HOLY, HOLINESS

HOLY, HOLINESS. Holiness is that quality which pertains peculiarly to God (q.v.), who is uniquely the “Holy One” without qualification-or, as in Orthodox worship, the “Thrice Holy” (from the hymn of the seraphim in Is 6). Human beings who participate in this quality, through the partaking of the sacraments (q.v.), the labors of asceticism (q.v.), and works of mercy are also called “holy ones” or “saints.” (Note that any distinction between “holy man/woman” and the word “saint” is peculiar to English.) That which marks them as holy, however, is always God himself, who is perceived as manifesting his presence through them. The saints (q.v.) are thus, in Orthodox devotion, the proofs and revelations of God’s own holiness, not of their own.