The text was published on the Kinonia portal in the column “From the Editor’s Pen,” on 23 November 2025.
The ministry of the presbyter is an integral part of the sacred hierarchy. The presbyter is a sacred minister (a liturgist), the one who offers the gifts and invokes grace together with the people; he is a preacher and a shepherd (1 Tim. 4:13), leading the faithful towards Christ. Saint John Chrysostom states that there is no great difference between the presbyter and the bishop, for the former, by the nature of his ministry, has the obligation to preach the doctrine (1 Tim. 5:17). The only distinction between the two ministries lies in the grace of ordination, which belongs exclusively to bishops (Homily 11 on 1 Timothy). The canons (58th Apostolic Canon and the 19th Canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council) prescribe the obligation of presbyters to teach daily, and especially on Sundays, through Holy Scripture, commentaries, and homilies.
The presbyter is a teacher both in word and in deed, a physician and healer of spiritual wounds, a comforter in bodily and existential afflictions of all entrusted to him, and of the entire people of God. Having been granted the dignity of the presbyteral ministry, he possesses no coercive authority, for he is truly a shepherd of the word of God.
According to patristic teaching, the presbyter is merely an instrument, for it is the Lord alone who performs (ἐνεργεῖ) the work of deification. Saint John Chrysostom expresses this truth vigorously in his commentary on the Second Epistle to Timothy, saying: “Do you know what a presbyter (πρεσβύτερος) is? He is an angel of the Lord. Are his words his own property? If you reject him, you do not reject him, but God who consecrated him (ἐχειροτόνησεν). If God does not act (ἐνεργεί) through him, then there is no baptism, nor communion in the Mysteries, nor blessings; and we are no longer Christians” (P.G. 62, 610).
Truly exalted is the sacred ministry of a presbyter. The presbyter is the distributor of the Mysteries, for what he distributes is not his own. Thus Chrysostom teaches: “Is he unworthy? How does that affect the matter? God once made the offering of oxen serve for the salvation of His people. Neither the priest’s life nor his virtues contribute anything to this. All comes from grace. The priest receives grace when he opens his mouth, but it is God who works in all things. The presbyter merely accomplishes the symbol (σύμωολον). The offering (προσφορά) is the same, whether it is made by the first, or by Peter and Paul. Thus no one is lesser than another, for it is not the man who sanctifies (ἁγιάζουσι), but the Lord Himself who grants sanctification” (P.G. 62, 612).
If a person needs a father and a mother in daily life, if he requires a mentor and a teacher for his intellectual journey, then—much more so—for communion with God, for the spiritual path, for entry into the spiritual realm, unknown and mysterious, he needs a helper, a guide, a conduit in the person of the priest. Just as one candle is lit from another, so a person’s heart is usually kindled with faith and love for God through another heart; in this process, the role of the presbyter, who is the spiritual father of his entrusted flock, is precious. Watching over his flock, the presbyter ever keeps before his spiritual eyes the example of the divinely wise Apostle Paul, who instructed and reminded his spiritual children with the words: “For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the Gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15).
On this Sunday, the twenty-fourth week after Pentecost, when we hear from the church ambo the Gospel pericope concerning the healing of the woman with the issue of blood and the raising of Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter, the Church of God in the Diocese of Valjevo was filled with the grace of a renewed Pentecost, for by the hand of His Grace Bishop Isihije, the most God-loving Bishop of Valjevo, the honourable deacon Aleksandar Panić was ordained to the sacred rank of presbyter.
“The divine grace which heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking” has elevated Father Aleksandar Panić—regular contributor to the missionary portal Kinonia—into the order of honourable presbyters. This Pentecostal joy overshadowed all those labouring on the Kinonia portal, moving our missionary family to exclaim with one voice and with one heart: Axios! (Worthy!)
Knowing that the exalted sacred ministry of a presbyter of the Church of Christ requires superhuman strength, we offer with love our prayers for the newly-ordained presbyter of the Church of Christ in the Diocese of Valjevo. May the Great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant Father Aleksandar zeal and strength to plough deeply in the Vineyard of the Lord through his pastoral ministry, striving to emulate the steadfast faith of the woman with the issue of blood and the wondrous trust in the Lord manifested by Jairus.
With the assurance that Father Aleksandar, from this day forward, at every holy Proskomedia, will place on the sacred diskos a particle for the health and salvation of all collaborators of the missionary portal Kinonia, we also, in the joy of this renewed Pentecost, cry out with the hymnographer of the Church: “When He descended and confounded the tongues, the Most High divided the nations; but when He distributed the tongues of fire, He called all into unity: that we may with one accord glorify the All-Holy Spirit” (Kontakion of Pentecost).
Written by: Catechist Branislav Ilić, Editor of the Kinonia Portal
