Dead People Who Smell Great

and why we pray to them

One very prominent feature of Eastern Orthodoxy is prayer "to" the saints. (The word "to" is in quotation marks for a reason; I shall return to this later.) Why do we do this? Who in their right mind would ask anything of a dead man?

I will not be able to answer every argument or question here. It seems, though, that an apologia for this practice might be appropriate on a page listing several important Orthodox saints.

Everything in true Orthodox practice is rooted in the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Just so with prayer to the saints. It has developed out of the Church's ecclesiology, i.e., what the Church teaches about herself, about what the Church's nature is. Ecclesiology is incarnational and trinitarian, always.

Ecclesiology is incarnational because the Church is the body of Christ. The Orthodox do not say this as a metaphor or a simile. The Church is the body of Christ. The Church is not like the body of Christ. The Church is not the body of Christ as a president is the country. The Church is the body of Christ.

On Pentecost Sunday, almost 2000 years ago, the apostles and Mary, the Theotokos, were in the upper room. In accordance with their master's final instructions before he ascended nine days earlier, they were waiting for the Holy Spirit. Then, in the midst of their prayers, the Spirit came, and they were constituted by him into the Church. They were constituted by the Spirit into the body of Christ; they were united, in the Spirit, to Christ's glorified humanity. They manifested this new reality by performing signs and wonders. These men were now united to Christ. Their humanity was, by the power of the Spirit, one with his humanity. They were now interpenetrated by the energies of God, and they performed signs and wonders as a manifestation of this, just as Christ, because he was the God-man, performed signs and wonders.

A pentecost happens each Sunday in the Divine Liturgy. The Spirit constitutes us into the body of Christ. Therefore, the Church is one with Christ, her head. The Church really is his body. As a result, the Church is indivisible. There is now no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, living or dead. "The child," Christ said, "is not dead; she is only sleeping." Orthodox Christians will sometimes refer to the dead in Christ as having "fallen asleep." This is no euphemism. It is a biblical phrase recalling that death is overcome and that the dead "sleep in Christ."

The dead in Christ have been raised up with him. "Christ is risen from the dead," we chant at Pascha (the Resurrection), "conquering death by death, and on those in the grave bestowing life." Yes, the dead in Christ still await the final resurrection, as we all do, all but our Lady, the Theotokos. They are asleep to the world, yet alive in him. Alleluia!

Because the Church is united to Christ in the Spirit, she cannot be divided, just as Christ cannot be divided. Death no longer separates. It does not separate us from the holy Trinity, and it does not separate us from each other. Because in this world we are blind, we cannot perceive the presence of the dead in Christ in our midst. This is one purpose of the images of the Church, the icons.

Because we are no longer separated by death from those who have fallen asleep, we may speak to them as if they are present, for they are present in Christ. This is no theory of ghosts; it is the belief that the Church is united in Christ, living and dead. There is not, and there cannot be, a distinction between asking for the prayers of the living and asking the prayers of the dead. The only distinction must be based on our weakness, for we have been blinded to reality and being by our sins.

There is one other distinction. We do not always know who rejoices with the blessed of heaven. Not all who have died sleep in Christ. Some wait in fear for the dread judgment. Some who have died we know for certain from the virtue of their lives and the confirmed reality of their prayers on our behalf that they are glorified. For most, though, the witness of their lives is ordinary: a muddy cocktail of virtue and vice wherein it is impossible to tell what the final states of their souls have been. For these souls, and for ourselves, we pray for mercy from God, who is "the only true lover of mankind," that we may stand together with "the right answer before the awesome judgment seat of Christ."

I said earlier that I would speak to the enclosing of the word "to" in quotation marks. It is approriate to say that we pray to the saints. This prayer, however, is wholly unlike the prayer we make to God. The prayer to God is an offering of the whole life as a living sacrifice; it is called adoration, or worship. The prayer given to the saints is one of honor, a pitiful honor, as it is impossible for us to honor them more than they have been honored by God the Father. It is prayer, because they are not visibly present. And we offer it to them, as we would offer a prayer request to a friend.

For this reason, also, we often rest in the arms of particular saints, with whom we have a special affinity. Just as in this life, some holy men and women (the meaning of the word "saint") are closer to our hearts, because we are gifts of God to each other, so God also gives to us helpers in the heavenly realms. Life is no longer marred but completed by death. Death is overcome; Christ is risen! Alleluia!

Anything of worth in these words has been said elsewere, and it is on the strength of the Church's dogmatic tradition that they stand or fall. Anything that is inconsistent with the Orthodox faith is my own invention.