The saints are Christians who’ve died and are now alive with Christ in heaven. That’s it. They’re not a separate category of super-believers. They’re members of the Church who’ve finished the race and won.
But let’s back up. When St. Paul wrote his letters, he addressed them to “the saints” in Corinth or Ephesus. He meant all the baptized Christians there. Every Orthodox Christian is a saint in that basic sense, someone set apart for God’s purposes, brought into the Body of Christ through baptism. We’re all called to be holy because God is holy.
When we talk about “the saints” in our usual way, though, we mean something more specific. We mean men and women who lived lives of extraordinary holiness, who cooperated with God’s grace so fully that they became what we’re all supposed to become. They achieved theosis, union with God. The Church has recognized their holiness and now asks their prayers.
Think of St. Ignatius of Antioch, one of our own. He was bishop here in the first century, knew the Apostle John personally, and was thrown to wild animals in Rome for refusing to deny Christ. Or St. Thecla, who heard St. Paul preach and gave up everything to follow Christ. Or St. Simeon the Stylite, who lived on top of a pillar in the Syrian desert for thirty-seven years, praying. These aren’t myths. These are real people who lived in our region, and their lives changed the world.
The saints aren’t dead. That’s the thing people miss. Christ destroyed death. When St. Paul wrote “to live is Christ, to die is gain,” he meant it. The saints are more alive now than they were before. They see God face to face. They’re part of the Church triumphant while we’re still the Church militant down here, but we’re all one Body.
So we ask their prayers the same way you’d ask your grandmother to pray for you. Actually, we ask their prayers more confidently because they’re closer to God than your grandmother is. They’re standing right there in His presence. When the Book of Revelation shows the elders in heaven offering up the prayers of the saints on earth like incense, that’s not poetry. That’s what’s happening.
Some folks get nervous about this. They think we’re worshipping saints or treating them like gods. We’re not. Worship belongs to God alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What we give the saints is honor, respect, veneration. We honor them the way you’d honor your parents or a war hero, but infinitely more so because of what Christ has done in them. When we venerate an icon of St. George or St. Mary of Egypt, we’re honoring the person depicted and thanking God for the work He did in their lives.
The Theotokos holds a special place among the saints. She’s the Mother of God, the one who gave her flesh to Christ so the Word could become man. We honor her above all other saints, but we don’t worship her. She’d be horrified at the thought. She’s the first Christian, the first to say yes to God’s plan, and she prays for us constantly.
How does someone become recognized as a saint? Sometimes it happens immediately. When St. Simeon died up on that pillar, people built churches around the site right away. They knew. Other times it takes longer. The Church watches, listens, sees if there are miracles, if people are helped by this person’s prayers, if their life bears fruit. Eventually, if it’s clear God has glorified this person, the Church formally recognizes what’s already obvious.
We’ve got saints from every walk of life. Married people and monastics. Bishops and peasants. Scholars and illiterates. Some were martyred. Some lived to old age. Some were royalty. Some were slaves. What they share is that they let God transform them completely. They became what Adam was supposed to be before the Fall.
Here in Southeast Texas, this might seem foreign. Most of y’all grew up hearing that you just need to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and that’s that. We believe something different. We believe salvation is a process, a healing, a transformation. The saints show us what that looks like when it’s complete. They’re not unreachable. They’re examples. St. Paul himself said “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” That’s what the saints are for.
On Sundays when we sing “All you saints of God, intercede for us,” we’re acknowledging that we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Your patron saint, whose name you’ll take at chrismation, isn’t just a nice tradition. That’s a real person who’s going to pray for you for the rest of your life and beyond. Get to know them. Read their life. Talk to them.
The saints prove that this faith works. It’s not just theory. It’s not just ancient history. These are people who became fully human by becoming united to God. And if you stick around, if you keep coming to Liturgy, if you fast and pray and confess and commune, you’ll start to understand that you’re becoming part of their family. You’re joining a company that stretches back two thousand years and forward into eternity.
