How Does Someone Become a Saint in the Orthodox Church?

Walk into almost any Orthodox church and you are surrounded by saints. They look out from the icon screen and the walls, their names are sung at every service, and each day of the calendar belongs to some of them. Many are ancient. Others lived within living memory: a Greek monk who died in 1994, a Yup'ik village mother in Alaska who died in 1979. Who decided that these people are saints, and how?

Some Catholics ask whether the Orthodox have any real process at all. Many Protestants point out that the New Testament calls every believer a saint. Skeptics ask whether "saint-making" is popular enthusiasm plus church politics. This article looks at the earliest sources, current Orthodox practice with checked modern examples, the Catholic and Protestant alternatives, and the honest difficulties.

In brief

In Orthodox teaching every baptized Christian is called to be holy, and the Church does not "make" saints. It recognizes, or "glorifies," people in whom it believes God's holiness has already been shown. The roots are early. A letter from Smyrna describes Christians gathering at the bones of their martyred bishop Polycarp to keep the "birthday" of his martyrdom, and by about 250 the church of Carthage was recording the days on which martyrs died so that they could be remembered each year. For roughly a thousand years there was no formal procedure. Today veneration usually grows among the faithful, a bishop petitions his synod, life and teaching are examined, the bishops decide together, and a service of glorification follows with a new icon, hymns and a feast day. Miracles and incorrupt relics are often reported, but neither is strictly required, and the Church treats both with caution. Catholic canonization is centralized in Rome, staged and tied to examined miracles. The real difficulties are that Orthodox Churches have sometimes glorified the same person decades apart, politics has sometimes shaped timing, and a few figures are honored by one church and condemned by another.

Thesis: Orthodox glorification is a conciliar act by which bishops confirm a holiness the faithful have already recognized; it is ancient in its roots, cautious about miracles, and its human judgments have sometimes been uneven.

What "saint" means

The New Testament uses "saints" (hagioi, "holy ones") for ordinary believers. Paul writes "to all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints" (Romans 1:7, NKJV), and Peter repeats the command of Leviticus: "Be holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16). The Orthodox Church agrees that this calling belongs to everyone. Fr. Joseph Frawley, a member of the Orthodox Church in America's Canonization Commission, puts it plainly: "Everyone is challenged to manifest holiness in their lives, for we all must become saints!"¹

The Divine Liturgy says the same every Sunday. Before Communion the priest lifts the consecrated Lamb with the words "Holy Things are for the holy!" and the people answer, "One is Holy! One is the Lord Jesus Christ! To the glory of God the Father, Amen."² All holiness is Christ's, and believers are holy by sharing in Him. This is the Orthodox teaching on theosis: human beings become by grace what God is by nature, without ever becoming God by nature.

When the Church calls someone "Saint," then, it is not creating a higher class of Christian. It is saying that in this person the common calling has been fulfilled in a way the Church can see and hold up as an example. Asked whether the Church can make a saint, Frawley replies, "The answer is no. Only God can do that."¹ A text the OCA published for St. Herman's glorification in 1970 agrees: "Canonization does not make anybody a saint. Canonization recognizes that someone already was, in his own lifetime, a saint."³ That is why Orthodox Christians usually prefer the word "glorification": the Church glorifies those whom God has already glorified.

The earliest evidence: Christians at the martyrs' graves

The Martyrdom of Polycarp

The oldest detailed witness is the Martyrdom of Polycarp, a letter from the church of Smyrna about the martyrdom of its elderly bishop in the mid-second century. When the authorities would not release his body, the writers explain that Christians could never "worship any other" than Christ: "For him we worship as the Son of God, but the martyrs we love as disciples and imitators of the Lord." They then describe what they did with his remains:

Thus we, at last, took up his bones, more precious than precious stones, and finer than gold, and put them where it was meet. There the Lord will permit us to come together according to our power in gladness and joy, and celebrate the birthday of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already contested, and for the practice and training of those whose fate it shall be. (Martyrdom of Polycarp 18.2-3, trans. Kirsopp Lake, 1913)

The Ante-Nicene Fathers translation renders the key phrase "the anniversary of his martyrdom."⁴ The elements of later practice are already present: honored remains, a yearly day, a local gathering, remembrance and encouragement. Our guide Polycarp: The Bishop Who Remembered the Apostles tells his story.

The date of the text needs care. Michael Holmes finds persuasive the letter's own claim to have been written about a year after Polycarp's death, which places it in the third quarter of the second century. Candida Moss argues that the expanded text we have was written long after the events, perhaps in the mid-third century, and counts among her reasons the text's defensive handling of the question of Polycarp's remains.⁵ {{debated: Whether the passage on Polycarp's bones and yearly commemoration belongs to an original second-century letter or to a later expansion is disputed among scholars.}} Even on the later dating, it reflects practice before Constantine.

Keeping the martyrs' days

The third century gives firmer ground. During the persecution of the 250s Cyprian of Carthage wrote to his clergy: "take note of their days on which they depart, that we may celebrate their commemoration among the memorials of the martyrs." A Christian named Tertullus was sending him the dates on which imprisoned believers died, and, Cyprian adds, "there are celebrated here by us oblations and sacrifices for their commemorations." In another letter he speaks of offering sacrifices "as often as we celebrate the passions and days of the martyrs in the annual commemoration."⁶ {{strong: By the mid-third century, the church of Carthage under its bishop Cyprian was deliberately recording the death-days of martyrs so that it could commemorate them yearly at the Eucharist.}} This is the seed of the Church calendar. The early practice of asking the martyrs' prayers is traced in our guide The Intercession of the Saints in the Ancient Church.

The OCA's 1970 text sums up the first millennium: "For the first thousand years of the history of the Church saints were recognized without any formal rite of canonization." Congregations remembered holy people at their services, asked their prayers and visited their relics.³

How glorification works in the Orthodox Church today

No single rulebook binds every Orthodox Church. Each self-governing Church glorifies saints through its own synod of bishops. Deacon Andrei Psarev, in a study of the practice of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) prepared for a joint committee of ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate, begins frankly: "I am not aware of any guidelines for glorifying saints." He records a 1988 report which, following the Russian church historian E. E. Golubinsky, says that among the Greeks clear criteria (true Orthodoxy, piety and miracles) appeared only in the seventeenth century, and that before then the local bishop decided with the metropolitan's consent.⁷

Veneration begins among the people

Frawley describes the first stage: "Long before an official inquiry into a person's life is made, that person is venerated by the people where he or she lived and died." People pray for the departed person, ask for his or her prayers, visit the grave and sometimes commission icons.¹ Archimandrite Bartholomew Samaras, Chief Secretary of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's Holy Synod, said in 2015 that the main criterion "is that they be a saint in the eyes of God's people."⁸

A bishop asks, a commission examines

A request is then made, usually through the diocesan bishop. In the OCA a Canonization Commission studies the person's life and reports to the Holy Synod. Two things matter above all. One is "a virtuous life of obvious holiness." The other is right belief: a saint's writings and preaching must be "fully Orthodox."¹ A person of great goodness whose teaching departed from the faith would not be glorified.

Time matters too. Samaras explained that the Church normally lets "a qualifying period of time" pass after a death, to set aside people who "had emotional or personal or other reasons to cultivate the public feeling on their holiness."⁸

Miracles and relics: welcomed, not required

Reports of healings often prompt a glorification, but Frawley is explicit that miracles are "not an absolute necessity for canonization," naming St. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Innocent of Moscow as saints with no known miracles.¹ Incorrupt relics are honored when found, but the OCA's account lists no such requirement. The OCA life of St. Nectarios reports that when his body was found incorrupt, the Archbishop of Athens had the nuns leave it in the sun and rebury it so that it would decay. A month or two later it was still found incorrupt, but "several years later," the relics "dissolved, leaving only the bones."⁹

The bishops decide, and the Church sings

The decision belongs to the bishops together: "the Holy Synod decides to number that person among the saints and have icons painted and liturgical services composed."¹ In the Ecumenical Patriarchate the Holy and Sacred Synod votes on a proposal from its Canonical Committee.¹⁰ The glorification itself is a service, not a signature. According to Frawley the rite "begins with a final Memorial Service for the person about to be canonized"; Vespers and Matins follow with new hymns, the icon is unveiled, the life is published, the feast day is fixed, and "the other Orthodox Churches are notified."¹ The Church prays one last time for the person, and then begins to ask the person's prayers.

A recent example: St. Olga of Kwethluk

St. Olga's glorification shows every step on the public record. On November 2, 2023, Bishop Alexei of Sitka and Alaska wrote to the OCA's primate about Matushka Olga Michael of Kwethluk, a Yup'ik priest's wife who died in 1979: "The first peoples of Alaska are convinced of her sanctity and the great efficacy of her prayers." On November 8 the Holy Synod decreed that she "be numbered among the saints," ordered a service, icons and the publication of her life, and directed that her name be sent to "the Primates of all Sister Churches." Until then the faithful were still to remember her at services for the departed. The Canonization Commission invited accounts of healings attributed to her prayers, and her remains were uncovered in November 2024. On June 19, 2025, in Kwethluk, a final memorial service was served at the cemetery, the proclamation was read, and the new icon was carried in procession. Her feast is October 27.¹¹

Modern glorifications, checked

Saint	Died	Glorified	By
St. Herman of Alaska	1837	August 9, 1970	The OCA in Kodiak; ROCOR the same day in San Francisco
St. John of Kronstadt	1908	November 1, 1964; June 8, 1990	ROCOR; then the Russian Orthodox Church
St. Nectarios of Aegina	1920	April 20, 1961	Ecumenical Patriarchate
St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia	1991	November 27, 2013	Ecumenical Patriarchate
St. Paisios the Athonite	1994	January 13, 2015	Ecumenical Patriarchate
St. Olga of Kwethluk	1979	June 19, 2025 (decree November 8, 2023)	The OCA

St. Herman's case shows how slow the process can be. A first formal inquiry into his life was made in 1867, thirty years after his death, and a biography appeared in 1894.¹² St. Porphyrios and St. Paisios, by contrast, were glorified about twenty years after their deaths, after very wide popular devotion; Samaras noted that more than 150 books had been written about Paisios and that believers were already painting him in icons.⁸

Local and wider veneration

Veneration can be local first and wider later. In 1981 ROCOR allowed only "a local veneration" of St. Paisius Velichkovsky at a skete on Mount Athos, because his main work had been in the Romanian Church; in 1990 it directed that his memory be kept everywhere.⁷ A saint glorified by one Church then enters others' calendars as they receive the news. The OCA's calendar, for example, now includes the Greek saints Nectarios, Porphyrios and Paisios.¹³

What can we actually verify?

• Contemporary documents. Cyprian's letter is a contemporary witness to commemorating martyrs in the 250s. The Martyrdom of Polycarp claims to be near-contemporary, though its date is disputed. For modern saints the synodal acts are primary documents that can be read and dated: the 1969 decision on St. Herman by the bishops of the American Metropolia (the OCA from 1970), the 2023 proclamation on St. Olga, the Ecumenical Patriarchate's 2015 announcement on St. Paisios, and the Russian Synod's 1903 act on St. Seraphim of Sarov.
• Hagiography. Lives of the saints are written to edify, usually by disciples or admirers. St. Herman's first official biography appeared in 1894, almost sixty years after his death.¹² Psarev concludes that ROCOR's glorifications "were made mostly on the basis of hagiographic material."⁷ Such lives preserve real memory, but they are not neutral reports.
• Reported miracles. These range from carefully gathered testimony to stories no one can check. The Russian Synod said in 1903 that its commission had investigated ninety-four cases of help through St. Seraphim's prayers, "the majority of which were fully confirmed by the necessary affidavits of witnesses."¹⁴ That shows testimony was collected; it cannot by itself show an outsider what caused the healings.

What can be verified is the Church's own act: who glorified whom, when, and on what stated grounds. Whether a healing was miraculous is a matter for faith and discernment, not historical method.

How Roman Catholic canonization differs

The divergence began in the West. {{strong: The first documented papal canonization is that of Ulrich of Augsburg by Pope John XV in 993.}} The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops dates it to January 31, 993, and the OCA's 1970 text also names Ulrich.¹⁵ The decision was increasingly reserved to Rome, and in 1588 Sixtus V created the Congregation of Rites to handle causes.

The present law rests on John Paul II's constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister (January 25, 1983) and later norms; since 2022 the Roman office has been the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.¹⁶ The U.S. bishops summarize the steps. Five years normally pass after death. A diocesan tribunal gathers testimony and writings. In Rome a Positio is examined by theologians and then by cardinals and bishops, and the pope may declare the person "Venerable." Beatification requires one approved miracle (none for a martyr), and canonization a second miracle after beatification. The pope may waive these requirements.¹⁵

Two corrections are worth making. The Catholic Church does not require three miracles, although the OCA's own 2000 article says so;¹ the norm is one for beatification and one more for canonization.¹⁵ And the two processes are closer than polemic suggests: both start from popular veneration, include a bishop's inquiry and end in a liturgical act. The real differences are centralization, formal stages, and the weight given to examined miracles.

Protestant views

The Reformers did not abolish the memory of the saints. The Augsburg Confession (1530) teaches "that the memory of saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works." What it rejects is invocation: "the Scripture teacheth not to invocate saints, or to ask help of saints, because it propoundeth unto us one Christ the Mediator." The Church of England's Thirty-Nine Articles go further, calling "the Romish Doctrine" of the "Invocation of Saints" "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture."¹⁷

So the main Protestant disagreement is not with honoring holy examples, which Hebrews commends ("Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow," Hebrews 13:7, NKJV). It is with asking the departed saints for their prayers, and with any process that seems to confer a status.

The strongest objections

"The New Testament calls every believer a saint."

True, and the Orthodox Church teaches it. Glorification publicly confirms that a particular believer finished the race in faith, so that others can "follow" that faith as Hebrews 13:7 asks. Hebrews 11 itself names exemplary believers and calls them "so great a cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 12:1).

"Asking saints to pray detracts from the one Mediator."

Paul writes that there is "one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5, NKJV). The Orthodox answer is that asking a saint to pray is the same kind of act as asking a living friend, which Scripture commands ("pray for one another," James 5:16), extended to those alive in Christ beyond death. As the OCA's 1970 text puts it, "we ask the holy person to pray for us."³ Whether the departed hear such requests is the real point at issue, argued in full in Why Do Orthodox Christians Pray to Saints? and, from the Catholic side, in Praying to Saints: Is the Catholic Practice Biblical and Early Christian?

"Without a central process, glorification follows enthusiasm and politics."

This objection has real evidence behind it. The Russian Synod's act of 1903 on St. Seraphim of Sarov records that its commission finished investigating in 1894, that the Synod was "still not finding it timely" to proceed, and that it acted after Emperor Nicholas II expressed the wish in July 1902 that the work be "brought to a conclusion."¹⁴ ROCOR's bishops postponed St. John of Kronstadt's glorification in 1953, noting their primate's view that it needed the participation of the Church in Russia once freed, then went ahead in 1964 on the ground that persecution there had worsened.⁷ Circumstances plainly affected timing.

In reply, timing is not substance. St. Seraphim and St. John of Kronstadt were widely venerated long before any synod acted. No human process is immune from pressure. The Orthodox safeguards are less a procedure than time, the slow agreement of the whole Church, and the requirement of right faith.

"If Orthodox Churches disagree about who is a saint, the claim collapses."

The disagreements are real.

• Different bodies and dates. St. Herman was glorified twice on one day, in Kodiak and San Francisco, which Psarev says reflected "the history of Russian church divisions in North America." St. John of Kronstadt was glorified by ROCOR in 1964 and by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990.⁷
• Different lists. ROCOR glorified the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, including the royal family, in 1981; in editing its list, not belonging to Metropolitan Sergius's church organization after his declaration of 1927 was used as a criterion. In 1988 ROCOR's Synod, while acknowledging the sanctity of Saints Ignatius and Theophan, refused to recognize their glorification by the Moscow Patriarchate, because the New Martyrs had not yet been glorified there; in 2000 ROCOR's Council of Bishops counted them among its glorified saints.⁷ The Russian Orthodox Church glorified more than a thousand New Martyrs at its Jubilee Council of 2000; the OCA's calendar entry includes "the royal Passion Bearers Tsar Nicholas II and his family."¹⁸
• Across the Chalcedonian divide. Dioscorus of Alexandria was deposed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which the Eastern Orthodox count as the Fourth Ecumenical Council; the council's letter of condemnation gives as grounds his disregard of the canons and his refusal to answer three summonses. The Coptic Orthodox Church commemorates him as "St. Dioscorus, 25th Pope of Alexandria," "the great champion of Orthodoxy."¹⁹ This disagreement concerns the faith itself; see What Did the Council of Chalcedon Actually Define?
• Disputed honor. The OCA calendar lists Augustine of Hippo on June 15 as "Blessed Augustine," while the text of the same entry calls him "Saint Augustine."²⁰ The two titles in one entry suggest that Orthodox usage, and the degree of honor given to him, is not uniform.

Does this undo the Orthodox claim? Only if each synod's glorification were claimed to be infallible, which is not the Orthodox position. A glorification is a local Church's confident judgment, which the wider Church then receives over time. Psarev notes that most saints glorified by ROCOR were also glorified by the Russian Church, and takes that as confirmation.⁷ Where Churches still disagree about a figure like Dioscorus, the disagreement follows a deeper division in faith.

"Miracle reports are unverifiable, so the system rests on credulity."

The Orthodox tradition shares more of this caution than critics expect. Scripture warns of "great signs and wonders to deceive" (Matthew 24:24) and tells believers to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1). St. Gregory the Dialogist (Pope Gregory the Great, also honored in the East) wrote that "true judgment of one's life is to be taken from his virtuous conversation, and not from the working of miracles."²¹ The OCA's life of St. Paisios tells how, as a hermit near Sinai, he saw a light showing him where his matches were; he "did not trust this, so he made the Sign of the Cross, and the light disappeared."²² A ROCOR archbishop reporting in 1978 on glorifying the New Martyrs concluded that miracles come when saints are addressed with faith: "If those who doubt the power of prayerful intercession by holy martyrs demand miracles, there will not be miracles for them."⁷

None of this proves any particular miracle, and some church reporting is enthusiastic. An OCA news report on the uncovering of St. Olga's remains says that a deacon who is a medical doctor regarded the absence of any odor of decay as "itself miraculous."¹¹ An outsider may weigh that differently. The firmer ground, which the Church itself names as decisive, is the life: how the person prayed, served and believed.

What we can say confidently

• The New Testament calls all believers "saints," and the Orthodox Church teaches that every Christian is called to holiness.
• By the mid-third century the church of Carthage, and probably others before it, recorded the death-days of martyrs and commemorated them yearly.
• For roughly the first millennium saints were recognized without a formal process, in East and West alike.
• In the Orthodox Church today, glorification is an act of a synod of bishops, normally following popular veneration, a bishop's petition and an examination of life and teaching, completed in a liturgical service.
• Miracles and incorrupt relics are often reported but not strictly required; a holy life and Orthodox faith are.
• Catholic canonization is centralized in Rome and normally requires one miracle for beatification and a second for canonization.

What remains disputed

• The date and unity of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, and so whether its account of Polycarp's relics and feast reflects the second century or a later one.
• Whether the departed saints hear and intercede for those who ask them, which divides Orthodox and Catholics from most Protestants.
• How far political circumstances shaped particular glorifications, such as St. Seraphim of Sarov in 1903 and the New Martyrs of Russia in 1981 and 2000.
• The standing of some figures across Churches, such as Dioscorus, and the degree of honor owed to Augustine among the Eastern Orthodox.
• Whether any particular reported miracle or incorruption has a natural explanation, which historical method cannot settle.

Conclusion

The Orthodox way of recognizing saints is less a procedure than a long act of remembering. It began at Smyrna, where a persecuted church gathered its bishop's bones and hoped to meet there each year. It continues in an Alaskan village, where bishops served one last memorial service for a beloved mother and then, for the first time, asked her prayers. In between, the Church's human judgments have sometimes been uneven in timing and divided by schism, but the Church has kept a simple conviction: God makes saints, and the Church's task is to notice.

That conviction is good news for ordinary believers. The Psalm sung at such moments says that God is "wonderful in his holy places," a line its nineteenth-century translator notes can also be rendered "among his holy ones."²³ The saints are not a separate caste but family members who have reached home first. Their glorification invites the rest of us onto the same road of repentance, prayer and love, toward the One who alone is holy. Many who walked that road are introduced in our Church Fathers guide.

Notes

1. Fr. Joseph Frawley, "The Glorification of the Saints in the Orthodox Church," Orthodox Church in America, originally in The Orthodox Church newspaper, April-May 2000, oca.org/fs/glorification-of-saints. The article also states that "the Roman Catholic Church requires three verified miracles," which does not match current Catholic norms (see note 15). ↩
2. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship, "Communion," Orthodox Church in America, oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-divine-liturgy/communion. ↩
3. "Canonization," Orthodox Church in America, oca.org/fs/canonization, originally in the commemorative book Canonization of Saint Herman of Alaska (Kodiak, August 9, 1970). ↩
4. Martyrdom of Polycarp 17.2-3 and 18.2-3, trans. Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1913), checked against the printed text (archive.org, apostolicfathers02lakeuoft) and at earlychristianwritings.com. Compare trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (1885), ch. 18, newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htm: "to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom." ↩
5. Michael W. Holmes, "Dating the Martyrdom of Polycarp," Early Christianity 9, no. 2 (2018): 181-200, doi:10.1628/ec-2018-0011; Candida R. Moss, "On the Dating of Polycarp: Rethinking the Place of the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the History of Christianity," Early Christianity 1, no. 4 (2010): 539-574, doi:10.1628/186870310793597051. Both summarized from their published abstracts. ↩
6. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 36 (ANF numbering), sect. 2, and Epistle 33 (ANF numbering), sect. 3, trans. Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5 (1886), newadvent.org/fathers/050636.htm and newadvent.org/fathers/050633.htm. ↩
7. Deacon Andrei Psarev, "The Order of Glorifying Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (1920-2007)," ROCOR Studies, October 2015, rocorstudies.org. Used for the absence of guidelines; Golubinsky on Greek criteria (from Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles's 1988 report); St. John of Kronstadt (postponed 1953, decided June 3 and glorified November 1, 1964); St. Herman glorified the same day in Kodiak and San Francisco; St. Paisius Velichkovsky; the New Martyrs (1981) and the criterion concerning Metropolitan Sergius; the 1988 decision on Saints Ignatius and Theophan and the 2000 Council's decision to count them among ROCOR's saints; Archbishop Anthony's 1978 remark on miracles (in Psarev's translation); and Psarev's conclusions. ↩
8. Archimandrite Bartholomew Samaras, interview with NEWS 247, January 2015, trans. John Sanidopoulos, "The Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the Canonization of Elder Paisios," johnsanidopoulos.com, January 21, 2015. ↩
9. "Saint Nectarius Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis," Lives of the Saints, November 9, Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. ↩
10. Ecumenical Patriarchate, announcement of January 13, 2015, trans. John Sanidopoulos, "Elder Paisios is Officially Canonized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate," johnsanidopoulos.com, January 2015. ↩
11. Orthodox Church in America, oca.org: "The Proclamation of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America on the Glorification of the Righteous Servant of God Matushka Olga," November 8, 2023 (quoting Bishop Alexei's letter of November 2, 2023); "Canonization Commission Makes Appeal For Intercession Accounts," December 6, 2023; "Matushka Olga's Relics Uncovered in Kwethluk, AK," November 26, 2024; "Announcement Regarding Matushka Olga's Canonization Services and Feast Day," December 31, 2024; "His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon Presides at the Glorification of the Righteous Olga of Kwethluk," June 21, 2025; "Saint Olga of Kwethluk," oca.org/fs/st-olga-alaska. ↩
12. Orthodox Church in America: "A Chronology of Events on the Life of Saint Herman of Alaska," oca.org/fs/chronology-life-st-herman-of-alaska; "Address of the Great Council of Bishops … Concerning the Canonization of the Spiritual Father Herman of Alaska," Syosset, March 11, 1969, oca.org/fs/address-1969-on-spiritual-father-herman; "St. Herman of Alaska," oca.org/fs/st-herman-of-alaska. ↩
13. St. Herman: note 12 and, for San Francisco, note 7. St. John of Kronstadt: note 7 (1964) and "Repose of Saint John of Kronstadt," Lives of the Saints, December 20, oca.org ("glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church on June 8, 1990"). St. Nectarios: "Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis and Wonderworker," Orthodox Times, orthodoxtimes.com (April 20, 1961), and note 9. St. Porphyrios: "Saint Porphyrios, Wonderworker of Kavsokaliva," Lives of the Saints, December 2, oca.org (died December 2, 1991; canonized November 27, 2013). St. Paisios: note 10 and "Venerable Paisios of the Holy Mountain," Lives of the Saints, July 12, oca.org (died July 12, 1994). St. Olga: note 11. ↩
14. Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, Act of January 29, 1903, on the glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov, English translation at synod.com/english/pages/heritage/canonofsersar.html. ↩
15. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Saints," usccb.org/offices/public-affairs/saints (steps, miracle requirements, waivers, five-year rule, "limited public veneration," Sixtus V and 1588, and the canonization of St. Ulric by John XV on January 31, 993); "Canonization," Orthodox Church in America (note 3). ↩
16. John Paul II, Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, January 25, 1983; Francis, Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, March 19, 2022, art. 98; both at vatican.va. ↩
17. Augsburg Confession, art. 21, and Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 22, English texts in Philip Schaff, ed., The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877), ccel.org. ↩
18. "New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia," Lives of the Saints, Orthodox Church in America, oca.org/saints/lives/2001/01/28/205310-new-martyrs-and-confessors-of-russia. ↩
19. Council of Chalcedon, acts (extracts), including "The Condemnation Sent by the Holy and Ecumenical Synod to Dioscorus," Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 14, ed. Henry R. Percival (1900), newadvent.org/fathers/3811.htm; Coptic Orthodox Synaxarium, Tout 7, "The Departure of St. Dioscorus, 25th Pope of Alexandria," copticchurch.net/synaxarium/1_7.html. ↩
20. "Blessed Augustine, Bishop of Hippo," Lives of the Saints, June 15, Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. ↩
21. Gregory the Great, Dialogues 1.12, trans. "P.W." (Paris, 1608), ed. Edmund G. Gardner (London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911), tertullian.org/fathers. Gardner's introduction notes that Pope Zacharias (741-752) translated the Dialogues into Greek. ↩
22. "Venerable Paisios of the Holy Mountain," Lives of the Saints, July 12, Orthodox Church in America, oca.org. ↩
23. Psalm 67:36 (LXX; Psalm 68:35 in Hebrew and English numbering), trans. Lancelot C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament (London, 1851), with Brenton's marginal alternative "among his holy ones." The OCA's 2023 proclamation on St. Olga opens with the words "God is wondrous in His Saints." ↩

Bibliography

Primary sources

• The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982. Psalm quoted from Lancelot C. L. Brenton, trans., The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament (London, 1851), via eBible.org.
• The Martyrdom of Polycarp. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library. London: Heinemann, 1913. Also translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.
• Cyprian of Carthage. Epistles 33 and 36 (ANF numbering). Translated by Robert Ernest Wallis. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.
• Gregory the Great. Dialogues. Translated by P.W. (Paris, 1608); edited by Edmund G. Gardner. London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911.
• Council of Chalcedon. Acts (extracts). Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 14. Edited by Henry R. Percival. 1900.
• Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. Act on the Glorification of St. Seraphim of Sarov, January 29, 1903. English translation, synod.com.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Frawley, Joseph. "The Glorification of the Saints in the Orthodox Church." The Orthodox Church, April-May 2000. oca.org.
• Orthodox Church in America. Documents on St. Herman of Alaska: "Canonization" (1970), the 1969 address of the Great Council of Bishops, and "A Chronology of Events on the Life of Saint Herman of Alaska." oca.org.
• Orthodox Church in America. Proclamation of the Holy Synod on the Glorification of Matushka Olga (November 8, 2023) and related reports, 2023-2025. oca.org.
• Orthodox Church in America. Lives of the Saints: St. John of Kronstadt (December 20), St. Nectarius Kephalas (November 9), St. Porphyrios (December 2), Venerable Paisios of the Holy Mountain (July 12), Blessed Augustine (June 15), New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. oca.org.
• Hopko, Thomas. The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, Worship. Orthodox Church in America. oca.org.
• Psarev, Andrei. "The Order of Glorifying Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (1920-2007)." ROCOR Studies, 2015. rocorstudies.org.
• Ecumenical Patriarchate. Announcement on the canonization of Paisios the Athonite, January 13, 2015; and interview with Archimandrite Bartholomew Samaras, January 2015. Translated by John Sanidopoulos. johnsanidopoulos.com.
• "Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis and Wonderworker." Orthodox Times. orthodoxtimes.com.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Holmes, Michael W. "Dating the Martyrdom of Polycarp." Early Christianity 9, no. 2 (2018): 181-200. doi:10.1628/ec-2018-0011.
• Moss, Candida R. "On the Dating of Polycarp: Rethinking the Place of the Martyrdom of Polycarp in the History of Christianity." Early Christianity 1, no. 4 (2010): 539-574. doi:10.1628/186870310793597051.

Sources from the traditions discussed (Catholic, Protestant, Oriental Orthodox)

• United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Saints." usccb.org.
• John Paul II. Divinus Perfectionis Magister (1983); Francis. Praedicate Evangelium (2022). Apostolic Constitutions. vatican.va.
• Schaff, Philip, ed. The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 3 (Augsburg Confession, art. 21; Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 22). New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877.
• Coptic Orthodox Church. Synaxarium, Tout 7 ("The Departure of St. Dioscorus, 25th Pope of Alexandria"). copticchurch.net.