Why does Orthodox Christian priests wears long
beards
One might question why does Orthodox Chrsitian priests wear
beards? and why does the long beards of our Orthodox priests
makes differences with the Roman Catholics?
Here are the few reasons:
1. Long beards wearing's tradition among Orthodox Christian
priests and monks comes after Christ
Christ himself had a beard as it was normal and considered proper
for a man to wear long beard.
The fact that our Lord Jesus Christ had a long beard himself can
clearly be observed on all our Orthodox Christian icons:
The Lord's Pantecrator Icon (Pantocrator / Pantecrator ) from
the 6th century
2. Long beards priest wearing comes as a natural tradition from
the Old Testament's times and the tradition of early
Church
If one reads thoroughfully the old testament, he will find out that
even from Moses and Aaron and onwards the tradition is the
same.
All the Godly man and the priests had their long beards unshaved as
a mark for their belongship and dedication to God.
To generalize the long beards wearing is according to ancient old
testamential ancient tradition.
The long beards tradition as an ancient Jewish religion (Old
testamental) tradition can still be clearly observed in Jewish
rabbis (nowdays the jewish priests), who still wears their beards
long, like for example you can see in the picture below:
A modern day Jewish Rabbi notice the beard
The long beards tradition later was adopted by Muslims when Islam
emerged as a religion and more specificly by the muslim priests the
Hodjas:
One very interesting historical source of information which proofs
that the ancient Church's priests had the tradition not to cut
their beards is given by the historian Egezit who writes in his
Chronicles that st. Apostle James, the head of the Church in
Jerusalem, never cuts his hair.
A source of confirmation that the long hear and beards wearing was
an established tradition that dates back to the old testament is
found in the old testament in (Ezekiel 8:3)
Here is what exactly we read there:
He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the
hair of my head.
The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of
God he took me to Jerusalem,
to the entrance to the north gate of the inner court, where the
idol that provokes to jealousy stood.
3. Long hair and beards wearing by the Monks
An interesting fact is why does the Monks and novice neophyte lay
brothers also stick to the ancient tradition.
It appears long hair and beards wearing traces back to the holy
life of the ascetics of the deserts (e.g. the hermits).
The reason why ascetics did not shaved their hairs or bears as a
way to avoid vanity and therefore this old hermitage practice has
also had a spiritual reason.
4. The Nazarite old testament tradition
In the old testament in Numbers 6:1-21, we read about the term
nazarite which means consecrated / separated
Each boy or man who was to become a Nazarine has been devoted to
God for a certain period of time or in some cases for his all life,
one of the many conditions for one to be a nazarite is not to shave
his beard or hair.
One can read about this in the old testament in Leviticus
21:5
Leviticus 21:5
"They shall not make baldness upon their head,
neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard nor make any
cuttings in their flesh."
There are some other prohibitions relating to Nazarite's one of the
most notable ones is found in Numbers 6:4:
All the days of his Naziriteship shall he eat nothing that is
made of the grape-vine,
from the pressed grapes even to the grapestone.
One example for people who gaves vow to become temporary Nazarites
is found in 1 Maccabees 3:49 (this book is only available in the
Orthodox Holy Bible).
One of the most important figure in Christianity that used to be
Nazarite is Samson, his life can be read in the old testament in
Judges 13 - 16
As we read in Judges , Samson's great God given power consituted in
a prohibition to shave his hair and not to drink wine.
5. Reason why Roman Catholic Priests and monks abandoned the
ancient tradition of wearing long hairs and beards
In the early Roman Empire it was a customfor a men to shave. The
"enlightened" Romans believed that only the barbarians did not
shaved themselves, and as you can imagine Jewish people and early
Christians were of course considered to be barbarians, e.g. being
unshaved was a sign for a cultural inferiorness in according to
Romans comprehension.
The long hairs and beards tradition in the Western Church has
started disappearing and consequentially completely lost with the
Tyranny of Charlemagne at the end of the eight century.
With his massive 'barbarian' inferiority complex, it was his desire
in all things to imitate pagan classical Rome.
It was therefore under him that Western clergy were ordered to
shave regularly.
For example at the Council of Aachen (816), it was stipulated that
priests and monks were to shave every two weeks.
By the beginning of the 11th century the tradition of wearing long
beards was already completely torned apart and almost all the Roman
Catholic clergy was regularly shaving.
In the sixteenth century beardlessness for Roman Catholic clergy
was enforced by further canons,
which appear to have been dropped since the Second Vatican
Council.
6. Why does protestants does not wear beards
As we all know protestant Church denominations has emerged as
schismatics from Roman Catholic church and therefore mostly the
influence they had was from Roman Catholics which already had the
tradition within their clergy to regularly shave, thus pastors
shaving was completely out of question and never come to an
established reality among the Protestant Church pastors.
7. Is the Orthodox Christian layman obliged to wear beards
Absolutely not! The layman within the Orthodox Church can choose
for themselves, if they want to wear their hair and beard and
through that possess an image physically similar to Christ.
In my view it's more righteous for us the layman to wear our hairs
and beards as I personally believe long hair and beards
demonstrates mans dignity and God's dedication, but this is my own
private opinion.
At many cases wearing beards or long hairs is an obstacle for a
good integration in nowdays society, so if wearing a beard or hair
as laymans does become an obstacle for our normal daily lifes then
I believe cutting a long beard or hair is perfectly
acceptable.
Moreover even the Orthodox Christian priests are not enforced to
wear beards and in some cases where the priest's wife is against
the beardness the Orthodox priest is allowed to shave himself,
though as a matter of fact having a completely shaved priests in
our Orthodox Churches is rare and less common today.
In conclusion wearing of beard and long hair by Orthodox Christna
clergy, has come from the desire to physically resemble
Christ.
This physical resemblance is a symbol of the spiritual resemblance
of Christ's humility, which is the ultimate aim of our
life.