The Church of the Holy Spirit

Nicholas Afanasiev, Michael Plekon, Vitaly Permiakov

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780268074678
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

The Church of the Holy Spirit, written by Russian priest and scholar Nicholas Afanasiev (1893–1966), is one of the most important works of twentieth-century Orthodox theology. Afanasiev was a member of the "Paris School" of émigré intellectuals who gathered in Paris after the Russian revolution, where he became a member of the faculty of St. Sergius Orthodox Seminary. The Church of the Holy Spirit, which offers a rediscovery of the eucharistic and communal nature of the church in the first several centuries, was written over a number of years beginning in the 1940s and continuously revised until its posthumous publication in French in 1971.

Vitaly Permiakov's lucid translation and Michael Plekon's careful editing and substantive introduction make this important work available for the first time to an English-speaking audience.

Chapter 1

The Royal Priesthood

1. Direct scriptural evidence of the priestly ministry of all the members of the Church is scarce but unambiguous enough not to require any special interpretation. The apostle Peter addresses all Christians in his epistle, saying:

And like living stones be yourselves built (oikodomeisthe)1 into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ . . . You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2.5, 9–10)

In the Book of Revelation we read:

To him who . . . made us kings and priests (basileis kai hiereis)2 to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. (1.6)

And [you] have made us kings and priests3 to our God and we shall reign on earth. (5.10)

They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and they shall reign with him a thousand years. (20.6)

The Jews were God’s chosen people:

You are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. (Deut 14.2)

God has formed this chosen people of the Old Testament for himself:

The wild beasts will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. (Isa 43.20–21)

God has given a promise to his people:

Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests (LXX: basileion hierateuma) and a holy nation. (Ex 19.5–6)

In the New Testament, those who became this race and nation (genos eklekton, ethnos hagion) which the Lord has chosen and formed for himself were Christians who before were not at all a nation but who in the Church became God’s people (laos Theou). The Church is God’s people, and every faithful in the Church belongs to this people. He is laikos, a laic.4 The ethnic principle, according to which ancient Israel was chosen has been surpassed and replaced by the principle of belonging to the Church: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3.28). “The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Rom 11.29), therefore one cannot be in the Church and not be a laic, laikos—a member of God’s people. Every one in the Church is a laic and all together are God’s people and each one is called, as a priest of God, to offer spiritual sacrifices to Him through Jesus Christ.

The priesthood in Judaism had the special character of being closed and inaccessible to the people. A boundary forever separated the priesthood from the people, a veil cut off the sanctuary from them. The royal priesthood of the whole of Israel in the Old Testament remained a promise for the future. In the present it was totally identified with the levitical priesthood to which the people of Israel in its entirety was inferior. It was a grievous crime to mingle present with future in relation to this ministry.

Now Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi, and Dathan and Abi’ram the sons of Eli’ab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; and they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” . . . And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men that belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly . . . And fire came forth from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense. (Num 16.1–35)

They rose up before Moses in the name of what the Lord said: all are God’s people, the Lord is in the midst of all, all equally are members of the people and no one can set himself above God’s people; therefore all will be holy and all will be priests (Ex 19.5–6). The earth opened up and the fire consumed those who rose up against Moses, but the promise remained irrevocable and it has been fulfilled in the Church. The veil was removed from the sanctuary—“and behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matt 27.51). The boundary was crossed, the gap was filled, and the entire people, the new Israel, was led into the sanctuary “by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh . . .” (Heb 10.19–20). Through this entrance into the “temple of Christ’s body” (John 2.21) the New Testament people became the royal priesthood (basileion hierateuma).5 The royal priesthood became reality and the basis of the life of the Church. In the Old Testament, the temple service was restricted to the levitical priesthood, but in the New Testament, ministry in the Church, in the living tabernacle not made by hands, belongs to all the members of the Church. The people of God of the New Testament is made up of kings and priests. It is holy in its entirety, and the Lord is present in its assembly, so that it cannot be consumed by earth and destroyed by fire. The New Testament people as a whole serves God, not in the court of the Temple, but in the sanctuary itself where it is present as a whole.

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the festal gathering and assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. (Heb 12.22–24)

The New Israel has free access to the place the Old Testament people could not even approach.

The Old Testament priests were set apart for the service in the Temple as a tribe or clan. In the New Testament, the priesthood belongs to the whole Church. Each Christian is called to the priesthood, for no one can be baptized without having been called by God himself. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12.13). Each member of the Church is called by God, set apart by Him as a member of the Church through the gift of the Spirit. Consequently, each member of the Church is called to life, activity, work, and ministry in the Church, for the Spirit is the principle of life and activity in the Church.6 “God . . . has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3.6). Each one is set apart for the ministry of the royal priesthood, but they all minister as priests to God the Father, all together, for only in the Church is there a priesthood. Old Testament priesthood became a common ministry, the levitical one became the ministry of laics, for the Church is the people of God.

2. Primitive Christianity was a laic movement. Descending from the line of David, Christ did not belong to the tribe of Levi.7 The apostles did not have any special relation to the Jerusalem Temple, for they did not belong to the levitical priesthood, either. Nor did the first Christians have any service in the Temple. For this reason they could not recreate the levitical priesthood in their community. Even if later there were some priests among them (Acts 6.7), their participation in the life of the Jerusalem church could not alter the laic character of primitive Christianity. We know that priests participated in the life of the synagogues but they did not have any leadership roles there. For Jewish consciousness the priesthood was closely connected with the Temple and without it the Temple could not exist.

Therefore even in primitive Christian thinking the emerging teaching concerning the royal priesthood must have been connected with a temple. If there is a royal priesthood, there is a temple and, conversely, if there is a temple, there must be a priesthood. The Jerusalem Temple while it was still standing could not have been this temple, even less could it be this temple after it was destroyed. When the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews was developing his teaching concerning the high priesthood of Christ, he constructed his teaching not after the image of the levitical priesthood, but “after the order of Melchizedek” (5.10), priest of the Most High God, without father or mother or genealogy (7.1–3). Both the sanctuary and the tabernacle where Christ has entered were not made by man but by the Lord (8.2). Instead of the Temple made by hands, the Christians have a temple not made by hands. Instead of bloody sacrifices they have spiritual sacrifices. The Church is “a spiritual house” (oikos pneumatikos), the temple in which the Christians become living stones through baptism (1 Peter 2.5).8 As living stones of the spiritual temple they share in the high priesthood of Christ. “Since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God (hierea megan epi ton oikon tou Theou), let us draw near with a true heart . . .” (Heb 10.19–20). Therefore all the faithful, rather than just a few of them as it was in the Temple made by hands, constitute the priesthood in the spiritual house, for only priests can enter into the sanctuary. In the “spiritual house” there can be no bloody sacrifices. Rather, the priests of this house offer “spiritual sacrifices” (pneumatikai thusiai).9 There is no doubt that the “spiritual sacrifices” offered through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2.5) signify the Eucharist of which the apostle Peter was already speaking in the preceding verses.10 Instituted at the Last Supper, the Eucharist is actualized at Pentecost. It is accomplished by the Spirit and therefore is itself spiritual. Introducing the notion of “spiritual sacrifice,” the apostle Peter wished to demonstrate that the “holy priesthood” was a genuine priesthood, because for the readers of his epistle there could be no priesthood without sacrifice. But the emphasis here is not on a sacrifice as such but on the fact that it is “spiritual,” corresponding to the “spiritual house” of the Christians.11 Peter’s teaching on the Church as a “spiritual house” is just another expression of the teaching of Paul on the Church as the body of Christ. Both are grounded in the primordial tradition going back to Christ himself: “He spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2.21). The idea concerning the royal priesthood of the members of the Church stems from the teaching about the Church.

3. “So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ . . . tend the flock of God that is your charge . . ., not as domineering over possessions [of God] (tôn klêrôn) but by being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5.1–3). In each local church, the Holy Spirit has set apart the presbyters (or bishops) to tend the flock of God (Acts 20.28). God’s flock which the presbyters tend is their possession (klêros) which they have received from God.12 God’s people is one, God’s flock is one, and the klêros is one. Belonging to God’s flock, each member of the Church belongs to the possession that the presbyters tend and through them to the possession (klêros) of God. Thus one could say that each laic as a member of the people of God is a cleric. He is also a cleric (klêrikos) because the Lord took for his possession the whole people of God of which the cleric is a part. In the Old Testament the Lord took for his possession only the tribe of Israel.

And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and worship them and serve them, things which the Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own possession, as at this day. (Deut 4.19–20)

The whole of Israel is God’s people, a people of his possession but also only a shadow of the new Israel in which the present and the future are joined together. In the strict sense of the word, God had as his possession only the tribe of Levi. “At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to him . . .” (Deut 10.8). If the entire people of Israel was set apart from all nations, the tribe of Levi was set apart from all remaining tribes and was set above the rest of the people, for the priesthood belonged to this tribe alone. In the New Testament the entire people constitutes the priesthood, therefore no part could be separated from the rest. In the New Testament, the Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled: the entire people, not just a part of it, serve in the name of the Lord. The entire New Testament people is God’s possession (klêros) and each person within it is a cleric.13 Just as in the course of dividing the promised land, the tribe of Levi did not receive its share of the land, so in the same way the members of the Church do not have a lasting city on earth but seek the city which is to come (Heb 13.14). Having the service of God as their possession, Christians are wholly given over to him and belong only to him. In the Old Testament the Levites were God’s portion in the land and his inheritance—“they are wholly given to me from among the people of Israel” (Num 8.16). But in the New Testament the entire people of God is wholly given to God. “And you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3.23). As members of the Church, Christians belong to Christ, and, through him, to God. They serve God not as a separate group but all together. As laics—members of God’s people “in Christ”—they are wholly given over to God. They are clerics and as clerics (klêrikoi) they are all laics (laikoi).

4. The apostolic church did not know the separation of clerics from laics in our meaning of the words and it did not have the terms themselves in its usage. This is a basic fact of the ecclesial life in the primitive era, but it would be wrong to infer from this fact that ministry in the Church was exhausted by the notion of the priestly ministry, common for all. It was a ministry of the Church. Another fact of the life of the primitive Church was the diversity of ministries. The same Spirit by whom all were baptized into one body and of whom all were made to drink distributes particular gifts to each one “for the common good (sympheron)” (1 Cor 12.7), for action and service within the Church.

And the gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. (Eph 4.11–12)14

The diversity of ministries stems from the “organic” nature of the Church. Each of its members occupies in it his own position and place, proper to him alone. “God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor 12.18). In a living organism, place and position of its members depends on the functions executed by them. So in Christ’s body, diverse ministries are associated with the place and position of the members. The gifts of the Spirit are not given for their own sake as a reward of some sort, but for ministry in the Church, and they are given to those who already have drunk of the Spirit. That means the common quality of having partaken of the Spirit is the foundation for the “work of ministry” because without this charismatic foundation the diversity of the Spirit’s gifts would not be possible. That all the members of the Church drank of the one Spirit is manifest in their priestly ministry, for there cannot be a Spirit without action. Particular ministries are directed toward the “building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4.12). In them, various functions necessary for the common life of the whole body find their expression. For this reason common ministry in the Church presupposes a diversity of ministries and a diversity of ministries cannot exist without common ministry.

The diversity of ministries does not disrupt the unity of nature of the Church’s members. Their ontological unity with each other stems from their unity “in Christ.” All members possess the same nature, for they all have one and the same Spirit. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit . . .” (1 Cor 12.4). No one by his nature should put himself above others in the Church—even less above the Church—or pretend to speak for the Church in a special manner. Neither the apostles, nor the prophets, nor the teachers by themselves, nor all together, nor each in particular, constitute the Church. Both they and the others are merely members of the Church, but they are not the whole Church. Thus they cannot exist without the remaining members, for otherwise they would not be able to fulfill the functions for which God has set them a...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword to the Translation
• Introduction: The Church of the Holy Spirit—Nicholas Afanasiev’s Vision of the Eucharist and the Church
• Author’s Foreword
• Chapter 1. The Royal Priesthood
• Chapter 2. The Ordination of Laics
• Chapter 3. The Ministry of Laics
• Chapter 4. The Work of Ministry
• Chapter 5. “Those Who Preside in the Lord”
• Chapter 6. “The One Who Offers Thanksgiving”
• Chapter 7. The Bishop
• Chapter 8. The Power of Love
• Notes