Questions & Answers
Do Orthodox Christians pray to saints? Are Adam and Eve saints? Does the Orthodox Church recognize Catholic saints? These are the questions people ask most often about the saints of the Eastern Orthodox Church — answered plainly, in line with the teaching of the Church and the daily witness of the synaxarion.
Orthodox Christians ask the saints to pray for them — they do not worship them. The Church distinguishes latreia, the worship owed to God alone, from timi or douleia, the honor given to the saints. When an Orthodox Christian says 'Saint Nicholas, pray for us,' it is the same request one might make of a friend or a parish priest, offered to someone the Church believes is alive in Christ and close to Him.
Orthodox Christians pray directly to God constantly — every Divine Liturgy, every prayer of the heart, and the Jesus Prayer itself are addressed to God. Asking the saints to intercede is added to that, never a substitute for it. The saints are members of the same Body of Christ, and their prayers are asked for the same reason we ask a living Christian to pray for us.
Yes. The Orthodox Church holds that the saints are those in whom the grace of God has been made visible — apostles, martyrs, confessors, monastics, and righteous men and women of every age. They are commemorated daily in the synaxarion, honored with hymns, and depicted in icons throughout every Orthodox church.
Yes. Veneration means honor shown through bowing, kissing an icon, or lighting a candle. The Seventh Ecumenical Council (787) affirmed that the honor given to an icon passes to the person depicted, and that worship belongs to God alone. Kissing an icon of a saint is an act of love toward that person, not adoration of wood and paint.
Yes. Adam and Eve are commemorated as the Holy Forefathers of Christ. The Orthodox Church remembers them on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers before the Nativity, and Orthodox tradition holds that Christ delivered them from Hades at His Resurrection — the scene shown in nearly every Orthodox icon of Pascha.
The Orthodox Church recognizes saints of the undivided Church — everyone glorified before the Great Schism of 1054, East and West alike. Saints canonized by Rome after the schism are not commemorated in Orthodox service books, though individual Orthodox Christians may hold them in personal esteem.
Yes. Augustine of Hippo lived long before the schism and is commemorated as Blessed Augustine on June 15 in Orthodox usage. Orthodox theologians frequently disagree with parts of his teaching on grace and original sin, but his sanctity is not in question.
Yes. Saint Constantine the Great and his mother Saint Helen are commemorated together on May 21 and are titled Equal-to-the-Apostles for ending the persecution of Christians and convening the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325.
Saint Nicholas of Myra was a fourth-century bishop in Asia Minor, some seven hundred years before the East and West divided. He belongs to the undivided Church and is honored by Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians alike. In the Orthodox Church he is commemorated on December 6 and every Thursday of the week.
Yes. Patrick, the fifth-century enlightener of Ireland, lived centuries before the schism and is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on March 17, along with other saints of the ancient British Isles such as Brigid, Columba, and Cuthbert.
There is no fixed number. The synaxarion names several thousand saints across the liturgical year, and many commemorations gather whole groups — the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, or all the saints of a given region. The Church also honors countless saints known to God alone, which is one reason the Sunday after Pentecost is kept as the Sunday of All Saints.
Yes, but on a different date than the Western November 1. The Orthodox Church keeps the Sunday of All Saints on the first Sunday after Pentecost, followed in many traditions by a Sunday of All Saints of a particular land — of Greece, of Russia, of America.
A patron saint is a saint whose name a Christian receives at baptism and whose protection and prayers they ask throughout life. Parishes, professions, and whole nations also have patron saints. Rather than a birthday, many Orthodox Christians celebrate their name day — the feast of their patron saint.
For most Orthodox Christians it is the saint whose name was given at baptism or chrismation. If you carry a name shared by several saints, your parish priest can help you identify which one you were named for; converts commonly choose a patron saint at reception into the Church.