Talk:Intercession of saints

53:26

53:26 is taken out of context and mistranslated, Arabic is my first language, the last part of the verse means exept for whom he wants and accepts (could be both the intercessor and the person being Interceeded for too) , I'll find a supporting translation somewhere ;) --The Brain 21:12, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Overabundance of Muslim quotations

This focus of this article is a specifically Christian practice. It should not be a forum for non-Christians (or even Christians!) to hash out their theological differences or to try to convert one another, but to describe the practice, its history, its context, and so forth. If Muslims do believe in intercession of saints, then information of this length may be warranted if it were original material, but still No sermons! That said, these are mostly quotation piled on top of quotation. This is not the wikipedia way.

As interesting as the Muslim information is, it ought to be moved (if it is not there already) to the more general Intercession article, or perhaps wikisource, with a link ("see also") from here and (a very few) select quotes to illustrate the different positions within Muslim practice.

→ (AllanBz ✎) 09:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

doctrine common to the vast majority of the world's Christians

I have requested a citation for this claim and have reverted citations which merely linked to two other Wikipedia pages. Wikipedia is not considered a verifiable source. My concern is that this doctrine is NOT common to the vast majority of the world's Christians. It is a doctrine common to Roman Catholicism. The user who added these citations to the article (User:72.145.42.109) also amended:

• "from the Catholic and Orthodox Churches perspective, as well as "High Church" Anglican/Episcopalianism and certain Old Lutheran perspective"

so that it read

• "From the Catholic and Orthodox Churches perspective, as well as Anglican/Episcopalian and old line Lutheran perspective".

This is not true. The 39 Articles, the bedrock rule-book of Anglicanism, specifically refutes the doctrine of the intercession of the saints.

If a source for the top line claim isn't found within a fortnight then I intend to re-write it to make clear that this is a Roman Catholic doctrine (which is what it is) rather than a doctrine common to Christianity as a whole. 87.127.44.154 05:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment from "Sine Nomine." I would like to see the primary source citation(s) showing the earliest references to this practice in the primitive church.

.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.249.61.66 (talk) 16:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Point One: If the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church support the doctrine, then it is common to the majority of christians, those two combine are nearly 70% of all world wide christians.

Point Two: As a life long Anglican, the Thirty-Nine Articles pushed the Via Media of the Church of England. After the Oxford Movement and its pushing of the Anglican Church toward a more Roman Philosophy those Articles are no longer seen as always being the "Middle Way" and are not followed by many of the world's Anglicans. So yes, many, not all, Anglicans believe in intercession of the saints

71.176.27.54 (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC) Ian 1/31/09 3:27pm EST

So should it say those Anglicans who reject the 39 Articles? Nitpyck (talk) 06:42, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Reformed

Which Reformed/Calvinist denominations accept this doctrine??? Nitpyck (talk) 06:43, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Biblical basis

There are no citations showing who believes these Bible verses prove the validity of intercession of saints. The first with the lesson- some people won't believe even if the dead rise, doesn't on it's face make the point. Christians who believe in the Trinity wouldn't accept the argument- praying to God(Jesus) works so praying to good people(saints) will also work. So the verses are not sufficient. The section needs reliable sourcing. Nitpyck (talk) 01:49, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

You are partially correct in that there is scant (ifany) biblical basis, and that the article has not done a great job of either explaining or sourcing the ideas.

However, as of the 4th-5th century (and even before) both in the Eastern and Western Churches formal traditions of seeking intermediaries (both angels and saints) existed and there are scholarly studies on how the paradigms for approaching these intermediaries for more effective prayers were developed within the Christian culture. An example is: Subtle bodies: representing angels in Byzantium by Glenn Peers 2001 Univ of Calif Press ISBN 0520224051 page 144 [1]. Peers also discusses how the use of icons of the saints and angels developed as a companion to the prayers.

I am not working on this topic now, but next year, who knows. History2007 (talk) 09:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The early Christians apparently believed and were taught this. Rev 5:8 - The angels and saints in heaven present our prayers to God. Rev 4:8 Those in heaven pray for us. (I can appreciate that Revelations can seem a bit dense sometimes).

"Communion of Saints" is from a 1st century prayer. Luke 15:7 Those in heaven (very righteous) care for us. The rest seem to be "by inference" from other cites. That is, they all infer belonging to the "same body" living or dead. Rom 8:35–39 Death cannot separate us from Christ (or the rest of the body either). There are a number of others in this category. Student7 (talk) 14:16, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

That will be a long discussion. There is no doubt that there were teachings on the intercession of saints and angels but exactly when they were formalized and became widely held is a longer story. I will try to do something by April/May 2012... I hope. History2007 (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

The Pharisees had just won their argument with the Saducees about life after death at or near the time that Jesus preached. The Books of Maccabees shows this belief (a woman calmly watches her sons butchered by invaders and meets the same death herself), but was discarded by the Jews after the Christians became prominent. The point being that "It's not in the Old Testament" because it was too new."

Nor, since the apocalypse was thought by New Testament authors to be occurring "soon", was there even time for saints to be recognized. Student7 (talk) 18:02, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Whether you think it's dense or not isn't relevant, you're pushing a point of view. 86.41.88.115 (talk) 14:46, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, 5:18 is fairly clear. "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints." (boldface mine). Saints have always been "dead" people. Why would the saints bother to pray? To be perfectly clear, I did not "discover" this verse myself. This is one of the basis of argument from the Church. Student7 (talk) 13:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Polish term

Dumping it here, in case it is ever needed, before I forget: wstawiennictwo.
—6birc (talk) 03:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Intercession of saints/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Anglicans have info under both the RCC and the protestant sections. Clearly they need a section of their own. -- SECisek 15:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 15:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 18:59, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

"Intercessory prayer to saints"

Roman Catholic Church doctrine supports intercessory prayer to saints. Intercessory prayer to saints also plays an important role in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches.

The article on intercessory prayer says that "intercessory prayer is the act of praying to God on behalf of others". By this definition, prayer to saints is not intercessory prayer. Rather, one requests that the saints engage in intercessory prayer on your behalf. So these two articles contradict each other. Which is correct? --superioridad ^(discusión) 05:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Citations??

Whew. What a bunch of unsourced and uncited stuff.

• "The 4th-century Apostles' Creed states belief in the communion of saints, which certain Christian churches interpret as supporting the intercession of saints."

Unsourced. And no reference to that later in the article (which might otherwise excuse the lack of sources in the introduction).

The "Biblical Basis" paragraph is an absolute catastrophe in this respect.

• "Advocates of the doctrine say that Jesus' parable of The Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19–31 indicates the ability of the dead to pray for the living."

- Who are these advocates? And where is the source for their use of this parable?

• "... it is argued..."

- By whom? And where can we read up on that?

• "Both those for and against the intercession of saints quote Job 5:1."

- Do they, really? Well, why not quote them then?

The way some sources are used in the following paragraphs (the Apology of the Augsburg Confession and Baruch Apoc. Ethiopic for instance) is what they generally call Original Research here.
The St. Augustin quote under the picture also is OR in that sense. I would ask other users to check the Google Books source given for that quote. What I get is "No results found in this book for "So then as we celebrate with our festive gatherings the birthday of this great man"". So I can't help having my doubts about the source of that quote too.

• Protestantism: "some modern Protestant churches strongly reject all saintly intercession"

- To the best of my knowledge, practically ALL modern Protestant churches (except for a few cryptocatholic ones maybe) strongly reject that, so I would definitely like to see good sources for this "some".

• "Traditional Lutheran belief accounts that saints pray for the Church in general"

- This bold claim is "supported" by a reference to the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. As stated before, in the first place, this is Original Research. In the second place, I cannot find any such statement in that article of the Apology. On the contrary, it says exactly what is quoted of Martin Luther in the next sentence: to honor the saints but not pray to them. It does say that the living saints pray for the church but quite obviously that is not what is this article is talking about.

This is so grossly wrong and twisting the Apology into its exact opposite that I am going to take that sentence out altogether. And I would ask for some really good reasons (and sources!) for putting it back in.

• "There is some evidence of a Jewish belief in intercession"

- well, where is that evidence? Almost everything else in that paragraph uncited too.

• Islam: lots of claims, not a single source.
  

--93.212.228.146 (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I did a bit of work on that now, as well as adding the Calvinist/Reformed view. However, I don't have much literature available at present, so I could really only refer to the old confessional writings. It would be great if someone could add some good modern sources so this is not too much OR here. --93.212.228.146 (talk) 21:49, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Methodists

Can anyone explain why the Methodist church is included in the same paragraph with the Anglican? You might as well include the Lutheran church in the paragraph about the Roman Catholic church. --93.212.228.146 (talk) 20:47, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Judaism

I just changed the claim "Judaism also allows for the petition of saints" in the introduction to "As in Christianity, this practice is controversial in Judaism and Islam" which is more in keeping with the rest of the article.

Even that though - and the content at the bottom of the article - I suspect to be POV. There may be some tendencies in popular belief to invoke saints even in these strongly monotheistic religions, but I doubt that - especially in Judaism - they take up as large a part as the article suggests, with its small and uncited side note "Those who oppose this practice feel that to God alone may prayers be offered." I would actually assume that the vast majority of Jews belong to "those who oppose this practice", and I doubt that the source of one Chabad Lubawitsch FAQ can prove otherwise. --84.190.92.240 (talk) 06:25, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

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The rich man and Lazarus

This parable is cited as, according to some, supporting the possibility of intercession for the living. But this seems nonsense to me: it features the rich man asking Abraham to have Lazarus intercede for him. All involved in the intercession are dead. If some cite it for this purpose, who? It needs a secondary source. Hairy Dude (talk) 20:16, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I've added a source. It's not airtight, because Dives is in Hell, but Abraham does hear him anyway and answers him. YMMV. Elizium23 (talk) 21:20, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Added Assyrian Church of the East to opening sentence

I added the Assyrian Church of the East to the list of churches holding this doctrine, according to this article. The Assyrian Church of the East also has prayers asking for intercession from saints in this prayer book. 73.73.127.102 (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2023 (UTC)