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The Holy Fathers of the last times (XIX-XXI centuries), warning the faithful against deception, the illusory snares of the cunning one, the mirages-baits in the desert of this age, which Satan has set by God’s mercy, warn, urging each one to sobriety and extreme responsibility: There are no Spirit-bearing mentors now!!! Therefore, the task of stewards is to create Eucharistic conditions in which the Holy Spirit will act: to gather the people of God for the Eucharist, in unity in the Name of Jesus Christ (“Where two or three are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them”). So, the task of the steward is to gather the grains of wheat (ground into flour) into a single whole (by human means and methods with the help of: water, salt, fire… everything necessary to bake bread from grains of wheat) – into bread-body (prosphora). Similarly, gather people-parish into one, into a body-“bread” (so that they hold together as tightly as possible by human means) – by human means (for the most holy common cause – the Divine Liturgy, the acceptance of God’s service – nothing unites people like a common cause, common interests, and a common goal; I am speaking of all this in the flesh (for Christ is the Alpha and Omega of all desires and dreams, the interest (essence) of all interests), maybe someone will understand at least a little what we are talking about), so that the Holy Spirit descends on the unity of bread (grains in bread and grape berries in wine) and the people of God (scholastically it can be said this way: that the unity of grains in prosphora and the unity of the people of God in the body-parish is the matter of the sacrament of the actualization of the Kingdom of God, the Eucharist)! For the Holy Spirit descends only on the Body!!! And in the Body, the Holy Spirit distributes ministries: apostleship, teaching, prophecy, etc. Therefore, the steward can be illiterate in the word (this is not his ministry), his ministry is to gather the people of God into unity for the Sacrament of the Eucharist! And in this unity, the Holy Spirit will manifest ministers of the word! The task of the steward (the hierarchy) is to create conditions (humanly, as far as it depends on him: to gather grains of wheat and clusters of grapes into a single whole with the closest unity, and the people of God – into a single Body, with the closest unity available by human means and righteous divine methods – love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, mutual bearing of each other’s burdens, mutual help in sorrows, troubles, trials, sharing joy and multiplying it, etc. – this is all water, salt, and fire with which the steward must gather the people of God into the bread-unity, “bake” the prosphora-parish) for the Sacrament of the Eucharist – the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Body, Unity! And in the Body, the Holy Spirit will manifest ministers of the necessary ministries (according to the degree of Love (Humility) of the members of this Body-parish)!!! We will repeat once again: the steward must take care, as the scholastics say, of the “matter” of the Sacrament, which the Lord will accomplish in due time! And this “matter” is the unity of the parish-community, bread-prosphora, and wine, and the correctly performed rite of the Sacrament! The “water” and “fire” that make parishioners out of individuals who are united by the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood (more precisely, Marriage: Husband and Wife – more about this below), are mutual proclamation-teaching, common meals (tea drinking, eating at the Eucharistic gathering, which are an organic part of the Sacrament), mutual care for those members of the community who are in need (comfort, help, moral and material support), mutual assistance – that is, the organization of the life of community members in the spirit of family (marriage) relationships – this is the task of the presbyter-bishop, to be a coordinator, overseer of all these processes of kinship among all members of the parish! And then the Holy Spirit acts: deifies this dead social Body (“bread”), which stands before God in the Sacrament of the Church – the Eucharist!
How humble the stewards must be so that the Holy Spirit can act freely in the gathering (about which the Church urges the presbyter to pray in the Liturgy of Basil the Great: Do not restrain the Grace of the Holy Spirit through my sins… – see part II). The steward must know that he is not a teacher, not a father, not an elder-spiritual father-prophet, but a friend of the Bridegroom, and his ministry in the parish is to create the best possible conditions for the communion of Christ and the parishioners in mutual Eucharistic Love of the Holy Spirit! He should not lead the faithful to himself but to Christ, the Holy Spirit! He is a servant of the sacrament of Love (Eucharist: Gift-Thanksgiving), which Christ performs by the Holy Spirit, adopting the faithful to the Heavenly Father! The parish-community is the only thing that a steward (bishop, presbyter) can and must create. The Parish-Eucharist is a necessary condition for the birth of Spirit-bearers (apostles, teachers, prophets).