for the forgiveness of our sins. At every Divine Liturgy we are given the Eucharist “for the remission of sins and for eternal life.” But the most fervent way we can ask for the forgiveness of our sins is to approach Christ in the Mystery of Repentance. In this Mystery we publicly (before the priest) admit to the Lord that we are sinners by explicitly confessing our sins. The priest prays for the person who has confessed, laying the ends of his priestly epitrachilion (as it were, the hands of Christ) over the person’s head, and the Lord forgives.
In the Church’s early days the confession of serious sins was often made before all the people, because serious sin breaks our relationship with God and harms the unity of the Church. The Mystery of Repentance was considered a “second baptism” where the water of our rebirth is replaced by the water of our tears of sorrow for the sins we have committed. While the priest is now the only member of the Church to hear our confession, people who receive this Mystery with repentant hearts often feel that have put on their baptismal garment again.
When should I be anointed?
While Christ considered our sins more damaging than our illnesses, He still healed many people and sent the apostles to anoint the sick and pray for their healing in His name. In the Church the apostles continued to bring Christ’s healing touch to the sick through the Mystery of Holy Unction: “Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14).
In this Mystery the priests (presbyters) pray, read the Scriptures and anoint the sick with oil, sometimes mixed with wine – the healing balm used in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34). They also place the Gospel Book on the sick person’s head to represent the Lord’s healing touch.
For a long time people thought that this mystery was to prepare someone for death – often they would not call the priest until the person was unconscious. Today we have returned to the spirit of the early Church. We can and should ask for this Mystery ourselves whenever we are sick, especially if we are facing a serious illness. This Mystery is also offered to everyone during the Great and Holy Week, especially in prayer for the healing of our spiritual infirmities, before we celebrate Pascha.
All kinds of people get married – what’s so special about a church wedding?
The Mystery of Crowning is more than a wedding, even more than a church wedding. In our society a church wedding involves a man “giving away” his daughter to another man, the couple pledging their marriage vows to one another, exchanging rings and being proclaimed man and wife by the celebrant.
We see in our Mystery, however, two Christians, temples of the Holy Spirit, approach Christ to make them into a new reality, a “domestic church” where they are meant to bring one another to the Kingdom and extend the love of Christ to others, first of all to the children they may bear.
The many signs of this Mystery point to this reality:
- Ideally the man and woman pledge themselves to one another and exchange rings at the Betrothal ceremony, held at the engagement or in the narthex before the Crowning.
- The couple enters the church together holding lit candles, as they did at their Baptism: a reminder that they are embarking on a spiritual journey, called by God to this blessed state.
-
The priest calls of the Lord to bless them by crowning
them “with glory and honor” in the words of Psalm 8, which describes Adam and
Eve in
- The priest leads them around the sacramental table as newly-ordained clergy are led around the holy table. The table – by extension their home – is the focus of their ministry in the “domestic church.”
- The couple shares the “Common Cup” of wine, which suggests both the cup of their life which they will share together and the Eucharist in which they will find the strength to live this life.
What are “Holy Orders”?
The dictionary tells us that an ‘order’ is “a rank, class, or special group in a community or society.” The Holy Orders in the Church are the higher grades of Christian ministry: bishop, priest (presbyter) and deacon. The first order in the Church was that of apostle (those who had been eye-witnesses to the Lord’s resurrection). The apostles themselves chose others to help them or to lead the local Churches they established on their journeys. After the death of the apostles the bishops were acknowledged as their successors, the highest order of leadership in the Church.
The bishop (and, by extension, his representatives the presbyters) is the pastor and teacher of the Christian community, the “father of the family.” This is why Christians began calling their bishop “Father.” His chief work is described in the Acts of the Apostles 6:4 (“prayer and the ministry of the word”). He offers the Divine Liturgy, the other Holy Mysteries and divine services, preaches and teaches the Christians in his care. The order of deacon is a ministry of service, assisting the bishop and the presbyters in caring for the more material needs of the Church.
Each of these orders is conferred by a bishop (or by several bishops, in the ordination of a new bishop) in a similar ceremony:
- Presentation (the candidate is led out from the congregation and presented to the bishop);
- Procession around the holy table, the focus of his new ministry.
- Prayer invoking the Holy Spirit and the laying-on of hands (Acts 6:6);
- Vesting of the new bishop, priest or deacon.
There are several ranks of bishops (e.g. archbishop, metropolitan), presbyters (e.g. archpriest, archimandrite) and deacons (e.g. protodeacon, archdeacon) but they all share in the same holy orders of bishop, priest (presbyter) and deacon.
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