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According to some, as Christianity cannot exist without a priesthood, its complicity with Nikon's heresy has not deprived the Russian Church of apostolic powers of the cheirotonia, or right to consecrate bishops and priests by the laying on of hands; and as their ordination is valid, the schismatics have only to bring back priests of the official Church to the observance of the ancient ritual.
The inward calling which one must have in finding himself, by the grace of God, made both able and willing to serve God and his church faithfully in the holy ministry, lieth not open to the view of men, and is only manifest to him from whom nothing can be hid; the outward calling is made up of election and ordination: that signified in Scripture by cheirotonia this by cheirothesia concerning which things we say with Zanchius, Magistratus, &c.: “It pertaineth to a Christian magistrate and prince to see for ministers unto his churches.
Albeit, Chrysostom and other ecclesiastical writers use the word cheirotonia for ordination and imposition of hands, yet when they take it in this sense, they speak it figuratively and synecdochically, as Junius showeth.
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