Chrismation & Confirmation

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

Do the Orthodox believe that “baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation”?

No.

We see how the Church dealt with this question during the time of martyrdom when many unbaptized people were willing to die for Christ.

Unsure what to say about these unbaptized, the Church still recognized that they had been saved and a phrase was coined “baptism of blood” to explain it. Of course there is NO scriptural justification for the notion of “baptism of blood” nor for “baptism of desire.” They are useful phrases for something which we cannot really explain - how a man may be saved wiothout baptism. What Christ said was: "except a man be born again of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so the Church in her wisdom and compassion acknowledged that there are other ways of salvation than baptism by water.

The Apostle Paul teaches that salvation is possible without baptism in his epistle to the Romans…

“For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things which are contained in the law, these, although they do not have the law, are a law unto themselves: for they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts will either accuse or else excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
(Romans 2, 12-16)

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

No.

We see how the Church dealt with this question during the time of martyrdom when many unbaptized people were willing to die for Christ.

Unsure what to say about these unbaptized, the Church still recognized that they had been saved and a phrase was coined “baptism of blood” to explain it. Of course there is NO scriptural justification for the notion of “baptism of blood” nor for “baptism of desire.” They are useful phrases for something which we cannot really explain - how a man may be saved wiothout baptism. What Christ said was: "except a man be born again of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so the Church in her wisdom and compassion acknowledged that there are other ways of salvation than baptism by water.

The Apostle Paul teaches that salvation is possible without baptism in his epistle to the Romans…

“For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things which are contained in the law, these, although they do not have the law, are a law unto themselves: for they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts will either accuse or else excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.”
(Romans 2, 12-16)

The Catholic Church teaches the same thing.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

Theologians use the term “material sin” to refer to an act which of its nature is sinful, when the agent is invincibly ignorant of the sinfulness of what he does and therefore does not incur guilt before God by doing it. Here the term matter is used for the immoral act, while form is used for the evil will. But it should be noted that “material sin” is not sin - it is the matter which would become sin if the will were evil, but the matter alone can never make the thing. A material sin is no nearer to being a sin that a willow-tree is to being a cricket bat.

“A material sin is no nearer to being a sin that a willow-tree is to being a cricket bat.”

But a material sin “remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder”.

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

1793 ** … [If] ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

HagiaSophia:

We still have a very long rite for it and a very lovely one - I love the litany of the saints being used. So beautiful. But come to think of it, I do not know where it originated.

Dear Sophia,

An article about the rite of consecrating a church which is interesting to compare with what we know of Celtic customs about this from the Irish Leabhar Breac (the Speckled Book.)

Fr Ambrose

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/creation-consecration.htm

CREATION OF THE WORLD, MAKING OF THE TABERNACLE
**AND THE RITE OF CHURCH CONSECRATION
**
Modern Biblical scholars have found a connection between the text of the first chapter of Genesis, the description of the making of the tabernacle (Exodus, ch.25-31, ch.40), and the symbols of Divine Services in the Temple

Go to
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/creation-consecration.htm

And there is something in Warren’s Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church
celticorthodoxy.org/warren009.shtml

Also
celticorthodoxy.org/document011.shtml

“In the Leabhar Breac there is a tract describing the consecration of a church. The ceremony is divided into five parts, the consecration of the floor, and of the altar with its furniture, the consecration out of doors, the aspersion inside, and the aspersion outside. The consecration of the floor includes the writing of two alphabets thereon. There are directed to be seven crosses cut on the altar, and nothing is said about relics. On the whole the service appears to be of the same type as the Roman, though differing in details, and if the order of the component parts as given in the tract may be taken as correct, in order also. The tract, edited with a translation by the Rev. T. Olden, D.D., has been printed by the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society (Vol. IV., 1900).”