Saints
By Volodymyr Kish
It was St. Valentine’s
Day this past week, and that got me thinking about saints. There are of course many
of them, Christianity having now been around for over two thousand years. St. Valentine is one of the better known, being
the patron saint, according to a Catholic Church web site on saints, of engaged
couples, bee keepers, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers,
plague, travellers and young people.
Why St. Valentine carries
such a heavy load from a patronage perspective is interesting, as there is no shortage
of “official” saints to spread the workload around. Depending on which source or branch of Christianity
one refers to, there are upwards of some ten thousand recognized saints. The www.catholic.org site lists some five thousand
saints with their respective biographies. Interestingly, St. Valentine (at least
the Catholic patron saint of love version) is not a recognized saint within the
Greek Orthodox pantheon, though some Orthodox churches do recognize a Saint Valentine
the Presbyter whose saint day is celebrated on July 6.
Although most Christian
denominations agree that the term “saint” refers to individuals who have wound up
in heaven after shuffling off their mortal coils, there is little agreement as to
how a specific person gets to be designated a saint.
The Catholic Church
has defined a very rigid process for this purpose called Canonization which can
take years and sometimes decades. A potential
candidate’s life is examined (posthumously, of course) at a diocese level by a religious
expert and a recommendation made to the presiding Bishop. If the Bishop approves, a formal application is
submitted to a special
Most branches of the
Orthodox Church subscribe to a much more decentralized and less formal process,
where Saints are recognized at the local level on the authority of the presiding
Bishop. More prominent individuals can be
recognized as saints by the entire Orthodox Church following a consensus by a synod
of Bishops who perform a “Glorification” service and assign a specific day on the
church calendar for honouring that particular saint.
Most Protestant denominations,
while accepting the concept of sainthood, take a much lower key approach towards
the veneration of saints compared to the Catholic or
The concept of sainthood
is also not restricted to Christianity. The
Sunni Muslims have a similar designation called wali, which roughly translates
into “friend of God”, and refers to holy teachers and authorities held in high esteem.
Sufis, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists also have
comparable concepts.
The Ukrainian Orthodox
Church to which I belong has a very strong tradition of venerating its saints, though
not in an abstract sense as many believers might think, but as real world role models
for how to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Unfortunately to most, the saint names that are
read during church services or that appear on the church calendar are but strange
sounding foreign words that few can recognize or relate to. If I look at the saint days for February on the
Orthodox Calendar, I see names such as St. Macarius the Great, the Venerable Maximus
the Confessor, Venerable Isidore of Pelusium, St. Bucolus – Bishop of Smyrna, Martyr
Nicephorus of Antioch, Venerable Paphnutius of the Kyivan Caves and St. Raphael
of Brooklyn. I must admit, I haven’t the
slightest idea of who these people were or what they did. I would expect that the only people who probably
do are those that have studied theology and church history.
In the meantime, this
has awakened my curiosity and with the handy assistance of Google I will
try and find out the stories behind some of these names. In particular, I would like to know who was St.
Raphael of