PRIESTS/PRIESTESS

The Universal Gnostic Fellowship invites you to become familiar with your duty and responsibilities as a priest within the Universal Gnostic Fellowship. Your first duty is to become intimately familiar with the Doctrine of One as this is the guiding principle of our Church. Your second duty is to unceasingly seek union with the Divine for the benefit of all sentient life. All other duties are secondary. They're also voluntary and never required of any priest. Violation of the two primary duties of a priest may be cause for excommunication. Refusal to perform any other duties is neither a violation nor a problem. Those duties include:

  1. Become a teacher/mentor for each member of your congregation
  2. Become a spiritual mentor for anybody who desires to study the Gnostic Lessons
  3. Become a facilitator for anybody who desires to transform themselves through the Spiritual Alchemy
  4. Become a guide for any person who desires to move toward the Divine though the pathworking of the Magical Order of the Golden Dawn
  5. Become the spiritual preceptor of your own Church
  6. Become a spiritual coach for any person seeking to enter any Spiritual Order whether supported by Universal Gnostic Fellowship or any other denomination
  7. Become an Essene Healer

Your bishop is available to you to assist you in becoming a pastor, teacher and mentor for each member of your congregation, the spiritual preceptor of your own Church and a spiritual coach. Part of your duty as a pastor is to administer the following sacraments or their equivalent in your Church:

  1. All the sacraments that can be performed by a Deacon or Deaconess
  2. Confirmation
  3. Confession
  4. Forgiveness
  5. Communion or Holy Eucharist
  6. Holy Matrimony or Handfasting
  7. Ordination of qualified candidates into the Minor Orders
  8. Ordaining objects for use in the Minor Orders
  9. Anointing
  10. Unction and Healing
  11. Supreme Unction

Your bishop will assist you in becoming a facilitator in the Spiritual Alchemy or a guide in the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn so you may assist your students in advancing through these Orders. He or she will also assist you in becoming a Freemason or an Essene if you so desire. Your bishop will assist you in any way he or she can to the best of his or her ability.

As a priest you are a spiritual mentor for your students as they move through the minor orders. We ask that you comply with the following suggestions as you work with your students:

  1. Substitute any comparable task for any student whenever it seems appropriate to you and for them
  2. Hold each candidate on each level for three months
  3. Advance candidates on or near the solstices and equinoxes
  4. Do not hold an eager student back if he or she qualifies for advancement to the next order
  5. Advance candidates when both of you are ready to do so
  6. Keep a full and complete record of the name, address and contact information of each person you advance including the date of advancement and the name selected for the order
  7. Suggest to all candidates for the minor orders that they do intensive personal inner work either through alchemy (Spiritual Alchemy) or through ritual and pathworking (Magical Order of the Golden Dawn)
  8. Advise the Church of the name and contact information of all persons whom you ordain as Servers if such person is ready and willing to become a Postulant for Major Orders.
  9. Suggest all candidates subscribe to Gnostic News or obtain copies of Gnostic News from somebody with Internet access

To that end, we hereby to grant all priests within the Universal Gnostic Fellowship the authority and responsibility to promote and ordain qualified candidates to the minor orders of the Universal Gnostic Fellowship. If you have any questions or comments, please contact your bishop.

ORDINATION OF A PRIEST OR PRIESTESS

Most bishops tend to use the following format for Ordinations though each bishop is free to create his or her own ceremonies:

1. Opening prayers in the name of the Divine.
2. Prayers of Thanksgiving (for any and everything)
3. Prayers of Intercession (for any and everything)
4. Prayers of consecration of the Elements
5. Holy Communion with Earth (bread) and Water (beverage)
6. Ordination with Spirit (laying on of hands)
7. Blessing with Fire (installing any garments)
8. Blessing with Air (receiving the Breath of the Divine or Holy Spirit)
9. Closing prayers
10. Formal Charge
11. Accepting of the new priest or priestess

Deacons and deaconesses or priests and priestesses from another tradition interested in becoming a priest or priestess within the Universal Gnostic Fellowship may contact the Presiding Archbishop for more information. All other people are invited to review the requirements to become a deacon or deaconess.

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