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I feel called to the priesthood. Is that enough?

Feeling called is my all-time pet peeve. That bubbly gut feeling that God is somehow conveying you're supposed to be a priest is a completely Western model. It has nothing to do with the Orthodox Church or with biblical Christianity. Christ called the apostles by name and chose them. In St Paul's epistles to Timothy, the calling comes through the church. The calling is not something between you and God.

It comes from God to you through the people in authority over you, who examine your character, your life, your work ethic. People should not be self-selecting for the priesthood. That is a total red flag, because the feeling may have everything to do with pride, egotism, or wanting authority. Historically, people did not want to become priests. Read St John Chrysostom's On the Priesthood: the golden-tongued saint did not feel worthy and did not want to enter it.

There are stories of desert fathers who cut off part of their ear so they could not be candidates for ordination. On the day of your ordination, you hold the consecrated lamb on a plate and the bishop says, safeguard this until the Second Coming of Christ. Eternal salvation is on the line. People should be terrified of the priesthood, sober-minded about it.

Nobody needs to become a priest. God can save people without it. For some it is the calling, but only because it has been manifested through the people in authority over them.

1 Timothy 3:1-7

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