Some people say: ` I don`t want to go to the church, because the priest is so and so…`
But whoever invokes such an argument and contests the authority of priesthood is not right at all. Priesthood, as we are taught by the Orthodox Church, doesn`t lose its value if the priest who administers the sacrament is not right.
It would have been a disaster if priesthood depended on everyone`s subjective opinions. All the priests would have been morally exposed to contestation and the Sacraments they had administered would have been null and void and ineffective.
We must know that even the most unworthy priest as long as he has a canonic ordination and he was not defrocked canonically he can administer the Sacraments and the Sacraments are as valid as those administered by the holiest cleric.
The people think and act in the same way in what regards the staff and the representatives of the worldly governance.
For being served by the president of the community or by other clerks of the state they don`t examine how they are only if they have legitimate power. To mention a real example: if we assume that someone distributes the pounds and knows those pounds are authentic you don`t check if his hands are dirty or clean, you only takethe pound. The value of the pound doesn`t depend on the one who keeps it. The pound has its own value. Even if it falls in the mud it doesn`t lose its value.
Do you understand me, my Christians ? From the mouth of the priest, no matter who he would be, whenever he administers the Sacraments, from his mouth golden pounds, golden words come out and if you believe them they have the power to save your soul as they have a salvatory power.
Excerpt from Father Augustin is speaking to us, the 104 years old Metropolitan – Sermons of the Metropolitan of Florina – Father Augustin Kandiotis, vol. XIII, Metamorfosi Publishing Company.
