38.

 Write out the two scriptural quotes given on page 238, and explain what point the textbook is seeking to make with these two quotations.

            Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). Therefore, my brothers, I beseech you by God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God (Rom 12:1).

            It is sometimes thought that the body is unimportant. This idea is a carryover from pre-Christian Greek ideas, and the first quote is to show that this idea is false. Orthodox asceticism does not regard the body as evil, nor does it seek to free the soul from it. According to the Orthodox teaching, it is not the body that is evil, but a carnal mind is evil. The body is transformed by the grace of God. The body is sanctified in Baptism, it is sanctified by the reception of the Holy Eucharist, and, as the first quote shows, it is a temple and dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit. They body (as well as the soul) belongs to God.

            Because of the sanctification of the body, Orthodox Christians have an immense reverence for the relics of saints. They understand that the grace of God that was present in the saints' bodies during life remains active in their relics after their repose, and that God uses these relics as a channel of divine power and as a means of healing. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky explains in this regard that the honor shown to relics has a firm foundation in the fact that God Himself has deigned to honor and glorify them by innumerable signs and miracles — something for which there is testimony throughout the whole course of the Church's history.

            As another writer explains, when Orthodox Christians venerate relics, they venerate not the matter itself, but the living and life-creating power of the Holy Spirit, which makes them not only incorrupt, but also healing. From Sacred Scripture, it is known that from the touch of the bones of the Prophet Elisseus a dead man resurrected (4 Kings [2 Kings, KJV] 13:21); a woman with an issue of blood received healing from touching the hem of the Savior’s garment (Mt 9:20-22); and the sick and possessed were healed by laying on them the Apostle Paul's handkerchiefs and aprons (Acts 19:12). The same divine power that was inherent in the bones of the Prophet Elisseus, the garments of the Savior, and the handkerchiefs of the Apostle Paul, also grants incorruption and miracle-working power to the bodies of the saints to strengthen the faith of Christians. There-foe, as to the attacks that relegate Orthodoxy's reverence of relics to the realm of superstition and gross ignorance, these attacks are unwarranted.

            Fr. Michael Pomazansky explains that the bodies of Christians who have lived a righteous life or have become holy through receiving a martyr's death, are worthy of special veneration and honor. Following Sacred Tradition, the Orthodox Church has always shown honor to holy relics (in Greek, ta leipsana, in Latin, reliquiae, both meaning that what is left; in Old Slavonic, moshchi). Fr. Michael states that the honor given to relics has been expressed a) in the reverent collection and preservation of the remains of the saints of God, as is known from accounts even of the second century, and then from the testimonies of later times; b) in the solemn uncovering and translation of holy relics; c) in the building over them of churches and altars; d) in the establishment of feasts in memory of their uncovering or translation; e) in pilgrimages to holy tombs, and in adorning them; f) in the constant rule of the Church to place relics of holy martyrs at the dedication of altars, or to place holy relics in the holy antimension upon which is performed the Divine Liturgy.

            Fr. Michael concludes his explanation by stating that in revering holy relics, Christians do not believe in the power or might of the remains of the saints themselves. Instead, they believe in the prayerful intercession of those saints whose holy relics are before them. These relics arouse in their hearts a feeling of the nearness to them of the saints of God themselves, who once wore these bodies.

            Archimandrite Panteleimon of Jordanville also writes about relics. He notes that by the will of God, the bodies of some saints remain incorruptible for many years. This incorruption is a visible witness of the holiness of the saints, a visible sign of God's blessing residing in their very bodies. Fr. Panteleimon notes that in them, the words of David have come true — not only in relation to the Savior, but in relation to His faithful servants as well: “For Thou [Lord] wilt not suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption” (Ps 15:10).

            Fr. Panteleimon cites various Fathers who expound on the incorruption and miraculous power of relics. St. Ephraim the Syrian, for example, states that:

Even after death, saints act as they did when living, healing the sick, expelling demons, and by the power of the Lord repelling every evil action of their tortuous realm. For the miracle-working blessing of the Holy Spirit is always inherent in holy relics [Quoted in Archimandrite Panteleimon, A Ray of Light: Instructions in Piety and the State of the World at the End of Time, p. 20].

Likewise, with these words St. John Chrysostom invited all to approach the relics of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, the second bishop of Antioch and martyr:

If you are sorrowful, ill, wronged, in some other trouble, or in the depths of sin, run to him with faith: you will receive aid and depart with great happiness, sensing an easing of your conscience.... This treasure is needful for all: for the unfortunate, since it frees them from calamities, and for the fortunate, for it confirms their fortune, and for the ailing, for it returns well-being to them, and for the healthy, for it turns away disease [Ibid].

The second scriptural quote above deals with the necessity of the deification of the body. Since man is a unity of body and soul, and since he cannot sin with the body and keep the soul undefiled, St. Paul exhorts Christians to be holy in body. Through this quote, the textbook is showing that deification most assuredly involves the body as well as it does the soul.