BAPTISM - The Baptism of Heretics and the Orthodox Church
One of the most serious accusations leveled against Traditional Orthodox
Christians is that we ‘re-baptize’ non-Orthodox believers who have already been
baptized using the Trinitarian formula in their former churches. The allegation
is serious because if it is true then every Traditional Orthodox Bishop and
priest who has administered the sacrament of baptism to non-Orthodox believers
is liable to be deposed. The canons of the Church are absolutely clear on this
point. Canon 47 of the Canons of the Holy Apostles of the Pedalion says:
If a Bishop or Presbyter baptize anew anyone that has had true baptism,
or fail to baptize anyone that has been polluted by the impious, let him be
deposed, on the ground that he is mocking the Cross and death of the Lord and failing
to distinguish priests from pseudo-priests.
Critics often use this Canon to claim (wrongly) that Traditional
Orthodox priests and Bishops have all been ‘deposed’ for daring to ‘re-baptize’
those with ‘valid Trinitarian baptisms’. Well, there are two things we need to
consider before we can even talk about depositions, excommunications and
reductions to the lay-state – all catchphrases tossed about carelessly in
today’s extremely chaotic ecclesiastical atmosphere.
Firstly, despite their fondest wishes, our critics may need to note one
troublesome point: they claim that Traditional Bishops and priests are
‘automatically’ deposed by the very act of ‘re-baptism’. This is a very
convenient thing, this ‘automatic’ defrocking – but unfortunately, it is not an
Orthodox thing. It is a Roman thing. Only the canon law of the Roman Church
knows excommunications and depositions incurred latae sententiae – in other
words, automatically. Orthodox ecclesiology knows no such thing as automatic
sentences. The juridical body in the Orthodox Church is the Holy Synod of
Bishops canonically in charge of a particular geographical area – the province.
Only the Synod may apply the rules (canons) of the Church in a particular case.
In the Orthodox understanding, rules – no matter how perfectly framed – do not
have immediate juridical power. They have to be applied by the living
successors of the Apostles, the Bishops. Of course, these successors have to be
successors in fact, not successors merely in name. For example, if you have a
so-called ‘Orthodox’ bishop who has communion in prayer with heretics,
schismatics and pagans, overturns the Church calendar so as to celebrate feasts
in common with other so-called ‘sister-Churches of world(ly) Christianity’,
allows the cremation of the dead – you get the idea…
So, you have a rule, given in wisdom by the Fathers. It has to be
applied to a particular case by the living successors of the Apostles who carry
on the mantle of apostolic authority given by our Lord. These successors have to
be true successors in faith and not merely in name. Then, you have a valid
deposition. (This is why, although we all know that Nestorius was an out and
out heretic and heresiarch even before the Third Ecumenical Council was
convened, he validly occupied the post of Patriarch of Constantinople until the
Council met and deposed him. Church history is full of such examples.)
My question is this, then: when was this process completed against any
Traditional Bishop or presbyter?
Now we come to the more interesting (and important) issue: critics
attack the Church for ‘re-baptising’ heterodox who in their opinion already
have a ‘valid Trinitarian baptism’ (that is baptism in the name of the Father,
the Son and the Holy Spirit’). Let us read Canon 47 again. The Canon does not
make any reference to ‘a valid Trinitarian baptism’ – it only alludes to a
‘true baptism’. So, in the mind of the Orthodox Church, there isn’t any issue
of a ‘valid Trinitarian baptism’. Either a baptism is a true baptism, or it
isn’t. If it is a true baptism, then, well – you are baptized and fully in
communion. If it is not a true baptism, oops - you have a false baptism and you
are not in communion.
Therefore, when a Traditional
Orthodox Bishop or presbyter baptizes an heterodox believer, he is not
‘re-baptizing’ the person, but baptizing him or her for the very first time
with the true Orthodox baptism which alone guarantees salvation.
Thus, in the first instance,
there is no such thing as ‘re-baptism’ when the issue concerns people joining
the Church from a schism or heresy. There is only baptism. In the second
instance, Orthodox priests and Bishops are specifically commanded by this Canon
to administer this baptism - for if they do not administer true baptism to
those who do not have it, then they would be guilty of mocking ‘the Cross and
death of Our Lord and failing to distinguish between true priests and
pseudo-priests.’
So, in effect, we have only one question we need to ask ourselves: what
is true baptism? If we could define what true baptism administered by true
priests is, then it would follow quite simply that everything else would be
false baptism, thus requiring a true baptism to be administered at the point of
admission to the Orthodox Church.
The problem is that today many Orthodox are caught up in the ecumenist
propaganda and believe that what constitutes ‘true’ baptism is the mechanical
repetition of the Trinitarian formula. In other words, as long as a person has
had water poured, sprinkled, splashed on him or her with the words ‘I baptize
you in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit’ – then, the person is
magically and automatically baptized, no matter who the person saying the words
(and doing) the action is.
Is this what we are to understand of the dogma of salvation – that it is
merely mechanical thing, requiring nothing more than a magic act?
This bizarre theology is the product of the Western mindset, that as
long as a man has had hands laid on him by a valid Bishop, then he too becomes
a valid bishop. So, whatever this ‘valid’ Bishop does, whether baptizing,
chrismating or ordaining also became automatically valid ad infinitum. This
error was further perfected by Thomas Aquinas, the Latin doctor, who declared
that as long as the baptism had the right ‘matter’ (water – poured, sprinkled
or thrown, whatever) and the right ‘form’ (the ‘right’ words – the Trinitarian
formula), then the baptism was valid.
[Thomas incidentally got his
theology not from the Bible, but from Aristotle, and that, by the way of
commentaries of Islamic scholars such as Avicenna. The idea of form and matter
is an entirely Aristotelian concept. Thomas applied it to all sacraments (mysteries)
until each one of them, in the Roman conception, has an appropriate ‘matter’
and ‘form’, that makes them automatically and magically valid. Well, if you
said Hey Presto and you waved the wand…]
What is the Orthodox teaching, then? The mysteries (or sacraments),
including baptism, are the continuation of Christ’s presence and work in the
world, and the visible means of Christ’s invisible grace. They are, in short,
the means to participation in the life of the Risen Lord. It is this life that
transforms man by grace into god (theosis). This is the aim of the Christian
life – to be transformed so that our very being closely resembles by grace what
God is by nature.
This life is ever present in the Church, which is the True Vine into
whom the life of Christ is forever flowing. It is for this reason that the
Apostle St Paul makes the connection between faith and baptism in his famous
line to the Ephesians ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Ephesians 4:5). Only
by knowing the One Lord may one come to the one, true Faith. If one’s knowledge
of the one Lord, the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, existing in three hypostases
(persons) of Father, Son and Holy Spirit – but sharing the one indivisible
ousia (essence) is deficient, then one’s understanding of the Faith will also
be deficient. If one’s Faith is deficient, then one’s baptism by which one
enters in communion with the Risen Christ will also be deficient and
non-existent. [St Maximos the Confessor teaches that the aim of Faith is the
salvation of man. To him, perfect faith, or union with God is achieved by means
of growing from simple faith based on hearing and keeping the dogmas of
Revelation to a perfect faith, based on directly attaining union with God. St
Maximos points out that the heretic who fails to keep the Revelation as
received by the Apostles intact, loses any possibility of growing to perfect
faith, and consequently, attaining union with God, and thus, salvation).
The Orthodox Church, by ever proclaiming the True Faith (orthos ‘right’;
doxia ‘praise, belief) in the Holy Trinity, never deviating even for a moment
into the errors of the Arians, Monophysites and Nestorians preserves the true
knowledge of God. This allows it to worship rightly the ineffable Godhead in
Three Persons. This preserves its baptism from error and invalidity.
Also, because the Faith is one, as the understanding of the one true God
can only be one, then the Church is also one – because only a community that
preserves and proclaims this true and one Faith can be the visible sign of the
life in Christ. Anyone, who believes as this Church believes, is in communion
with it. Anyone, who does not, is not. The true Church by its adherence to the
truth of the Faith administers true baptism. Anyone, who believes differently
from how this Church believes, administers false baptism.
This is why the Roman Church and the Anglican Church and the myriad
Western Churches do not possess true baptism: because they do not possess the
true faith and the true understanding of the Trinity. All of them, without
exception, subscribe to a erroneous view of the Trinity, ascribing the
procession of the All-Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. This degrades and
destroys the monarchical principle of the Father who sends; the Son who is sent
by the Father and the Spirit who proceeds from the Father.
Of course, one is forced to admit that they baptize in the name of the
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit – but we ask with fear and trembling– which
Father, which Son and which Holy Spirit are they referring to? Their error is
as serious as the error of the Arians who by the word ‘Son’ believed in
something altogether different from the Orthodox who believed that the Son of
God was God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who is sent. To the Arians,
the Son was merely a pre-eminent creature.
This is why St Athanasius, whose words were confirmed by the Sixth
Ecumenical Council says in his third discourse against the Arians [quoted in
the commentary on the Pedalion by:D.Cummings, P 68, W.H. Houldershaw Ltd,
1908]:
“The Arians are in danger even in
the very plenitude of the mystery – baptism, I mean. For while perfection
through baptism is given in the name of the Father and of the Son, the Arians
do not refer to the true Father owing to their denial of the likeness of the
essence emanating from Him, thus they deny even the true Son, and conjuring up
another in their imagination built out of nothing real, they call this one the
Son…” (emphasis mine)
St Basil in his First Canon
makes this point even clearer.
“But who, though he has attained
the acme of wisdom, can maintain or believe that merely the invocation of the
names of the Holy Trinity is sufficient for the remission of offenses and for
the sanctification of the baptism, even when, the one baptizing is not
Orthodox?” (Ibid., emphasis again mine)
These two examples, among others, show very clearly, how the baptism of
heterodox Romans and Protestants, who like the Arians do not preserve the true
knowledge of the work of, and relations between, the Persons of the Holy
Trinity, is always invalid, and therefore, a false baptism. They have not known
the One Lord, because they have not received the One Faith – therefore, their
baptism is not the one baptism administered by the one Church, and is thus, void.
Lastly, our critics like to point to occasions in Church history when
Romans and others were, indeed, received by chrism (even before the heresy of
ecumenism). This was hardly an innovation! At various times in Church history,
the baptism of heretics and schismatics has been accepted as valid as a measure
of economy (see 7th rule of the Second Ecumenical Council and the 95th rule of
the 6th Ecumenical Council). St Basil, who was nobody’s idea of an
ecclesiastical compromiser, states in his First Canon that while schismatical
baptisms are in fact, invalid, the decision of the Fathers of Asia to declare
them as valid ‘for the sake of economy of the multitude’ may be accepted. As
Cummings notes in page 70 of his commentary, economy was used to facilitate the
returning of the heretics and schismatics to the salvific Faith of the Church
so that they may not become even more confirmed and depraved in their error. It
never meant that heretical and schismatical baptisms were valid. They just
meant that the Church was exercising compassion to draw as many men to the true
knowledge of Christ as possible by making up for the deficiencies in their
baptisms by the authority it had received from the Lord to ‘loose and bind’.
Receiving converts by chrismation was an exception to the normative rule of the
Church that considered all baptisms outside the Church to be false and devoid
of grace. It was always an extraordinary act of charity exercised by the
deliberations of Synods of God-bearing Fathers. It was never a normative
dogmatic decision.
It was in this spirit that the Church of Constantinople and Russia had
accepted some heterodox throughout history by chrismation. The ecumenists
attempt to subvert this exceptional act into a permanent ruling just shows a
remarkable failure in their reasoning.
The Orthodox Church has never, God forbid, rejected the constant
teaching of the Fathers that baptisms outside the Church are truly invalid, and
all seeking admission to the One Fold of Christ must be baptized with the true
baptism of the Church.
This is what the traditional Christians have done and continue to do.
Those who reject and criticize us, only confirm more strongly their departure
from the Patristic mindset and praxis.
And this need not surprise us:
their teachers, sadly, are no longer the Fathers of the Undivided Church, but
the scholars and theologians of ecumenism and the lowest common denominator
Christianity of present day Constantinople, Rome, Canterbury and Geneva.
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