An Orthodox Response on the Veneration of the Saints

 Priest George Maximov

Yesterday, the Church celebrated the feast of All Saints. Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses often reproach Orthodox Christians for venerating the saints—and especially for praying to them. How may we respond?

1. The Nature of Orthodox Prayers to the Saints

First, it must be clarified that prayers to the saints in the Orthodox Church are not only supplicatory but also eulogistic. For example, canons and the beloved akathists are composed precisely to recall the lives and struggles of the saints, to glorify and bless them for their faithfulness and obedience to God’s will. This is a direct fulfillment of Scripture:

> “Remember your leaders, who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (Heb. 13:7)  

> “We count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.” (James 5:11)

The Theotokos herself prophesied:  

> “From now on all generations will call me blessed [μακαρίζω].” (Luke 1:48)

In both James and Luke, the Greek verb μακαρίζω means “to bless,” “to extol,” or “to proclaim as blessed.” Yet Protestants do not bless either the Mother of God or the saints—and thereby transgress the very Word of God. Even if they refused to ask the saints for intercession, they would still be obligated to read canons and akathists in their assemblies, so as to remember the saints’ examples and glorify them as Scripture commands.

2. Supplicatory Prayers and the Role of Intercession

Secondly, regarding supplicatory prayers: Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses claim such prayers “violate” the verse:  

> “There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. 2:5)

But this passage refers specifically to Christ’s redemptive sacrifice—as the very next words state: “who gave Himself as a ransom for all.” No saint claims to be a mediator in this salvific, atoning sense. However, the Lord repeatedly commands Christians to pray for one another (Matt. 5:44; 1 Thess. 5:25; 2 Thess. 3:1). Protestants themselves pray for each other, yet do not consider this an usurpation of Christ’s unique mediation. Likewise, when we ask the saints to pray for us, we do not believe they act by their own autonomous power, but through union with God, Whose grace empowers all true intercession.

Sectarians typically object: “These commands apply only to the living! Nowhere does Scripture say the departed saints can pray!” To this, we point to Revelation:

> “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God… And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Rev. 6:9–10)

Here, the Apostle John bears clear witness that the departed saints retain consciousness and the capacity to pray to God.

Sectarians further insist that the dead lose the ability to intercede—but cannot cite a single biblical verse supporting this claim. On the contrary, Christ declared:  

> “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.” (Luke 20:38)

Prayer for those in need is an expression of Christian love—and “love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:8). They also ask: “How can the departed hear our prayers?” This is understandable when we recall:  

> “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1 Cor. 6:17)

Since the Lord hears all prayers, those united with Him—the saints—participate in His divine awareness. Scripture itself confirms that the righteous, even after death—which it calls merely a “departure” (2 Tim. 4:6) — remain conscious, united with Christ, and continue to pray.

If Protestants truly rejected saintly intercession only because they believed the departed could not pray, they would at least pray to the Prophet Elijah and the Righteous Enoch—both of whom were taken bodily to God without tasting death. Yet they pray to neither. This exposes their true motive: not theological caution, but proud disdain for those whom Scripture calls “friends of God” (John 15:15; James 2:23).

The Apostle Paul writes to believers:  

> “You have come… to the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” (Heb. 12:22–23)

We Orthodox, through prayer and hymnody, truly draw near to these perfected saints and maintain communion with them. Sectarians, however, refuse to approach “the spirits of the righteous made perfect.” It is pride that leads them to say: “Why should I ask a saint to pray for me, when I can pray directly to God myself?”

Yet Scripture repeatedly affirms that God heeds the prayers of the righteous more readily—even when He might not accept the prayer of an ordinary sinner. Recall God’s words to Job’s friends:  

> “My servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his face, lest I deal with you according to your folly.” (Job 42:8)

Likewise, God told Abimelech:  

> “Restore the man’s wife… for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you, and you shall live.” (Gen. 20:7)

Both Job’s friends and Abimelech could have prayed themselves—yet God chose to act through the intercession of the righteous.

3. The Veneration of Relics

 Sectarians often object to the veneration of relics, assuming this contradicts Scripture. In fact, the opposite is true: Scripture records that God glorifies even the bodily remains of His saints and works miracles through them. Consider:

> “Elisha died and was buried. Now bands of Moabites invaded the land… As they were burying a man, suddenly they saw the raiders, so they cast the man into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man revived and stood on his feet.” (2 Kings 13:20–21)

God continues to manifest His power through the relics of later saints. Recently, for example, a blind woman in St. Petersburg regained her sight before the relics of the Great Martyr George the Trophy-bearer.

This leads us to a crucial point: the question is not theoretical—“Can the saints hear us?” or “Can God act through relics?”—but experiential. They do hear us. Not only in antiquity, but today: countless Orthodox Christians—including myself—can testify from personal experience that when we have asked the saints to intercede before God, He has answered, often miraculously.  

If, as you claim, prayers to the saints displease God, why does He fulfill them? If direct prayer to God always succeeded while prayers to saints never did, the practice would have ceased long ago. But God confirms this practice by answering such prayers and sanctions the veneration of relics by working wonders through them. Why?

4. A Final Question

Let us pose one last question to our interlocutors:  

If God will say to those who rejected the least of His brethren—“Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41)—what will He say to those who reject His friends, of whom Scripture declares:  

> “The world was not worthy of them” (Heb. 11:38),  

and who now “stand before the throne of God… crying out with a loud voice” (Rev. 7:9–10)?

To spurn the saints is not merely to disregard tradition—it is to scorn those whom God Himself honors, and whose prayers rise ceaselessly before His throne.