Forefather Forefather Melchizedek

Melchizedek was the mysterious king of Salem (later Jerusalem) and simultaneously "priest of God Most High" (Genesis 14:18-20), a figure described in Scripture without genealogy, beginning of days, or end of life — a feature the Apostle Paul, in Hebrews 5–7, interprets as a type of the eternal, non-hereditary priesthood of Christ "after the order of Melchizedek" (cf. Psalm 110:4).

He went out to meet the patriarch Abraham as he returned from his victory over the kings allied with Chedorlaomer, brought forth bread and wine, and blessed him in the name of God Most High, "Possessor of heaven and earth"; in return, Abraham gave him a tithe of all the spoils. The union of royal and priestly dignity in one person made Melchizedek the subject of extensive theological interpretation even in antiquity.

The Orthodox Church venerates Melchizedek as an Old Testament righteous man and priest of the true God who prefigured the priesthood of Christ, but assigns him no separate fixed commemoration day: he is remembered as part of two movable feasts — the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers and the Sunday of the Holy Fathers.