www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Orthodox Re-baptism?

The Priest of our local Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church tells us that certain Orthodox Churches do not consider our baptism valid (as they consider us heretics) and insist on re-baptizing those who wish to become Orthodox. Furthermore, Orthodox Churches in general refuse us Communion. He calls these practices �heretical.�

Firstly, do these practices genuinely occur? Why? Are they acceptable? Are they orthodox?

Dear John,

I really hate answering this, because it is going to open "a can of worms". Yes, there are certain Orthodox groups that "re-baptize" such as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and almost all of the Greek Old Calendar Churches. The why is varied, and they use various canons from local councils to back their practice. I offer no comment regarding this practice or how they apply canons.

The norm for churches affiliated with SCOBA (The Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America) is that converts from Catholicism are to be Chrismated. The above mentioned churches are not a part of SCOBA. The churches belonging to SCOBA, i.e. Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Antiochian Archdiocese, OCA, etc, in no way condone this practice or use the term "heretical" regarding the Catholic Churches, for that term is reserved for a pronouncement of an Ecumenical Council.

Please be advised that the Greek Old Calendar Churches are considered in schism and outside of the communion of the Church. At present, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR or the Synod) is taking steps at re-establishing communion with the Church of Russia with hopefully a decision later this year. How that will effect their reception practices is yet to be seen.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

For a listing of SCOBA member jurisdictions the link would be: SCOBA LINK [scoba.us]

My impression is that among some jurisdiction it varies. I believe in some Serbian churches it is the practice to receive by baptism. It is the norm to receive by baptism in the Rocor and the Jerusalem Patriarchate from everything I have heard.

In other places, there are probably just exceptions. I know if one converted through an Ephraimite monastery in the GOA, they would baptize. I have heard that first hand.

Andrew

Dear Father Anthony,

Father, bless!

Thanks for addressing this question. It came up at our parish recently, when a young couple (Byzantine Catholics) recently moved from here down to Carolina because of work. There were no Byzantine Catholic Churches near where they moved, but they found an OCA mission less than 10 miles away. They wanted to join the parish, and worship there.

The pastor told them that they had to convert to Orthodoxy, and since they were baptized as Byzantine Catholic, they would have to spend a year getting 'instructions' and then be baptized, as the Orthodox Church in America didn't recognize heretical baptism of Byzantine Catholics.

The couple was hurt, and wouldn't submit to a second baptism.

They were a nice young couple, and would have been able to help the new mission. It is too bad.

Nick

I would offer the following two articles as a good starting point to the discussion:

Fr Ambrosius (Pagodin)\'s Excellent history of reception of converts [fatheralexander.org]

Fr George Dragas\'s Excellent history from a more Greek perspective of the reception of converts [myriobiblos.gr]

After reading these two works, I would then suggest one read:

I Confess One Baptism by Fr George Metallinos of the State Church of Greece. This work is much more strongly worded than the other two texts but offers very important information on the subject not found elsewhere.

After having read these texts, I believe that a person would be qualified to begin to discuss the issue of the reception of converts in Orthodoxy.

Anastasios

Father Anthony,

Appreciating your desire to keep a tighter lid on this can of worms, can I ask a question that has puzzled me for some time?

What is the reason for re-chrismating previously baptized and chrismated Catholics (Eastern or Western)? Many years back when i was thinking of becoming Orthodox, I was told by the priest who is a great man and a good friend that he would receive me that day if I really wanted to be, but that he would need to chrismate me as well. The conversation at that time did not delve into the rationale behind repeating my chrismation, but in retrospect I find it difficult to understand why Baptism would be accepted but not Chrismation. Would you be willing to explain this?

Thanks -

Gordon

Dear Fr Anthony,

The list of Churches in America that have baptized Catholics in the past ten years is:

1) The Ecumenical Patriarchate, at the monastery of St Irene Chrysovalantou in Astoria, and in their metochia attatched thereto, by the blessing of Metropolitan Paisios of Tyana;

2) The Jerusalem Patriarchate, at all parishes, by the blessing of Metropolitan Damaskinos;

3) The Serbian Patriarchate, especially in the Western American Diocese; c.f. the website of the Dormition of the Theotokos mission in Oregon;

4) The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, a fully canonical and Orthodox Church which maintains communion with the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Serbia and which is in the process of establishing normal relations with the Patriarchate of Moscow, and which has concelebrated and/or prayed with priests and bishops from the Ecumenical Patriarchate publicly in the past year;

and

5) The Genuine Orthodox Church (a.k.a. Greek Old Calendarists).

So in reality, while not the most common practice, it is accepted and followed in every major jurisdiction except the OCA and the Antiochians (where it has happened by akreveia on various occasions anyway).

The why is because of the Oros of 1755 signed by the Four Eastern Patriarchs which stipulated the Baptism of Catholics.

Given that the concept of precedence does not exist in the Orthodox canonical tradition, I would prefer that one not use the term "norm"; more appropriate it would seem to me is the term "prevailing custom." At any rate, I agree that this is accurate.

Which is relatively meaningless since membership in SCOBA is not what makes one an Orthodox Church. The Jerusalem Patriarchate is not in SCOBA either, but it is fully recognized and in communion with the rest of SCOBA. ROCOR was invited to form SCOBA and attended the first meeting, leaving because the MP was later invited. The MP now is not a member of SCOBA yet it has 30 parishes in America.

I think that the list above demonstrates that in fact, they do, while perhaps not choosing to use it themselves.

While it is not accurate that only an ecumenical council can determine who is a heretic (a reading of the acts of many of the local councils and excommunication letters of various patriarchs will clearly demonstrate this), it should be noted that the 8th and 9th ecumenical Councils (St Sophia and the Hesychast Councils) in addition to the Council of Blachernae in 1285, the Council of 1484, the Council of Jassey, and the Council of 1587, all of which had broad participation, all condemned as heretical various aspects of Latin teachings. While one may lament that this did indeed happen, it does not behoove the cause of theological dialogue to gloss over such binding and authoritative statements from the Orthodox Church (Bp Kallistos in The Orthodox Church certainly accepts these councils as binding).

By the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Other local Orthodox Churches are of different opinions. The issue is not settled yet. The State Church of Greece was out of communion with the EP from 1833 to 1850, but we know that those bishops were not unOrthodox at the time. The issue is simply too complex to say they are not in the Orthodox Church.

The official dialogue stipulates that on union, NO local practices will be changed in ROCOR by the MP. The ROCOR is firmly commited to upholding traditional Orthodoxy.

I am sure that my post will raise eyebrows, but my intent is not to argue here for the practice but rather to clear up some common misconceptions.

In Christ,

Anastasios

No offense intended to Father Anthony for whom I have the greatest respect or for the Orthodox churches whom I deeply love, but Anastosios has revealed the confusion and self-contradictory practices that kept me Catholic. Where is the "one voice" as Irenaeus puts it, that the Church is to have? Diversity in practice, teaching or discipline should in the least be harmonious. One can cite the seven ecumenical councils as normative but there have always been varying degrees of reception of local councils and synods (however well attended), and yet you ascribe to them the binding nature of a council? Binding according to whom?

My goodness - one group re-baptizes while others do not. This is a great sadness to me and reveals part of the reason why we have far to go before we can ever attain full Christian unity.

Gordo

It's not really inconsistent. Neither group says baptism outside the church is "valid" in and of itself. Those that Chrismate someone with a Trinitarian baptism just say the form was there, and the Chrismation makes up for anything the baptism was lacking. The churches that do this have to look in to who did the baptism and how it was done to make sure it maintained the Trinitarian formula. This is getting more and more complex. Those that baptize simply forgo this process and just say it's better to baptize. Both practices can find support in the tradition of the church. I know of several people who interestingly when converting requested baptism as their way of entering the church.

I have also seen at least three threads on this board that would lead me to believe practice within the Catholic Church is not always consistent in regards to how converts are received or how someone switches rites within the church.

Andrew

Gordo,

It took me a few years to change my mind from the position you now hold to a point where I decided to become Orthodox. I don't see any confusion whatsoever; all of these councils are given authority and accepted by the whole Church, as Bp Kallistos points out.

A council is binding if it reflects the truth, and is then confirmed at a later date or through several decades of acceptance by the Church as a whole: no one opposes it, its canons are accepted, patriarchs quote it in their decisions, etc. It's not an instant process, but there can be no instant process. From an Orthodox POV, you can't just call a council and say, "here this is going to be an ecumenical council" in advance. If a council preaches the truth through the Spirit, then the Spirit will lead the bishops to accept it in the long term; if not, it will be overturned, as was Ephesus II and Hieraclea (and Florence from the Orthodox POV but that is a touchy issue here).

It should be noted that as Rilian pointed out, it's clear from reading Orthodox writings that the Orthodox Church only accepts its sacraments as gracefilled, although in very recent times some theologians have tried to speculate on ways that there could be grace-filled sacraments in other Churches (which has caused some consternation inside Orthodoxy).

How someone is received though takes on a pastoral dimension as it reflects the issue of application of a canon, in this case Trullo 95, where different parties take the prescriptions this council gave in 692 and apply it to a situation hundreds of years later, namely the Roman Catholic Church (i.e. the bishops there addressed various splits and heresies in their day, and hence the Orthodox in the middle ages took that council and used its principles to apply it to later splits such as Catholicism and Protestantism). Trullo cleaned up the practice that had gotten murky over the past 250 years in the Church on how to receive various splits. Some were baptised, some were chrismated, some were confessed in. None were accepted per se as having received these sacraments (i.e. outside the Church) but rather it was suggested that on their conversion to the Church these sacraments became regularized.

By 1755 the Eastern patriarchs wished to standardize practice so they decided to issue akriveia or "strictness" and decree baptism. The Russians chose not to. But they agreed that only the Orthodox Church is the Church.

In America is where the confusion happened because people following the Greek practice of baptizing were confronted with people using chrismation or even confession a la the Russian practice, and then the whole unified position of Orthodoxy was thrown off by a few theologians speculating that in fact, the Orthodox Church does accept the baptism of non-Orthodox, which led to a few quite strange theories and inconsistent practices *in America* *in the past 50 years*. But that confusion aside, which was caused by a relatively small number of theologians whose teachings have not been proclaimed by any Synod, you will see that the Orthodox Church stands united in its belief in the unicity of the visible Church.

This of course does not imply that it does not seek out the good that exists in other Churches or that it does not beleive that charismatic grace (as opposed to sacramental) grace is present in other Churches. Indeed, it is only because of the Holy Spirit's charismatic grace that people are led to Christ, and so the Orthodox accept that there is God's presence elsewhere. But the Orthodox stand firm that the Orthodox Church is the true visible Church of Christ.

It should be noted also, Gordo, that the Latin Church often baptized Orthodox in the middle ages and has had mixed practices concerning Protestants as well. That the practice on the surface is airtight (a recent exception being the argument over whether Mormons were validly baptized in the 1990's comes to mind) does not mean it always was in the Catholic Church, or that it always will be. I think the Orthodox Church's un-strict policy of having one way of doing things in this area is actually good because it allows for pastoral discretion.

Anastasios

Hello Gordo,
That's OK, if you are happy where you are we are happy for you! I am sure no one is offended because this is a common Roman Catholic response and everyone is used to it.

I think that it is well for us to remember that the churches are independent of each other, as they always have been from the very begining. Some diversity in practice does not mean that we practice different religions, but it does mean that we have bishops with real authority.

These bishops have respect for one another and where appropriate gather into synods, thus in synod bishops jointly agree to a commmon practice, if another synod takes a different tack that is their business alone, it does not affect intercommunion.

Rillians post above very adequately explains how the understanding throughout Orthodoxy is consistant, the application varies a bit due to the pastoral decisions of authoritative bishops.

+T+
Michael

Except as the above exchanges reveal, it isn't all that clear who is and who is not Orthodox: so and so is not in communion with the EP but is in communion with someone who is, or so and so is accepted by so and so but etc.
Orthodox jurisdiction is confusing; I'm with Gordo: I am glad to be Catholic, where such things are clear. That, and the Church's continued adherence to the ancient teaching on the immorality of contraception keeps me Catholic.
-Daniel

If people are assured that the church is defined by communion with the Pope, that is fine. You should be a Catholic then. The Orthodox don't believe that.

I won't argue the contraception comment, because it has been elsewhere a number of times. I do fail to see what it has at all to do with the content of this thread and appears to just be a throw in jab.

Andrew

Just as an observation, it's quite interesting to me that in the context of the discussion of these issues, one hears often "that's what keeps me x." I know I certainly used to engage in that type of discussion. I frankly wish that we could just discuss the issues without making them overly personal.

Ultimately, one pet issue like reception of converts or contraception does not make much difference if the real issue is considered: whether the Pope has infallibility and universal jurisdiction. If he does, we should all be Catholic; if he doesn't, we should be Orthodox. If the Catholics have authority to teach based on being correct on the authority issue, then we should accept what the Catholic Church says about reception of converts and contraception. If the Orthodox Church is right, then we should accept what they say. What ultimately led me to Orthodoxy was that I came to the belief that the Orthodox were historically correct and hence any problem I had with current Orthodox teachings had to be because of my sinfulness and lack of mental ability. After opening my heard and praying and rereading the issues, I realized that I should humbly submit to the Orthodox bishops. Now if one doesn't buy the Orthodox argument of authority, fine, stay Catholic.

As far as confusion as to who is Orthodox, I don't see any confusion. The only group that has any questionable status in the eyes of the majority of Orthodox is the Greek Old Calendarist Church, which is quite a small body. The Catholics have had their debates over groups of bishops like the SSPX pre-the consecrations, when their status was questionable as well. So let's not make hasty judgments as to the unity of Catholicism vs. the murky Orthodox lol

Anastasios

All very interesting, but these legalistic details always make my ears ache over what they fail to mention.

In the interest of credibility, can we agree to the fact that over the past centuries, the "norm" or "prevailing custom" of receiving Catholics into Orthodoxy has been by declaration in the aftermath of, for example, state-assisted annexation of Greek Catholic eparchies?