Sermon. At 8 years of Divine Priesthood [17 September 2013]
My beloved,
The cheirotonia into priest means as „the divine grace…appoint you” [Arhieraticon, ed. BOR (Romanian Orthodox Church) 1993, p. 79] in this hierarchical rung. Of the second sacramental hierarchy of the Church of Christ.
Through the hands of the cheirotoning hierarch, of the hierarchy which makes you priest, the divine grace or, better said, The Most Holy Trinity through His grace, takes us from the rung of deacon and puts us in the priest.
A divine lifting from a rung in another, made through the intermedium of the hierarch valid cheirotoned, but by God Himself.
Just therefore, today, when I celebrate 8 years of priestly ministry…I talk about the Divine Priesthood, for that it is the gift of God, the glorified and worshiped in Trinity.
As seminary pupil, as student, as masterandus, as doctorandus, I all looked cheirotonias into deacon and priest, even cheirotonias of hierarchs, but I looked…from outside.
For that you cannot be inside of the Mystery…than if you are in the fact of being cheirotoned.
And, more briefly, nobody told me what will happen with me, when I will be cheirotoned deacon and priest or when I will be cheirothesed confessor.
I knew the Services of the Cheirotonias, I knew what had said great Fathers of the Church and Theologians about the Divine Priesthood, some details from other confreres…I was attracted by the grace of God to the receiving of the cheirotonia…more and more…without I still have an another alternative…
And into such mystical state, of joy and of majesty of God’s call to cheirotonia…I came away with my grandmother and with the lady priestess (my single friends of consciousness), the morning, with the train, from Roșiorii de Vede to Alexandria.
I was deacon…and was a beautiful morning but breezy of September…
And I had to be cheirotoned there, near the miracle worker Icon of Too Clean, with much joy and divine trembling in my being.
But did not know what will happen…
When has begun the cheirotonia into priest…I had a great divine sight.
There, in front of the Holy Table, my mind was filled of divine light, the Church, where I was, has opened to God’s glory and descended in me a sea of light.
Vision which was printed in my heart so much, that today, when I relive it, it is alive.
For that God tell me that thus I must serve Him: full of grace, full of goodness, full of cleanness, full of divine beauty. But equally is need to make them, those who will listen to me and whom I serve.
Nobody told me how it looks the lifting from a rung in another.
But God showed me that the lifting is real, is mystical and it is made through transmission of grace and vision.
Therefore I do not doubt for a moment the grace of God and of His great mercy toward me, His worthless servant.
Nobody saw what happened…besides me…
All was divine miracle, a confirmation from His part, for I do not ever doubt of the grace and of the rung received from Him.
And namely, I do not think that I have received the Priesthood from a man and that it means just to make me a service by a hierarch, after which everyone to say me Father…but that the Divine Priesthood means to receive grace and divine power, closeness and boldness of son for to serve the Holy Mysteries of the Church.
The Divine Liturgy has continued, we shared in sobor/ communion, it has finished… after which I was cheirothesed, in the same day, into confessor.
After how I had not expected at the first vision, but, as it seems, I was prepared for it by God, I did not expect to live nor the second.
During prayer of cheirothesed, when the hierarch prays as, on the priest of face, God to make worthy of „Your apostolic and ghostual ministry, through of our humbleness, to bind and to loose the mistakes of those unworthy” [Idem, p. 107]…the Church went with all in the light of God…and descended in me a sea of divine fire…for show me that ghostuality means the power to cleanse, through grace, the faithful ones and to burn in them all uncleanness, ignorance, heresy or interior rudeness.
And now, after 8 years, I understand and better that I had great need, absolute need of two divine visions then, in those sacred moments, for that I do not slight, never, the gift received, I do not believe that is an easy thing my vocation, but that I was cheirotoned, by God, in the Divine Priesthood of the Church, received of the Holy Apostles from the Lord and sent to us from generation in generation in His Church.
Ie I have confirmed of the fact that the Priesthood is a real transmission of the divine grace in the Church and that then when the hierarch cheirotones, God gives His grace in the cheirotoned.
I was talking today with Father Veniamin Goreanu, Patriarchal Counselor, and told me about financial difficulties of priests in Romania and that the priesthood, for many of the priests of today, has become a life of sacrifice.
The believers or unbelievers people ask of us a lot of things…
Sometimes ask things on which we do not have them, we cannot afford.
But the priestly life struggles continuous between the proper helplessness and the boldness at God.
I, as priest, I have my infirmities and the passions, the needs and my unfulfillments…but I pray for the needs and the longings of all, for the salvation of all, for that to fulfill me along with everyone else.
For that the grace of God teaches us just at this thing: at to cure the infirmities of others and at to full of what others lack.
Therefore, in this day loved me, I thank to everyone who helped me and helps me and will help me in my priesthood, who prayed for me and I prayed for them, who cared for my effort for them and of the care what I wear them.
The prayers and my books are the contentment with which thank you.
And please let me be close, in every day, for that to help each other and to save ourselves some for the prayers of others.
All the blessing from my part and all the supporting in what is pleasing of God!
I apologize for all and I thank you for everything.
For that of His are the glory and the power and the worship, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost God, the One who strengthens us into all good and rises us from stage in stage, to understandings all more divine, now and ever and forever. Amen!