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No one refers to any saints as living, except +Paul. That is one of those Pauline innovations the Church resolutely rejected but never talks about.

Hmmmm....I had to look this one up. Actually "saints" is used 96 times throughout scripture a third of which is used in the Old Testament.

Psa 149:1 Praise ye the LORD. Sing unto the LORD a new song, [and] his praise in the congregation of saints.

Luke, in the book of Acts uses the word "saints" as well

Act 9:13 Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:

as the writer of Hebrews

Hbr 13:24 Salute all them that have the rule over you, and all the saints. They of Italy salute you.

and, as you pointed out, Revelation. In almost all cases, saints is in reference to believers who are living. In fact, in several cases, scripture refer to saints who have died:

Psa 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD [is] the death of his saints.

Mat 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

I would suggest that the Church made an error on classifying "saints" as those who are not living.

Who was it that Luke followed and Learned from?

Hebrews is also generally attributed to St Paul.

The Orthodox do not suspect the saints are actually dead, instead we acknwoeldge that the saints, even those departed from Earth, are alive in heaven, and still pray. (The notion that folks who go to heaven stop praying is crazy).

Hmmmm....I had to look this one up. Actually "saints" is used 96 times throughout scripture a third of which is used in the Old Testament

They are not the same words in original languages. The OT (Hebrew) uses the word chaciyd which translates as faithful, kind (hardly a 'saint'). The Hebrew word for 'saint' is qadowsh (holy one).

The OT Greek version (LXX) uses όσιος (hosios) without blame, pious..

the New Testament uses exclusively the word άιγιος (haigios), or most holy

Clearly the Hebrews in the OT do not refer to all the faithful as "saints" (i.e. holy ones), whether in Hebrew or Greek. That is a Pauline innovation which the Church never accepted.

The Lutherans went one step farther and called themselves the divines!. Talk about narcissism.

I had to look this one up

Thnak you for doing so; I was thinking of looking for the same scriptures, as clearly Kosta is reachign with hsi assertions.

the Church made an error on classifying "saints" as those who are not living.

Well, on the basis of the scripture alone I have to agree with you, but the Church had to distinguish between cases when sanctification could be ascertained objectively and the rest. The former category has to be people who went to sleep in the Lord, as we believe that it is the totality of one's life and not a single act of faith, that gives us clues into the final justification. We certainly would not want veneration of living people to be the norm.

Actually "saints" is used 96 times throughout scripture a third of which is used in the Old Testament.

Good call. It is absolutely clear that they are referred to as living. I'm not sure of the significance, but I was amazed to see 96 references to the word "saints", and ZERO references to the word "saint".