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Archive for the ‘qualifications’ tag

The Making of a Pastor – More Reactions

with 4 comments

A  friend of mine, Mike Fulton, a seminarian at Holy Cross has given his own response to the first article in the Making of a Priest series along with the Ochlophobist’s suggestions. (Note that I give credit to Owen White for making those suggestions but have my own reservations about them.)

At one point he says:

All of this has been proposed with very good intentions on bringing men who are better qualified/prepared and also to limit ecclesiastical corruption, some of which may come in the form of simony and nepotism.

My own desire is to emphasize the former, as a matter of leadership. “Worldly experience” such as developing a (secular) career, building a marriage, and managing responsibilities (family, children, work, house, etc.) is valuable inasmuch as it gives clergy a basis for leading as clergy: “if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?”

Michael also says:

However, what I have learned from being at seminary and speaking to priests is that no amount of bureaucracy, papers, proposals, councils, psychological batteries, interviews, etc. can prepare or ensure the preparedness of candidates to the priesthood. You teach a man the best that you can, a bishop places his hands on the guy’s head, and you hope that the Holy Spirit does the rest.

Indeed, we pray and trust that the Holy Spirit will supply that which is lacking (as the bishop prays in the ordination). However, we cannot deny the synergy that must exist between man and God. If it were purely a matter of the Holy Spirit, St. Paul would have had no reason to write 1 Timothy 3, for the drunk, the adulterer, and the greedy would all have their deficiencies corrected as a matter of course.

I stick to my assertion that we would be better off holding rather more strictly to the age requirement of Neocaesarea XI: “Let not a presbyter be ordained before he is thirty years of age, even though he be in all respects a worthy man, but let him be made to wait. For our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and began to teach in his thirtieth year” (emphasis added). Certainly the Fathers of Neocaesarea knew of young men who were mature beyond years, but insisted they wait. In 1 Timothy 4, St. Paul tells the new pastor Timothy and his flock, “Let no one despise your youth,” even though Timothy was about 40 years old at the time! Some wisdom is brought only by experience.

It’s also important to remember that being a presbyter (specifically as a parish priest) is a different thing from being a prophet. Consider Aaron and Moses. Think on John the Baptist as compared with St. Peter.

I’ll encourage readers here to read Michael’s comments and weigh in (here or there, your call).

Written by Fr Basil Biberdorf

January 28th, 2010 at 1:44 pm

Discussion Question: Parish Council Eligibility

with 10 comments

Today’s essay question:

To what degree should members of a parish council be subject to the requirements enumerated for bishops (priests) and deacons in 1 Timothy 3:1-13? Support your answer. (Because I don’t want to wade into the matter of women serving on parish councils, make appropriate adjustments for that in reading the epistle.)

1/21 Update: I can tell many of you are giving this diligent reflection, which explains the, ahhh, light response so far.  Some points to ponder: Is it ever in the interest of the Church (locally and universally) to have councilmen who drink too much, or are prone to violence? What about quarrelsomeness and intemperance? Marital history?

Written by Fr Basil Biberdorf

January 20th, 2010 at 10:29 am

The Making of a Pastor – Part 1

with 14 comments

This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:1-7, NKJV)

If we are going to talk about leadership issues, one of the first things we should talk about are the leaders themselves, particularly how they are selected and formed. The passage above sets out clearly the list of qualifications for bishops (which can be equated with priests for our purposes). Every candidate for priestly orders should examine himself  with them in mind. More importantly, every candidate should be examined according to this list, because self-examination is insufficient.

Stated another way, these qualifications require external validation. The man’s own regard for himself, his family, and his motivations are interesting, but, ultimately, he must be deemed worthy according to the fruit he produces. A man can’t make a fully accurate self-assessment of these qualifications any more than he can declare himself to be “ridiculously good-looking” (with a nod to Zoolander). Not only does such an assessment take time, certainly more than a few months, it must be allowed to happen in the first place. Existing clergy and lay leaders need the opportunity to discover the men with the needed qualities for themselves, and to guide them to tonsured and ordained service within the Church in accordance with the measure of their gifts (consider Ephesians 4:11).

In sharp contrast, we Orthodox in North America are in the situation where most of our seminarians (i.e., clergy candidates) are self-selected. The would-be pastor thinks he would like to go to seminary, perhaps chats with his own priest, contacts the seminary, and then sets out to make seminary and ordination a reality, short-circuiting the entire discernment process. Think about it: the candidate obtains a blessing from a bishop (who may know the candidate barely, if at all) and recommendations from priests and coworkers because these things are required by the seminary application. In other words, the seminary does the evaluation of these credentials. Not only does this reveal the lack of in-depth familiarity with the man, it outsources the selection and approval process entirely!

The local church (diocese and parish) must make this inquiry first. How is the man’s participation in the parish and diocese, apart from attendance at services? Has he led other ministries in the parish? Has he worked closely with or on the parish council? Does he have a well-balanced family life? Is he exhibiting leadership, responsibility, and accountability in his employment or business?  (The Church can hardly expect a weak employee to be a strong pastor.) Is he known and respected in his community? The Church cannot make such determinations quickly, nor should she.

I’m not blaming the candidates, many of whom rightly judge their own qualifications and abilities, for this situation. Rather, we must look at the systemic structural weakness that delegates clergy selection to the individual (acting in concert with a seminary) and affirms candidates for the priesthood without due diligence and close acquaintance.  In an ideal world, pastors and parish leaders would be the ones to discover the pastoral qualities in a man and then to develop and encourage him to pursue ordination. This isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a casual, fast process. The very idea of “presbyter” (the technical term for a priest) implies that one is older, inasmuch as the word itself means “elder.” What’s the rush in most situations? (Actually, there are reasons for the rush, to be discussed as I go on.)

Taking a cue from our Lord himself (along with St. John the Baptist), canon XI from Neocaesarea (AD 315) sets an important standard: “Let not a presbyter be ordained before he is thirty years of age, even though he be in all respects a worthy man, but let him be made to wait. For our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and began to teach in his thirtieth year.” Considering that adolescence often reaches well into the 20s in our time, I’d suggest that a slight upward revision of this requirement in practice (to perhaps 35 years of age) would serve the Church well.

Selecting a man of that age has some real benefits. It means that he will have had the opportunity to grow within his secular career, gaining both leadership and practical experience. It will attest that he is not pursuing work in the Church simply because there is nothing else he is willing or competent to do. He will have cultivated and demonstrated a stable marriage and home life, so that he enters the priesthood without the complication of recent nuptials and with the affirmation of a durable marriage. (This affirmation is underappreciated. The divorce rate among Orthodox clergy is embarrassingly high, raising numerous moral, spiritual, canonical, and leadership concerns.) All of which supports the image of the presbyter as put forth by the New Testament and the canons of the Church: that he serves only after being well-established in Faith and life.

Such a man, though, confronts a system that is neither prepared for nor readily accepting of him.

I invite your comments on these thoughts so far. More next time….

Read the next segment>>

[Revised slightly 15Jan10 10:21AM EST]

Written by Fr Basil Biberdorf

January 15th, 2010 at 12:01 am

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