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Uncut Hair and Beards of the Clergy
You often state that clergy must not cut their hair and beards. There are church canons to support this and certainly it is part of church tradition. But you also know that St. Paul says that men should not have long hair and that certain church canons even allow for a monk with hair that is too long to cut it, as well as to cut his hair when he is away from the monastery. I would like your guidance on this apparent contradiction in tradition. (Fr. J.K., MA)
Your comments are intelligently stated and do not, as is often the case, seek to dispense with a difficult discipline—the uncut hair and beard of Orthodox clergy—by posing false contradictions in practice. The tradition of maintaining uncut hair and beard among the monastic and married clergy no doubt traces back to the ascetics of the desert. Just as monastic practice has influenced parish worship, so monastic dress and grooming have played an observable role in establishing the standard for clerical dress among married Priests. Except among "Westernized" Orthodox, with their anti-monastic bias, this influence by the barometer of spiritual life, the monastic estate, on the so-called "secular" clergy has always been thought positive.
Since an ascetic monastic foregoes the cutting of his hair and beard in order to avoid vanity, this custom has a practical purpose. Thus, it is obvious that a monastic would also avoid looking effeminate or styling his hair. It is for this reason that, if his hair gets too long, such that it resembles that of a woman, a monastic may ask his superior to cut it. When he goes out into the world, too, he should, in such circumstances, trim his hair and keep it tied up in back, as is the custom in the Greek and some Slavic Churches. This is in keeping with the spirit of St. Paul's admonition against men having long hair like that of women, when this admonition is read in context.
What we must understand, here, is that the cutting of hair in all of these instances means nothing more than trimming off hair that falls below the middle of the back. We are not talking about the modern haircut, which is, in fact, the equivalent of the desecration of the head that led to Samson's loss of strength and power. Clergymen are, therefore, unjustified in cutting their hair in the modern style, which is almost unknown in Christian history, until recent centuries. With regard to shaving, the Old Testament, the Church Fathers, and the Canons forbid a clergyman to cut his beard. One of the observations made by the Orthodox against the Popes during the union councils (and repeated by a number of Orthodox Fathers in modern times) was that, as they began to deviate from the Apostolic Faith, they also, oddly enough, began to shave off their beards. Moreover, not only should clergymen not shave, according to various Church authorities, but many holy men, such as St. Kosmas Aitolos, hold that laymen should let their beards, or least a moustache, grow naturally.
All of this does not, of course, mean that an Orthodox clergyman should not be clean and well groomed. The Canons allow for the trimming of the moustache (primarily for the purpose of insuring care in taking Holy Communion), and certainly by economy a Priest can trim his beard slightly, if he has to hold a secular job. Long hair should also be tied up in back or tucked under the collar, for which reason it rarely presents a problem for a working Priest who truly wishes to abide by canonical exactitude. (And by Priest, here, we mean, of course, both the Presbyter and the Deacon.) Nor would we argue that a beard and uncut hair are the sure signs of a good Priest. They are, as Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna always tells us, no more or less important to a Priest than "feathers are to a bird."
Finally, in anticipation of those who oppose the canonical disciplines placed on Orthodox clergy, let us acknowledge that some monks, in the history of the Church, maintained a tonsure which involved cutting hair from the top of the head. This was one of many customs which did not last, and is not an argument against the living tradition of the Church as it has survived today, which assigns to monastics and "secular" clergy alike the discipline of leaving the hair and beard uncut, This discipline, combined with adherence to the canonical dress of the clergy (in Church, on the street, and at home), is a powerful deterrent against improper behavior on the part of Priests, who should be moral exemplars for the people, and provides a vivid witness of the peculiar nature to the people of God, the Christians.
St. Tikhon and Clerical Appearance
When Patriarch St. Tikhon was Bishop in America early this century, he ordered his clergy to shave and wear Western clerical dress. What does this say of your "traditional" dress? (J.K., NJ)
We have seen only one directive attributed to St. Tikhon on this subject, and it by no means "orders" clergy in America under his jurisdiction to abandon traditional Orthodox dress and grooming. It is also well known that the late Father Georges Florovsky disputed the authenticity of this directive. Whatever the case, St. Tikhon
did openly speak of a distinction between the "essentials" and "accidentals" of the Faith, allowing for a number of innovations, including some in clerical appearance. A distinction of the kind made by the Saint is atypical in Orthodoxy, wherein "externals" (matters of apparent accident) are thought to reflect and to be inseparable from an "internal" (or essential) reality. St. Tikhon of course embraced this principle, and his deviation from it merely entailed practical accommodations necessitated by difficulties facing the early Orthodox immigration to America. It is both dishonest and an insult to the Saint's memory that his use of justifiable
oikonomia in what was then a relatively new mission is now invoked as a standard of Orthodox practice in a local Church that is more than two centuries old.
From
Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XII, No. 3, pp. 19-21.
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