Ordination and the Clergy Family

What you'll notice

Partway through a Liturgy the bishop is serving, a man is led out of the crowd and walked to the Royal Doors with his head bowed low. Inside, he's taken three times around the altar while the choir sings, kissing its corners and the bishop's hand. He kneels. The bishop lays the end of his stole and then his hand on the man's head and prays aloud, while the clergy and choir sing "Lord, have mercy" and then, in Greek, Kyrie eleison.¹

Then the noise starts. As each new vestment goes on, the bishop calls out, "Axios!" ("Worthy!"), and the clergy in the altar and the choirs answer it, three times each, every time.²

Somewhere near the front, his wife and children are watching. Most Orthodox parish priests are married.

What it's called

Ordination, the laying on of hands. The Church has three major orders, the ones the New Testament names: deacon, priest (or presbyter, "elder"), and bishop. It also has minor orders, chiefly reader and subdeacon, conferred outside the altar before the Liturgy begins.³ Who's Who is the field guide to telling them apart.

The priest's wife is Presbytera in Greek use, Matushka in Slavic use, and Khouria in Antiochian use.

What's actually happening

Readers and subdeacons

Before the Liturgy, in the middle of the church, the bishop cuts the candidate's hair in the form of a cross, vests him, and has him read a few lines from the Epistle book. Then he gives him a charge: "My son, the first degree in the Priesthood is that of Reader. It behooveth thee, therefore, to peruse the divine Scriptures daily."⁴ A subdeacon is made in a similar way. In the Russian practice Hapgood records, no one is ordained deacon who isn't already a subdeacon, and since a subdeacon can't marry afterward, a man who means to be a married parish priest must be married first.⁵

Each order at its own moment

The three major orders are given at different points in the Liturgy, and the timing is the theology. A deacon is ordained after the consecration of the Gifts, because he serves at the Eucharist but doesn't celebrate it. A priest is ordained after the Great Entrance, just before the consecration, so that he can take part in it. A bishop is consecrated near the beginning, at the Small Entrance, and takes his seat among the bishops as their equal.⁶

The prayer

For deacon and priest the procession is the same: led to the Holy Door, three times around the altar, singing the hymns you'll also hear at a wedding: "O holy Martyrs, who fought the good fight and have received your crowns," "Glory to thee, O Christ our God," and "Rejoice, O Isaiah!"⁷ A deacon kneels on one knee, a priest on both, "to denote that he is receiving a greater ministry."⁸ Then the bishop, his hand on the man's head, says aloud: "The grace divine, which always healeth that which is infirm, and completeth that which is wanting, elevateth, through the laying-on of hands, N., the most devout Deacon, to be a Priest. Wherefore, let us pray for him, that the grace of the all-holy Spirit may come upon him."⁹

Axios

Each vestment goes on with its shout. The new priest is also handed the Service Book, Hapgood notes, "for he saith not from memory the Prayers, but readeth them."¹⁰ At a bishop's consecration the Gospel book is laid on his neck, a sign that he has taken on "the Church of the Lord" under the yoke of Christ, and Axios greets his bishop's vestments.¹¹

Why it matters

Hear what the Church asks for a new priest: that he "be worthy to stand in innocency before thine Altar; to proclaim the Gospel of thy kingdom; to minister the word of thy truth; to offer unto thee spiritual gifts and sacrifices; to renew thy people through the laver of regeneration."¹² That's a job description, and none of it is about him.

Ordination is service, not promotion. It gives a man a gift for the sake of the Church, not for his private holiness, and makes him a visible icon of Christ's care for one particular community. It's also why Orthodoxy doesn't talk about starting your own church. The Church's life is received, not invented, and the hands that ordain were ordained by hands before them.

Axios is the people's part in it. Hapgood's notes say the shout was the clergy's and people's testimony to a man's life and morals, and keep the old question put three times to the people at a bishop's consecration: "Is he, in truth, worthy of this ministry?"¹³

Where it came from

The apostles laid hands on the first seven deacons (Acts 6:1–6), and Paul reminds Timothy of the gift he received when the elders laid hands on him (1 Timothy 4:14). Bishops, presbyters, and deacons are all in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9). The early Church gave the people a real voice in choosing their clergy, a bishop most of all; the "Command" called out three times at an ordination, first to the people, preserves the memory of that right.¹⁴

The Orthodox ordain married men as deacons and priests, as the Pastoral Letters assume (1 Timothy 3:2, 12), but a man doesn't marry after ordination. Bishops have for centuries been chosen from among the monks.¹⁵

What you do

If you're Orthodox: when the bishop shouts Axios, shout it back; it's your line. Pray for your clergy by name, and for their wives and children, who live in a fishbowl and share the cost of the vocation.

If you're visiting: an ordination is worth attending if you ever get the chance; it's the Liturgy at full volume. Join in the Axios if you like. Address the priest's wife the way the people around you do, Presbytera, Matushka, or Khouria, and you'll be fine.

Field Note: "Call no man father." Matthew 23:9 is right there, and the Orthodox call the priest Father anyway. So did Saint Paul: "I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Corinthians 4:15), and he calls Timothy his son. Jesus in that passage is after men who collected titles for status, not the word itself, or Paul would be in trouble, and so would anyone with a dad. The priest is Father the way the man who raised you is: by feeding you. If the word sticks in your throat, "sir" will do for a while, and nobody will mind.

Go deeper

• Hapgood, Service Book, ordinations of readers through bishops, pp. 307–332, with the explanations on pp. 605–607.
• Acts 6:1–6; 1 Timothy 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9.
• "The Mysteries: A Field Guide to the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church," Simply Orthodox.
• Who's Who; Monks and Nuns.

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