Orthodox process for glorification of saints?

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I was just curious about whether the Orthodox have some process for glorification (what we call canonization) of their Orthodox saints. Are miracles required? What are the steps?

I tried looking on the web but could not find any good info or maybe don’t know where to look.
 
AFAIK, it’s when the local laity start venerating. Once devotion becomes more widespread it is recognized.
ETA: Essentially, they aren’t made a saint as they already were/are a saint. Their sainthood is simply officially acknowledged. No miracles are required- simply that they lived a virtuous and holy life.
 
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CoffeeFanatic said:
Essentially, they aren’t made a saint as they already were/are a saint. Their sainthood is simply officially acknowledged
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This is so in the Catholic Church as well.

OP, the Orthodox recognize the saints out of “popular demand”, for lack of a better term, when the saint’s cultus is widespread, the Church adds the saint to the calendar.
 
Salibi said:
This is so in the Catholic Church as well.
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Well, yes and no. I’m not sure how the Eastern Catholics do it, but Rome has a step-by-step process.

First of all, there are a lot of people in the Latin Church who probably “already are saints” but won’t be officially recognized or publicly venerated for one reason or another. Thomas a Kempis, the author of “Imitation of Christ”, is a prime example.

Second, what you’re referring to as “popular demand” is called “evidence of cult” in the Vatican sainthood process. It is one factor that the Church takes into account, however it is not the only factor. And probably with good reason, as sometimes people can get carried away venerating somebody who has questionable aspects for official sainthood. St. Simon of Trent would be a good example of this: since he was a very young boy (about 2 or 3 years old) when he died, he is very likely in Heaven because he was presumably baptized and also well below the age of reason for committing any mortal sin, so there wouldn’t be a basis for him to go elsewhere. So technically, yes the kid is probably a “saint”. But the public veneration of him was driven by antisemitism. The Church doesn’t want saints that raise those kinds of issues to be on the official list of saints.

The Vatican process would also look at the person’s life, their writings, any phenomena regarding their deceased body, whether they had been martyred for the Faith vs. dying in some other way, and of course, miracles. In recent years, some saints who have contributed in a major way to the Church, such as to theology, have been canonized without miracles, which to me is fine once in a while but I would not want it to become the norm.
 
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Salibi said:
when the saint’s cultus is widespread, the Church adds the saint to the calendar.
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Can you go into more detail?

Who recognizes the cult is widespread enough and who actually adds it to the calendar (bishop, synod, patriarch,etc.)? And which calendar is it added to (local church, national church, patriarchate, etc.)?
 
I’m sorry, I don’t know that. I’m not Orthodox. I just asked an Orthodox friend. My post was her simple answer, delivered with a shrug.
 
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Is the synod regional in the Orthodox Church? I imagine there is a body that looks into cultus’ in every region.
 
Then am I correct in guessing that each individual Orthodox church canonizes saints independently?
 
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Salibi said:
Then am I correct in guessing that each individual Orthodox churche canonizes saints independently?
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I believe this is correct, though all churches will recognize the saints canonized by any particular church.

Whether or not other churches would add a saint canonized by another church to their calendar for commemorations is a different matter.
 
Would a saint canonized in Coptic Orthodoxy be recognized in Greek Orthodoxy, though? Though different communions, they are both Orthodox.
 
Unfortunately no. As the Byzantine/Eastern Orthodox are not in communion as you note with the Copts, saints would not officially be mutually recognized. Hopefully that will change someday sooner rather later.
 
https://orthodoxwiki.org/Glorification
From what I know and is not on the site, the conditions for canonization (unofficially, because the Synods work with closed doors) would be these:
  • miracles made in the person’s name;
  • studying the orthodoxy of belief in what the person involved said or wrote while alive and the way they lived their life and if they had failures if the person corrected him/herself before passing away;
  • myrrh bearing bones of the deceased (the body must be found to smell in a pleasing way despite the time passed).
    All of these must be valid in order to canonize someone, but before the two conditions are fulfilled the body is not being taken out of the tomb.
 
Very interesting, thank you.

I have been wondering about this especially in cases where the person by the standards of Catholic church might not have been seen as living a saintly life, e.g. led a whole bunch of people into schism with the Catholic church, etc.
 
He’s not the only one but he was sort of on my mind because this week I’m near Wilkes-Barre and he’s buried nearby.
I always feel bad for him and his flock because the RC bishop was mean and it seems like they lost a lot of their traditions when the Russians imposed their own anyway.
Meanwhile the Ruthenian Catholics seem to have done okay in USA in the end. They even have a beati, which for USA is very rare, we only have three of those right now to my knowledge.
 
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