Orthodox Church And Saints

[Apotheoun]

The members of the Russian royal family are passion-bearers, which means that they died in a Christ-like way, but that they were not killed explicitly for the faith.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='08 December 2009 - 02:05 PM' timestamp='1260306304' post='2016289']
I can't wait to see what Apotheoun says.
[/quote]
I posted the information below some time ago in response to a question related to the subject of this present thread:

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='31 August 2009 - 11:34 PM' timestamp='1251786857' post='1959341']
[quote name='StColette' date='31 August 2009 - 01:05 PM' timestamp='1251749135' post='1958961']
Todd, could you provide a reference to this, please? I've tried searching one online and found like one from wiki and one that didn't seem very scholarly or give too much detail.
[/quote]
Not many of the liturgical books (and they are voluminous in number) of the Byzantine liturgy are available online. In fact, the only online resources tend to be for the major feasts of the liturgical calendar, and St. Gregory of Sinai's memorial is not a major feast in the liturgical cycle, but the feast of St. Gregory Palamas (+ A.D. 1359) is a major celebration (i.e., it is the Second Sunday of Great Fast), and English version of the liturgical texts for his feast are available online through the Ruthenian Catholic Church's "Metropolitan Cantor Institute" at the following link:

[url="http://www.metropolitancantorinstitute.org/sheetmusic/general/GF2SundayGreatVespers.pdf"][u]Vesper Propers for the Second Sunday of the Great Fast: Memory of our Holy Father Gregory, Archbishop of Thessalonica[/u][/url]


In addition to St. Gregory Palamas the Eastern Catholic Churches also recognize St. Sergius of Radonezh as a saint (n.b., he has also recently been added to the newest version of the Roman Martyrology, which means that his feast is no longer peculiar to the Eastern Catholic Churches, but is now also a feast in the Roman Rite). St. Sergius (circa A.D. 1322 - A.D. 1392) lived and died at a time when the Russian Orthodox Church was not in communion with Rome; and moreover, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1452, which was eleven years after that Church had rejected the decrees and authority of the Council of Florence, and yet Rome itself has added St. Sergius to its own calendar.

St. Sergius is the ninth of eleven saints listed for September 25th in the latest edition of the [i]Martyrologium Romanum[/i] published in Rome in 2004 (page 536):

Here is his entry in Latin (minus the accents):

[indent][i]In monasterio Sanctissimae Trinitatis in Mosquensi Russiae regione, sancti Sergii de Radonez, qui, primum in silvis asperis eremita, dein vitam coenobiticam coluit et hegumenus electus propagavit, vir mitis, consiliarius principum et consolator fidelium.[/i][/indent]

Finally, Pope Pius X in the early 20th century gave his approval to the Russian Catholic Church's liturgical books, which are identical to the Russian Orthodox books of that time period, and when questioned about whether or not Russian Catholics should follow Orthodox liturgical practice, he answered by saying that their practice should be "nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter" (no more, no less, no different) than that of the Russian Orthodox Church. That means that all the saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church up to the first decade of the 20th century are recognized as saints by the Russian Catholic Church, which is in communion with the bishop of Rome, and -- of course -- because the Russian Catholic Church recognizes the saints glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church it follows by extension that all those saints are also recognized by the other Eastern Catholic Churches.
[/quote]

[Resurrexi]

I disagree with what you said about St. Sergius having lived while Russia was out of communion with Rome. Russia hadn't yet formally made the decision to split with the Roman See. Russia at that time saw no reason to split with Rome.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' date='09 December 2009 - 02:07 AM' timestamp='1260349668' post='2016525']
I disagree with what you said about St. Sergius having lived while Russia was out of communion with Rome. Russia hadn't yet formally made the decision to split with the Roman See. Russia at that time saw no reason to split with Rome.
[/quote]
Russia was not in communion with Rome at the time, either formally or informally. The pope was not commemorated during the Patriarchal or Metropolitan liturgies, and he was often held to be a heretic. Now if you do not count that as being "out of communion" then the Eastern Orthodox of today are also in communion with the pope.

[loveletslive]

my orthodox friend told me that there is no official process for someone to become a saint like in the catholic church. if the patriarch if one area deems the person worthy, they are called a saint and generally all the other patriarchs accept

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='loveletslive' date='09 December 2009 - 03:46 PM' timestamp='1260395178' post='2016817']
my orthodox friend told me that there is no official process for someone to become a saint like in the catholic church. if the patriarch if one area deems the person worthy, they are called a saint and generally all the other patriarchs accept
[/quote]
Do you mean Orthodox Church?

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='loveletslive' date='09 December 2009 - 02:46 PM' timestamp='1260395178' post='2016817']
my orthodox friend told me that there is no official process for someone to become a saint like in the catholic church. if the patriarch if one area deems the person worthy, they are called a saint and generally all the other patriarchs accept
[/quote]
This is true to a point. The Orthodox do not have a legalized structure with stages for the glorification of a new saint, but the liturgical glorification of a man (or woman) as a saint is not done on a whim.

The person must have lived a life of virtue in Christ, and must be exemplary in his support of Orthodoxy, etc., so it is not like a bishop or patriarch just pulls a name out of a hat and liturgically glorifies that person.