Priestless Old Belief

On its Possibility, and the Character of its Being.

“The Priestless try to replace the sacrament of communion with a spiritual communion — some sort of ‘fiery desire’ — and they say: ‘we have no communion of the holy mysteries, and yet we do have it: not the visible, but the invisible, namely the desire for communion of the holy mysteries.’”

V. M. Skvortsov, The Missionary’s Staff

There is a way of saying “some sort of ‘fiery desire’” that means it as an insult, and there is a way of saying it that means it as the truth. Skvortsov meant the first. This essay is written in the conviction of the second.

It is commonly assumed, by those outside the Priestless confession and sometimes by those raised within it, that a people who acknowledge themselves to be without valid priesthood, without the Eucharist offered in its ordinary form, without a functioning visible hierarchy, must be a people living under a permanent state of despair — that the honest name for their condition is not faith but bereavement.

In this view, whatever they call it, what a Priestless believer actually possesses is absence dressed in doctrine: a “fiery desire” standing in, apologetically, for the thing itself, the way a person might speak warmly of a portrait because the person it depicts is no longer in the room.

The absence of a priesthood, however, and the physical Sacrament is in no uncertain terms apocalyptic. It is dreadfully serious.

Acknowledging a catastrophe of this magnitude leaves a soul seemingly only two available postures: to deny that the catastrophe has occurred, or to be crushed by it. But, there is a third posture…

I will not attempt here to prove that the fall of the visible priesthood has in fact occurred. What I want to establish first is something prior and, I think, more objectively defensible: that the fall of a true and divinely-instituted priesthood is not a theological impossibility. Far from it.

Once that is established, I will turn from the question of proof to a different question entirely: given that a believer has perhaps arrived — however he arrived, through history, through inheritance, through the plain witness of his own eyes — at the conviction that this has happened again, what does his soul owe God next?

Between the false peace that will not acknowledge the wound and the despair that cannot repent at the injury, there is a narrow way that looks at it with simplicity - intuitively even, and finds not consolation per se, but joy — the same joy the tradition’s own harshest critics keep describing accurately, without meaning to, when they call it “some sort of fiery desire.”

Priesthood as Covenant

From the very establishment of the Levitical priesthood, God frames it as a covenant: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” (Exodus 19:5-6)

While the priesthood was first established and given to Aaron and his descendants, it was the priesthood of Phineas that was given the establishment of the everlasting priesthood. But, along with the word everlasting, God again calls this priesthood He has established a covenant.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: and it shall be unto him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.” (Numbers 25:10-13)

Later on, in Jeremiah, God strengthens the language of the permanence of the covenential priesthood:

“For thus saith the Lord: David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to burn oblations, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord: If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there should not be day and night in their season; then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.” (Jeremiah 33:17-21)

In the above passage - God likens the perpetuity of the Levitical priesthood to “my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night”. In other words - as reliable as the rising and the setting of the Sun, so too is the reliability of both the house of David, and the priesthood of Aaron!

And yet they fell.

The temple was destroyed. The priesthood ceased. The fig tree was cursed.

God had already shown the Israelites that this would happen. When the sons of Eli the priest were wicked before God in the temple, and thus profaned the sacred place of God, not through the priest himself, but through his successors, God rebuked them with a fearful judgment:

“Thus saith the Lord, Did I reveal myself unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh’s house? and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up unto mine altar to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in my habitation; and honourest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people? Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed.” (1 Samuel 2:27-30)

In this example, God openly acknowledges that, despite giving the earlier Phineas an "everlasting" priesthood ("I said indeed..."), the sons of Eli, by their wickedness, have offended God. "But now...Be if far from me" refers to the gift of the everlasting priesthood, unto those who shall be "lightly esteemed".

“And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke the seed for your sake, and will spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your sacrifices; and ye shall be taken away with it. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might fear, and he feared me, and stood in awe of my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But ye are turned aside out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble in the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 2:1-8)

But this should come as no surprise - even with God’s own words about the permanence, for it was always conditional. Even life itself, from our creation, was conditional, and the fall not particular, but universal.

With the priesthood of Christ, however, an important protecting element of the Hebrew priesthood was removed - which was the mechanism of hereditary transmission. From the fall of the old priesthood, and the rise of the priesthood of Christ, Himself the true eternal priest, lineage was no longer a guarantor of the office. From that point, it was the fidelity of faith alone that fulfilled the covenant (Gal. 3), with the mechanism of continuity coming from the laying on of hands of those whose priesthood is already established, going back to the Apostles themselves.

St. Paul acknowledges the fall of the Hebrews, but in doing so, warns the new people of faith against falling to the same fate:

“But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree; glory not over the branches: but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of God: toward them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God’s goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.” (Romans 11:17-22)

The New Covenant is still a covenant, and while it is, in its priesthood, not bound to a physical temple, it is yet even more vulnerable than the priesthood of the Levites. For they had the meager protection of progeny, while the Christian priesthood has none - only the transmission of the laying on of hands, through the worthiness of faith. It is upon this faith alone that the whole office now rests, and Paul clearly emphasizes that the judgment of God upon it will be severe.

It is certainly true, however, that a priesthood exists, whose office is unassailable, will never be overturned, and is not based upon a covenant - and this is the priesthood after Melchizedek, and the priest Himself is Christ, Whose sacrifice is eternal (Hebrews 7). But in no place does the apostle, or the fathers equate the personal, eternal priesthood of Christ, which has no conditions, only fulfillment, with that of the faithful, which is under the fearful burden of faith, in constant fear of that ax which has already cut off the chosen branch.

The false assurance of the permanence of office was alluded to by the prophet Jeremiah, as those who point to the “temple of the Lord” as the very symbol of permanence and guarantee of God's protection, which Jeremiah calls a lie:

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your own hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old even for evermore (Jer. 7:3-7) ... But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not: therefore will I do unto the house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. (12-15)”

Today, the churchly representatives have replaced "temple of the Lord" with "the gates of Hades, the gates of Hades" - as if by their invocation of this verse for every conceivable instance the holy fathers were silent upon, they might change the very nature of God's covenantal dealing, proven by his just judgments.

Speaking of the incessant mantra of the “permanant” priesthood, the Belokrinitsa defender and future bishop Arseny Uralsky exclaimed with some exasperation:

“These Nikonian preachers don’t believe the Gospel; they’ve only got one thing rigged up: the eternity of the priesthood! And they won’t hear anything else.” (Arseny Shustov’s [Arseny Uralsky] debate with Father Shvetsov in Moscow, May 1888, pp. 11–12)

The reason for this was obvious. From the Nikonian perspective - it was clear that they must be the true Church - for they had a priesthood, while the Old Believers did not!

My purpose in discussing the terms of priesthood itself is limited. I will not attempt here a discussion or a demonstration that the priesthood did fall. Only that it could. For those who see the conciliar curses of 1666 and 1667, along with the death of bishop Paul of Kolomna as the event which gave birth to a new church, the former follows as a consequence. However, I pass no judgment upon those whose perspectives do not admit this. And further, there is an attempt at a third possibility, which the popovtsy claim, that believe that the priesthood can fall into a kind of dormancy, from which it can be restored, in full, from heresy alone (without an existing hierarchy in which to receive repentant priests or bishops). Our publications and website offer considerable further reading on this topic, for those who are interested.

There are also many articles about the prophecies of the fall of the Christian priesthood, and I have also avoided these, since the very notion that the priesthood is a covenant, and as such, can be broken, is today denied, almost universally, and this is an error that I hope can be seen even more clearly, and objectively, than attempting to convince some that certain prophecies, like those of the prophet Daniel, have been fulfilled. These are for individuals to see for themselves.

My goal here is only to explain the priestless position, as I believe it. Therefore, in everything that follows, this fall is assumed.

The Spiritual Antichrist

There are two main approaches to understanding the reign of the Antichrist. The first is the crude and literal understanding, wherein the Antichrist is one - a single man, an earthly ruler who, through time has been constantly, but falsely attributed to various individual rulers or hierarchs. The second manner of understanding the Antichrist is spiritually.

From the very beginning of the Schism itself - it was plain to those who were blessed to be the first sufferers, who was behind the schism, and what his nature was. The holy martyred deacon Feodor, who was killed with the archpriest Avvakum, wrote about the Antichrist:

“For Antichrist is the devil, an angel and a demon, light and darkness, morning star and deceiving star, lion and lamb, king and tormentor, false prophet and hierarch, benefactor and persecutor, purifier and defiler, harbor and shipwreck, a god to the godless, an enemy to Christians, a hierarch to the world-lovers, a tormentor to the God-lovers, a refuge to the impious, a terror to the pious, great in malice and lofty in pride, fearsome in cruelty, many-colored in appearance, but darkness to the touch, Satan and man, spirit and flesh. And again: the serpent, and the beast, and the false prophet, whom the Theologian saw. And in these three consists the whole malice of impiety, and the fulfillment of every blasphemy and the gathering-together of all evils. And all these ranks, and all his dominion, and all his infernal kingdom, are contained in these. And it is not possible for me to recount in detail all his variegations, for they are numberless, more than the sand, since they are gathered from temptations of the whole world and from the defilements of all heretics. And like rings of bitter smoke rising up from wells — from the impiety, from the pits, from his nests, chilling every good work, from the abyss of impiety, from the depth of sin — they darken the brightness of the mind, so that men may not see the righteous Sun, Christ, and may not understand the things of heaven.” (Deacon Feodor: On the Discernment of Antichrist’s Deception)

To understand the Antichrist spiritually is not to deny that he will take up willing accomplices in the flesh. Far from it. It is rather an honest assessment that in his everlasting twisted fight against God, Satan will never stop his assault, whether through his minions, or through sinful heretics. Rather, in the latter days, his war will intensify as his veil is removed.

The Evangelist writes, “Little children, it is the last hour: and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18)

And again, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and now it is in the world already.” (1 John 4:2-3)

The acknowledgment that the Antichrist is Satan himself, manifested both spiritually, and even physically - (but always behind the physical is the spiritual reality of this demon), is the reason we do not need to lean upon the existence of external signs many seek, looking for the physical marks: a mark on the hand, a number, a piece of registration paper, a barcode, a piece of modern technology standing in for the same idea. These items have certain historical interests, and have been used by certain Priestless Old Believers even. But building an argument on them mistakes the doctrine’s occasional illustrations for its substance. The substance is illustrated in Feodor’s litany: a condition that inverts itself depending on where a person stands!

Thus, the power of Antichrist can also be resisted and defeated only in the preservation of spiritual purity. Through faith.

In his commentary on 2 Thessalonians, St. Ephrem the Syrian speaks about the adversary, that we might know in what fashion he will be revealed in the final days:

“In this way he will appear and go up into the temple of God, in order to “sit” within it — precisely within the Church of God. He does not turn aside into some other heretical sect, lest he be recognized; rather, he scornfully rejects every (false) cult, so as to be able to capture the Church. It is for this reason that he will go up into the very temple of God, to sit there and show himself, that he is as it were God. In what way will he show that he is the true God? Besides the glory and honor with which he will be clothed, he will demonstrate it still more by the very hostility he will wage against the heretical sects. Since he will not incline toward any heresy, he will, by his feigned love for the children of the Church, make them think that he loves them as true children of the Church; and he will come into their temple and sit there as in the temple of truth, in order to show that he is God. He denounces hypocrisy while acting hypocritically, and he puts on the mask of truth while acting deceitfully. He will feign so skillfully that he will capture the people by means of physical things, and will rule the Church under the mask of truth.”

With the loss of the priesthood - and the ascendancy, or rather, the fuller revelation of the extent of this spiritual rule of the antichrist, the Spasovtsy Old Believers were belittlingly said to believe that “grace has flown up to heaven.” But this claim is an institutional claim, not a rejection of God providence.

The Church continues to exist, and will continue, as the living body of all believers from the very beginning of creation, and God’s grace operates in and through His Church. But it is also clear that certain liturgical functions are intended only for the priesthood, and we refrain from exercising these offices or attempting their outward replacement for fear that we will be acting beyond our authority and contrary to those duties divinely ordained to a priesthood alone.

We are ever bound by Tradition, and do not take license to alter it based upon our circumstance.

On the sacraments, St. John Chrysostom says: “For the Lord God, in the depth of His wisdom, has given to man, clothed in a visible body, His invisible gifts under visible and bodily signs.”

The great function of the Church, the purpose of the Apostolic transmission of the priesthood itself was to strengthen - rather for the Lord to give His own gifts to His struggling faithful, that through their saving sustenance, even physically, they might be saved, strengthened and sustained by their faith.

The physical sacraments are the greatest of gifts to the faithful. While the grace of God is formless, as a condescension, God gave these form, that, bound by flesh, we might raise the flesh to the spirit.

The loss of these is the most horrifying of all tragedies imaginable. What the loss of the temple was to the Hebrews stands as the only possible analogy. But this analogy contains more than is easily perceived.

The Reaction to the Reality

“For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace’; when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:13-14)

“For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. When they are saying, ‘Peace and safety’, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall in no wise escape.” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3)

Within the popovtsy (priestly) traditions, the interpretation of the loss of the priesthood was to view it as temporary. It was a state of dormancy that could be corrected. Once it was, and their hierarchy was restored, so too was the fullness of the Church on earth. It was no longer weakened. It no longer was missing what it had before. The physical sacraments were restored, and the normal order of life for the Christian prior to the Schism had returned triumphantly.

But, after the triumph, the reality of the restored life must have struck them as strange. For, by restoring the priesthood, the church as it existed was not restored. The Nikonians did not repent. Rather than a return to a land that confessed and lived the same faith - they restored themselves to a state where their priesthood was only one, now among many, and but a tiny fraction of the whole - to the extent that the majority pays them little heed.

What seems important for the Popovtsy position is whether the fall of the priesthood is a simple product of the Church's canons and their enforcement, which is to say, an "internal matter", or whether the revocation is, like that of the Hebrew priesthood, an act of God.

The answer to this question we cannot know for sure, and we cannot judge the Popovtsy for attempting to restore the priesthood. But we disagree with their reasoning and their perspective.

At the opposite end to this sense of false peace, or perhaps as a consequence of the sheer volume of those proclaiming it, comes the state of chaos. Not denial that anything is wrong, but an inability to ever stop examining whether it is wrong, carried on indefinitely, as a permanent condition rather than a stage that ends in a settled confession. (see Tertullian, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, sections 8 and 9)

This state of being, or rather of endless seeking, seems especially acute in our era, despite Tertullian practically describing the modern “seeker” almost 2,000 years ago! Gone are the days when a land, a kingdom, a nation, or an empire had a distinct religion that served as the common binding core of a people. Today, in most places, we exist in a land of religious pluralism. Every city and town has nestled within it temples or places of worship not only for every religion, but often for every conceivable form of Christianity, begging the question of the believer who lives amongst these “others” to constantly examine their beliefs and re-examine his own, comparing, searching.

It is almost assumed today that one can and should weigh religious traditions and choose the one that is found to be objectively true or simply the one that suits a person the best. But, within history, this state is unnatural. Perhaps it is a natural byproduct of lands like America that emphasized religious freedom from their very foundings. While the result is a land that is culturally cacophonous, theologically, I cannot fault the principle as a civic virtue, and am thankful to live under its protections.

Today, internet forums are packed with seekers, always questioning, exploring, advocating, but either never settling, or more often, choosing, but with a fiery zeal that burns itself out almost as quickly as it ignited before moving on to the next “true path”.

Alongside the state of the “perpetual seeker”, is its far uglier sibling - of the three states, the most revolting: the life in a perpetual state of dogmatic pride.

This is especially tempting for the convert, who sees through the prism of his dogmatic perfection only the errors and imperfections of those around him. And the sight is intolerable to him. He has only one choice - to show everyone in what ways they are wrong. He never considers the words or beliefs of others carefully, but only to the extent that he can find error therein and disprove it. It is a sad state that the false pastors of the dominant churches perpetuate this ugly state by feeding it a constant supply of polemics and comparative theology, perhaps in a constant state of fear themselves that their foundations are not upon rock.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get.” (Luke 18:10-12)

“To judge others whether they are being saved or not, and for what guilt—this we do not dare, nor do we strive to write articles on this, for we utterly refuse to judge others.” (Answer 78. Pomorian Answers)

This state of dogmatic pride is just as infectious among Old Believers, though, as it is among those churches filled with over-zealous converts. It always manifests in an attitude where following Christ is not the main matter of urgency, but ensuring that you have no erroneous beliefs or practices, even by association.

These three states of living in the reign of the spiritual Antichrist - the state of false peace, the state of endless searching, and the state of amplified arrogance, are all false reactions insofar that each distracts from and prevents the sole purpose of belonging to the Church - repenting, sinning no more, and thereby following Christ.

Living in the World

In a world where "grace (priestly) has flown up to heaven" (the very revocation of the broken covenant by God), one can have recourse only to the Savior Himself, and that directly. In such a state, it is possible, as a state of emergency, to be saved by hope alone in the Savior's mercy.

Blessed Jerome spoke about these times when interpreting the book of Ezekiel:

“Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I Myself will require My flock at the hand of the shepherds, and I will destroy them, so that they no longer pasture My flock, and the shepherds will no longer pasture themselves; and I will deliver My flock from their mouth, and they will no longer be food for them” (Ezekiel 34:9-10).

Interpretation: “The word is addressed to the shepherds of Israel, whom we must understand either as kings or princes, scribes and Pharisees, and teachers of the Jewish people, or, in the evangelical people, as bishops, presbyters, and deacons”…

“Behold, I Myself will come to the shepherds and require My flock from the hand of those to whom it would have been better to have millstones hung around their necks than to scandalize even the least of My people.”

“And this will be the greatest punishment for them: that they will no longer pasture My flock, and under the guise of sheep pasture themselves and amass wealth. And I will deliver My people from their mouth” (Works of Blessed Jerome, Vol. 4, Part 2, pp. 94, 97-99. 2nd ed., 1912).

In his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Jerome says:

“Furthermore, since the Lord’s flesh is true food and his blood is true drink, in the mystical sense, we have this one good in the present age: that we feed on his flesh and are given drink by his blood - not only in the mystery, but also in the reading of the Scriptures. For the true food and drink, taken from the word of God, is the knowledge of the Scriptures.”

St. Athanasius of Alexandria speaks also on the other, mysterious and spiritual manner of communing Christ’s flesh and blood:

This manner of speaking I observe also in the Gospel of John, when the Lord, speaking about the eating of His body and seeing that many were offended thereby, says: Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:61–63). And this signified that what is shown and given for the salvation of the world is the flesh that I bear. But this flesh and its blood shall be given by me to you spiritually for food, so that it shall be imparted to each one spiritually and shall become for all a safeguard unto the resurrection of eternal life. Thus also to the Samaritan woman, drawing her away from the sensible, the Lord named God as Spirit, so that she might conceive of God not in a bodily but in a spiritual manner. (Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Part 3, Epistle 4, pp. 98–99.)

In his book “Justification of the Old Believer Church“, Arseny Uralsky states that it is possible to receive compensation for the lack of the physical sacrament:

If, despite this willingness to make an effort, they cannot fulfill their desire, then they should pour out this need before God and ask Him to, in His way, fulfill this great deficiency. The Great Catechism, in the chapter on sacraments, says: “Baptism, communion, and repentance are so necessary for everyone’s salvation, just as a ship is necessary for crossing the deep sea, without which no one can be saved, except if they are unable to receive them, though they desire them.” (p.95)

At the councils of 1666 and 1667, the work Жезл Правление (Staff of Authority) was approved by the council. While Old Believers certainly reject this book, as a sort of handbook of Nikonianism, in it, even they admit to the possibility of salvation without the physical sacrament:

“It is necessary for all to know that some of the Church’s mysteries are of mediate necessity — namely, chrismation, the Eucharist, and holy unction — and that if anyone should fail to receive them on account of some necessity, he may yet be saved. Others are of absolute necessity, and these are two: baptism and repentance, without which it is not possible to obtain salvation.” (leaf 38, verso, in the linked scan)

In the 19th century, the Nikonian Metropolitan Gregory of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, wrote more explicitly: “In all such cases, one who earnestly desires to receive communion, though he does not actually do so, communicates spiritually: that is, his earnest desire to receive the holy mysteries of Christ is reckoned to him, according to his fervent wish, as actual communion — in the same way as Abraham’s faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. Whoever thus communicates spiritually receives all the blessings that one who actually receives communion receives.” (The Truly Ancient and Truly Orthodox Church, by Gregory, Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg, published 1874, Part 1, p. 337.)

St. Ephrem the Syrian hints at the separability of the spiritual and physical elements of the necessary sacraments, implying that those who are saved without the likes of Holy Communion, (like so many of the martyrs of the early Church who died without baptism), like Baptism itself, can be said to have received them nevertheless in an invisible manner:

Since the Jews chose a robber and rejected Christ, God chose the robber and rejected them. But where then is that which was said: “If any man eat not my flesh, he hath not life” (John 6:53)? The word of the apostle — “all we who are baptized into Christ are baptized into His death” (Rom. 6:3) — makes clear that the robber received the sprinkling of remission of sins through the mystery of the water and blood that flowed from the side of Christ. “With me”, He says, “thou shalt be in the paradise of delight”. When He received faith from the robber, in exchange for it He freely gave him immeasurable gifts, freely poured out His treasures before him, and straightway translated him into His paradise; and there He set the one who had been brought in over His treasures: “With me thou shalt be in the paradise of delight.” (Works of Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Part 8, p. 306-307.)

Central to the life of the Priestless Old Believer of the Spasovo soglasie, is both a desperate hope in the Savior, but also the very “fiery desire” for that very communion of the Savior. For through this “fiery desire” is our very life, caught in a world whose priesthood has abandoned its covenant, and whose existence is twisted and contorted by the constant pernicious spiritual influence of the satanic forces of the spiritual Antichrist.

While the performance of the physical sacraments requires the priesthood, it is clear that Baptism is an exception. In Acts, we can see that the deacon Philip baptized the eunuch (8:34-39), St. Paul himself was baptized by Ananias, who was not a priest - and this was not even done for necessity’s sake, but by the command of the Lord (9:9-19).

In pre-Schism collections of the lives of the saints, there are a multitude of examples:

The holy martyr Sozon taught the Hellenes and baptized them (Prologue, September 7). The venerable Theophanes the Confessor taught the unbelieving and baptized them (Prologue, September 9). The martyrs Diodorus and Didymus taught the unbelieving and baptized them (Prologue, September 11). The martyr Priscilla (Prologue, September 21). The martyrs Mark and those with him taught the unbelieving and baptized them (Prologue, October 27). The martyr Domitius taught the Hellenes and baptized them (Prologue, October 4). The martyr Menas baptized the eparch Hermogenes (Prologue, December 10). An elder in Alexandria baptized a Jewish maiden and told Patriarch John the Merciful about it (Prologue, November 24). Saint Mariamne, sister of the apostle Philip, taught the unbelieving in Lycaonia the word of God and baptized them (Prologue, February 7). The monk Alexander baptized a certain city elder and a great many others (Prologue, February 23). And finally: “Where, then, are those who say that in time of persecution we laypeople are no longer able to baptize when there is no priest present?” (Prologue, August 28). (As listed by L.F. Pichugin, On the Essence of the Church)

There are even examples of self-baptism!

We believe that our immersions will bury the man of sin and resurrect a man of faith, unto remission of sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. That any believer may confer this baptism, and that the practice of the fathers gave canonical instructions on which heretics may forego rebaptism (see Canon 7 of the 2nd Ecumenical Council, and its commentaries), for the sake of avoiding a stumbling block, makes unclear the demand to rebaptize all who received heretical baptism. The Spasovtsy are alone among the Priestless Old Believers in refusing to rebaptize those whose baptism was correct in form, but it is recognized that there is also a strong tradition that demands it of all heretics.

After the early centuries of the Church, baptism was consolidated into an exclusively priestly sacrament, but this is a reflection of historical stability and a Christianity free from imperial persecution, not a change in the very nature or the fundamental mechanics of the sacrament itself, which by allowing lay administration of the sacraments, demonstrated the very validity thereof.

From the loss of the priesthood must come the recognition that we bear, individually even, a responsibility for this disaster.

Who can see this state, and confessing his own sinfulness, will not see therein that our fingerprints are upon the loss of the priesthood also, and that our very souls at every opportunity seek distraction in the wiles of our adversary.

In this state, with the veil of the world drawn, we understand intuitively, that ours is to repent. Not with false displays, but privately, before God, Who does not return to sacrifice Himself again, to forgive and absolve again. But He returns with one agenda: to judge!

With this knowledge, we understand what the purpose of our lives is. But in this purpose, or rather the clarity of this purpose, there is joy!

Not a childish, gleeful joy, but the lightness from being unburdened from the shadowy, obscuring machinations of Antichrist and his false shepherds. The spiritual maladies of the world do not make sense to us, for the machinations of the devil are beyond our capacity to grasp.

But we understand that our sorrows, if they push us to repent, will be joyous sorrows, for sorrow with purpose is a more noble life than a joyous one that wants for a foundation:

“Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry unto repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly sort, that ye might suffer loss by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” (2 Corinthians 9-10)

"Keep a firm hold of the blessed joy-grief of holy compunction, and do not stop working at it until it raises you high above the things of this world and presents you pure to Christ…My friends, God does not ask or desire that man should mourn from sorrow of heart, but rather that out of love for Him he should rejoice with spiritual laughter. Remove sin, and the tear of sorrow is superfluous for your eyes of sense. What is the use of a bandage when there is no wound? Before his transgression, Adam had no tears, just as there will be none after the resurrection when sin will be abolished; for pain, sorrow and sighing will then have fled away." (John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent. Step 7)

We can live in our “hope alone”, for in repentance, we hope that we can find no condemnation.

We also hope that, despite the necessity for the physical Body and Blood, that this necessity comes from the reality of our weakness and carnality, not from a sort of litmus test. In this hope we look to the expressions of the fathers, like those above, knowing that while they are a small part of the whole, they yet point to a rational hope, that rings true, upon which we have no choice but to lean.

We know that it is a lie to proclaim that “everything is fine”, but we also must stay true to our beliefs and our traditions, and our way of life, for we know that they are ancient, built on the pious achievements and spiritual perfection of the saints that precede us. In no way can we forsake these paths.

But, in a land where institutional grace through the priesthood has disappeared, neither can we judge others. And this too, is a lightening of our burdens!

For if the Savior, Who knows how to save, will save us in our repentance, who will say that He cannot, or will not save others?

Only He knows the hearts of men. And we plead for His mercy.

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