I pass along the following book excerpt not intending to aggrandize priests — though certainly to encourage them — but rather to exalt Christ and to exhort my brothers and sisters in Christ to treasure, through participation, the Sacraments (Mysteries) of the Church. The author contrasts Orthodox elders (like St. Paisios), who often have charismatic, wonder-working gifts, with average parish priests and wonders, what good is a priest by comparison. His answer follows:

Initially, I would look at the priests of the Church with doubts and suspicion. “Father Paisios is a saint and has many spiritual gifts,” I would tell myself, “but what kind of spiritual power does an average, overweight parish priest have? Can he really grant spiritual gifts like the elder, or is he in fact an entirely lesser person?” The answers to these questions were given me in time, when I once received Holy Communion amidst a large crowd in an average parish church.

I had fasted, gone to Confession, and said my prayers before Communion as usual, but this time, when the priest placed Holy Communion in my mouth, I felt Christ Himself flooding my entire being, body and soul. Christ the Creator united Himself more intimately and more deeply with me, the work of His hands, than is possible for two people in this world to be united. People are physically separated by the boundaries of their own skin. Even an embryo is separated from its mother by the wall of its newly forming skin. Christ, however, became one with me on a deeper level, in a unique union. His Blood literally merged with my blood; His body literally was fused to my body, so that my hands, my feet, my eyes, and all the other parts of my body had become members of the Body of Christ.

His heartwarming peace pervaded my entire soul, making it leap for joy in a state of wonder. After the passage of so many centuries — and after I had committed so many sins — Christ God ineffably condescended to come and palpably dwell within me, making me for a short while a God-bearer. I was in awe at His manifest presence in my mind, soul, and body. It was beyond my comprehension how this took place, but I knew then that such a union with Christ was possible and always would be.

I was so moved that I was no longer about to remain standing. So, I went to my place, where I tried to hold back the sweet tears of joy at being one with Christ, Whose great love had bridged the ontological gap separating divine and human nature. Nearly two thousand years ago, our sweetest Lord Jesus declared, He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him. And lo, on this day, my union with God was the personal, yet unfathomable, fulfillment of those words. And once more, Christ tells us for all time why He condescends to be united with us in the Mystery: Whoso eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. Looking towards the last day and eternal life, Christ loves us so much that He gave us this great offering, because He desires for us to become like Him even in His divinity, living with Him for all eternity.

An all-consuming love for all of us, in every generation, led God the Word to become man, to call us His friends and brethren, to open the way towards theosis with His Resurrection, and to freely and bountifully offer Himself to us at every Divine Liturgy. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever, as perfect God wrought all things in perfection. That is, Christ brought to completion the work of man’s salvation once and for all, so that there would be no need for supplements, corrections, or adjustments with the passage of time. The life-giving and effective Mysteries that Christ instituted have been present in the Church for two thousand years, granting eternal life to the faithful. And, at the last day, those who recognized this life-giving path but neglected to follow it will be without defense.

This experience made me realize the truth of the Church’s teachings: Christ is the Head of the Church, the Fountain of her life, and the Center of her sacramental worship. With the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church was gathered under the auspices of the Apostles whom Christ had sanctified to be the ministers of His Mysteries. Through ordination to the priesthood, this special blessing to celebrate the Mysteries of Christ was passed down to the priests of the Church from generation to generation without break or interruption.

A priest can celebrate the Mysteries of the Diving Liturgy without being a saint, but a saint who is not a priest cannot do so. Elder Paisios, for example, who was not a priest, could not celebrate the Mysteries of Christ, even if he could work a thousand miracles. He would bend his holy neck under the priest’s stole for the Mystery of Confession, and would wait with yearning for the priest to celebrate the Divine Liturgy so that he could commune. Like a nursing child receiving life from his mother’s milk, so the elder received life from the divine grace of the Mysteries of the Church, the mother of all Christians (Dionysios Farasiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios, St, Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (2008), pp. 288-290).