Posted on 09/09/2006 3:04:19 PM PDT by Calvin Coollidge
Yes. The question is still valid. NFP is for everyone, not just catholics.
Here is another example of "consensus". What does the Church teach? Which one Patriarch has the final say?
I hope you'll pardon me if I delay any substantial reply to that ... I've made a couple of references to the Donatist heresy on this thread already ... I'm having trouble distinguishing between it and the sacramental understanding that you just posted. More later, as time permits ...
Actually Moscow specifically said that by receiving heterodox converts through a means other than baptism no inference should be made that the Russian Church accepts the presence of grace in the heterodox baptism. Both Moscow and the EP officially have a "We don't know" attitude. As for which way do they lean unofficially... I think the EP probably does lean towards accepting RC sacraments. I also think the MP leans in the other direction if only a little bit. It should be noted that in the near future the bishops of ROCOR will be sitting in the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. They are NOT friendly to anything Roman.
On a brighter note the very fact that such an extremely bitter schism has been ended gives me hope for all kinds of miracles. :-)
Kosta, your #70 is one of the best summaries of many of the key issues that have been discussed on this thread. Perhaps this is what made it something that no-one wanted to respond to...
IMO, we say "valid", or more particularly "invalid", because "ceremony that remotely sort of resembles Baptism, is called 'baptism' by those who do it, but really isn't Baptism" is just too much of a mouthful to say on a regular basis.
Concur. The question is whether or not the individual has, in fact, been Baptised ... and what to do if due to poor recordkeeping or dubious theology there's no certainty in the case.
(NY) Here is another example of "consensus". What does the Church teach? Which one Patriarch has the final say?
You seem to be under the impression that we need to have the answer to every question at all times. We don't and your church has had long debates before on questions of discipline and dogma. On which note I should point out that the question of the manner of receiving converts from heterodox confessions is one of discipline mainly. All canonical Orthodox accept dogmatically two points...
1. There are no mysteries outside the Church.
2. Holy Chrismation is an effective means by which a sacramental ceremony that was void and empty of grace can be filled with grace and made whole provided the original form & intent was (more or less) Orthodox.
The debate is not over whether we MUST baptize all converts. It's over whether we SHOULD baptize all converts.
Both methods are accepted by all canonical Orthodox as legitimate. However reception by means other than Holy Baptism has always been seen as an act of oikonomia (economy or a dispensation). There is a complaint in some quarters (one that I think is not completely lacking in merit), that oikonomia has become normative. It is also creating a dangerous impression that some Orthodox are starting to latch onto, to the effect that we do recognize non-Orthodox sacraments as "valid."
Take your time. This is not a shallow topic. I have had to make some references as well. CC
Thank you. I am not fond of the word "valid" for the reasons you noted. But to be honest in English it probably is the closest term that fits.
That's easy: Baptize in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, by triple immersion. :)
The real problem is when there is a good possibility that a person would be re-baptized or "double bpatized" through negligence.
The bishop is then probably under his own obligation to investigate the parish practices and determine how it is done, and make a decision based on that.
But I am sure, the bishop will wish to remove all doubt before subjecting someone to another Baptism.
The debate is not over whether we MUST baptize all converts. It's over whether we SHOULD baptize all converts.
In both sentences the word "all" should be "most." Even the stricter jurisdictions do acknowledge that there are very good reasons for sometimes accepting converts by Holy Chrismation.
CC
Thank you A, I apologize for some mumbo-jumbo in it (I have no clue how some of those words worked their way into my sentences...maybe I need more coffee).
Very good points. To which I would add just a couple things. Some sects baptize by immersion and use Trinitarian language but have no sacramental intent. Baptists are generally an excellent example of this. Their baptisms are void and empty (IMO). Also in Orthodoxy a priest is the normative minister of baptism. Layman can baptize (as is true in the RCC) in emergencies. But a lay baptism is almost always followed by a corrective (conditional) baptism done by a priest. Church canons do not allow anyone baptized by a layman to enter into Holy Orders. Also unlike in the RCC (which oddly accepts it) in Orthodoxy those not baptized themselves can not under any circumstances baptize anyone. To perform the Holy Mysteries one must be connected to the Mystical Body of Christ sacramentally. This raises all kinds of questions about heterodox baptisms, especially Protestants. In the modern day and age even in the so called confessional churches we don't know what they are doing anymore or what they think they are doing. Look at the Episcopalians. This is one reason why I disagree with the OCA's decision to follow the Russian custom of accepting some Protestant baptisms. I think all Protestant baptisms should be presumed void and beyond the reach of Chrismation, unless you know for certain the manner of the baptism, the intent of the one performing it, and if the baptizing person (Protestants do not have real clergy) was him/herself baptized. Given the extreme unlikelihood of satisfying these points I think its best to just baptize Protestant converts unless there is an unusual reason for an exception.
"Nitpick: I see that sort of phraseology frequently from Orthodox on this forum. If the term "valid" isn't Orthodox, what term is? Please, let's at least learn to speak each others' language, here."
Orthodox resistance to using the term "valid" is primarily based on the RC practice of declaring certain sacraments by people outside the RCC to be "valid but irregular." This is most famously true of the concept of "valid orders" of vagante bishops whose "line of succession" is outside the Church...
The story was told of an Orthodox bishop who was approached by a Episcopalian priest at an ecumenical gathering early in the 20th c. The Episcopal priest asked the Orthodox bishop if he thought his orders were "valid."
The Orthodox bishop paused and asked the priest, "does your church consider your orders to be valid?" "Why, yes," the priest replied. The bishop's answer was simple: "then why would you need to ask me whether your orders are valid -- in what other church and under what other bishop would you want to exercise your orders other than your own?"
The only place where the nature of ceremonies done outside the Orthodox Church is any of our business is when someone is converting to Orthodoxy. Any other situation would involve great presumption in declaring *one way or the other* on what happens in non-Orthodox religious ceremonies.
As Coollidge nicely summarized, with additional good input from Kolokotronis and Kosta, there is a spectrum of opinion within Orthodoxy on the issues of how someone is received into the Orthodox Church. Most of the Orthodox Church tends towards caution in the first place, and I have observed a quiet trend, even in the more flexible American jurisdictions, toward a more strict practice of reception by baptism, blessing marriages by going through the Orthodox wedding ceremony, etc...
Now you ask: "You apparently make a distinction between "a Baptism" and "a ceremony that sort of resembles a Baptism, but isn't one" ... what is the Orthodox term for the latter?"
We call the one an Orthodox baptism. We don't presume to say anything about the other one. When one is received into Orthodoxy, the point is not what the person's former church didn't give him, but on the grace that the Orthodox Mysteries *do* give him.
What is the Orthodox Church positon on IVF or the use of fetal stem cells? What about cloning?
"As for which way do they lean unofficially... I think the EP probably does lean towards accepting RC sacraments. I also think the MP leans in the other direction if only a little bit. It should be noted that in the near future the bishops of ROCOR will be sitting in the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. They are NOT friendly to anything Roman."
Back in the late 80s or early 90s, I was approached by a Roman Catholic couple who were in the final stages of catechesis for entry into the Orthodox Church by Chrismation. They asked the priest about whether or not they would have to be "Re" married in The Church. The priest refered them to me (!) and I called the then bishop of our diocese. He told me that he thought that "the Russians don't require that" but that so far as he knew, the Archdiocesan Synod hadn't dealt with that matter. The Synod was to meet the next day and he said he's bring it up. Two days later he called to say that the Synod voted to "follow the Russian practice" and not require a re-marriage for Roman Catholics entering Orthodoxy.
AB, I really don't lose much sleep over questions like this. In English, as CC says, it may well be the word to use, but that said, read Agrarian's 115 again. I think that sums it up rather nicely.
This whole discussion, especially as it is going on between Latins and Orthodox, reminds me of some sound advice from +John of Kronstad:
"When the matter relates to God's Mysteries, do not inwardly ask: how can this be? You do not know how God created the world from nothing; you cannot and may not know here either how God mysteriously works. God's mystery must remain a mystery for you, because you are not God, and cannot know all that is known to the eternally Wise, Almighty God."
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