Canonization

ANDREI PSAREV

The act or process by which the church formally determines and ratifies that a particular deceased person is a saint and, as such, belongs to the canon (or list) of saints. It is also known as glorification. The need to examine the cult of martyrs produced Canons 9 and 34 of the Council of Laodicea (4th century) and Canon 83 (86) of the Council of Carthage (419). These canons were the earliest precursor of the investigation that later became a part of the canonization process.

In the 4th century CE, Emperor Constan­tine the Great constructed churches on the Roman burial sites of the apostles Peter and Paul, and Emperor Constantius II com­pleted the Mausoleum of the twelve apostles in Constantinople and moved there relics of three of the apostles. These acts, there­fore, which might be seen as the official canonization of the apostles, clearly follow after a widespread public cult, and are closely related to veneration of the relics in a shrine or place of pilgrimage. Before the 11th century a church or monastery affili­ated with a saint might preserve accounts of the saint’s life and works in hagiographical (Synaxarion) and liturgical traditions (Menaion). Names of the most honored holy people of the local church were added to the list of commemorated saints and this was their glorification (anagnorisis).

The glorification of ancient bishops was often based on a perfunctory screening pro­cedure. With the retrospective exception of heretics and violators of church discipline, for example, all patriarchs of Constantino­ple from 315 until 1025 were added to the catalogue of saints immediately after they died. After the 11th century the Synod of Constantinople set up a more formal pro­cess of examining the life of a reposed hierarch and the extent of his veneration before his glorification. Considering that the institutional formalization of a canoni­zation process had been developing in the Church of Rome since the 10th century, it seems reasonable to suspect that it might have been the Crusaders who, directly or indirectly, introduced it to Byzantium. The categories of saints continued to expand beyond the early classic types of martyrs, ascetics, and hierarchs. Later, the concept of protectors of the faith arose and monarchs and sovereigns were also canonized at the discretion of senior hierarchs, based on the quality of their service to the church.

In current Orthodox practice the mani­festation of a new saint is achieved by means of a local or general canonization. A fairly widespread veneration of reposed monas­tics, hierarchs, or other righteous individ­uals, and the occurrence of supernatural signs, are considered as indications that these persons are already active in the choir of saints. When the bishops, having studied the life, writings, and influence of a candidate, approve a canonization, there is sometimes an examination of the mortal remains prior to the announcement of a decision. In most cases of canonization, a memorial service is performed on the anniversary of the saint’s death day. The saint’s relics might be transferred to a new shrine, a specially designed icon is often unveiled, and a church service is composed in their honor and celebrated publicly. The names of newly glorified saints are added to the calendar of an Orthodox church by decision of its synod of governing bishops, and notified to other churches.

SEE ALSO: Communion of Saints; Constan­tinople, Patriarchate of; Hagiography; Icons; Menaion; New Martyrs; Newly Revealed Saints; Passion Bearers; Relics; St. Constantine the Emperor (ca. 271–337)

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Galatariotou, C. (1991) The Making of the Saint: The Life, Time and Sanctification of Neophytos the Recluse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McGuckin, J. A. (2003) “The Legacy of the 13th Apostle: Origins of the East Christian Conceptions of Church and State Relation,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 3–4: 276. Pomazansky, Protopresbyter M. (1996) “The Glorification of Saints,” in Selected Essays. Jordanville, NY: Print shop of St. Job of Pochaev. Talbot, A.-M. (1991) “Canonization,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.