On the Reception of Converts

Local Circumstances

In Great Britain, living as we do in a culture that was separated from the Orthodox Church nearly 1000 years ago, we must face the reality that the majority of people here who confess Jesus Christ as God find themselves outside of the Church through no fault of their own, due to historical events that took place long before they were born.  While remembering that baptism and chrismation (or any of the mysteries of the Church, for that matter), do not exist outside of the Church, we must ask ourselves whether it would be proper to view these non-Orthodox people who love the Saviour, and who seek entry into the Orthodox Church in the same way as atheists, those from other religions, or others who have never known Jesus Christ as God.

Although their churches have departed from the Apostolic Tradition in various ways, many of them have at least retained the outward forms – the physical actions – of baptism and sometimes even chrismation, and genuinely believe that in so doing, they are performing the sacraments of the Church.  To deny their sincerity or to treat them as though they have never known Christ would seem churlish and ungenerous.

Therefore, concerning the question of how to receive those who come from other Christian confessions, many Orthodox churches in the British Isles try to approach the matter with a degree of leniency, remembering always the merciful love of the Saviour.  This principle of applying greater strictness or leniency in specific circumstances is known in the Orthodox Church as extending economia.  Based on this principle, those from the non-Chalcedonian churches, Roman Catholics, and in many cases Anglicans and some Protestants too, are often received into the Church by a confession of the Orthodox Faith and chrismation, without a requirement that they undergo an Orthodox baptism. 

This is understood as bringing to completion the empty, outward form of baptism performed in their previous home, so that it may be filled with grace by the Holy Spirit and made a true sacrament within the life of the Church.  In that same spirit of generosity, some Orthodox jurisdictions have tried to facilitate this by examining the liturgical texts of non-Orthodox churches and maintaining lists of those churches whose baptismal forms can be made whole in this way.

Matters to Consider

There are a number of issues that make us question whether it is appropriate to extend economia too liberally:

1. Sadly, some Protestant churches in modern times seem to have abandoned the outward form of Christian baptism altogether, returning to practices that were rejected as heretical novelties in the early centuries of the life of the Church, such as performing baptisms by a single immersion only, rather than triple immersion, (that is, lowering the person into the water only once rather than the usual three times).  This is not the apostolic practice of the Church, and the Second Ecumenical Council, together with the overall witness of the Church Fathers, makes clear that this cannot be accepted as a legitimate form of Christian baptism.
   
   
2. Some churches which have not themselves adopted the aforementioned practice have nonetheless accepted such “baptisms” performed elsewhere as legitimate, and receive people into their churches with no corrective action (such as a conditional baptism) being taken.  In some cases, such people are even received among the clergy, where they then go on to celebrate the sacraments of these churches, despite being unbaptised; and this is considered by the church leadership to be acceptable.
   
   
3. In other churches, there are cases where baptisms are performed not “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, but rather “in the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer/Sanctifier”.  This replacement of the Holy Trinity with functions that are not specific to any of the Three Divine Persons is an expression of the Modalist heresy (Sabellianism).  The First and Sixth Ecumenical Councils reject the authenticity of the baptism of Sabellianists and require that they be received into the Church by baptism.
   
   
4. There are cultural differences at play.  In the Orthodox Church, our liturgical texts reflect our practice, our faith, and our theology, and are a conduit through which our faith is expressed, embedded into the hearts of the faithful, and passed on to the next generation.  The deeply-ingrained expectation, and the near universal Orthodox experience, is that the texts and rubrics will be followed by the clergy and worshipping community.  It is therefore very easy for Orthodox Christians to make the assumption that this same culture is to be found elsewhere.  However, in many non-Orthodox churches, the officially-produced liturgical texts are commended to the congregations as a useful resource only, and there is no expectation that they must actually be used.  Therefore, examining the published texts of these churches is no reliable indicator of how their services, including baptisms, are performed in reality.

All of this presents us with serious challenges when people from non-Orthodox confessions ask to be received into the Orthodox Church. However generous we might wish to be, we cannot accept as true sacraments actions that are in stark contrast to the Christian Tradition. When people knock on our doors, asking to be received into the Church, and entrust to us their spiritual wellbeing, we have a duty to those people to ensure that they truly receive the holy mysteries of Christ’s Church.

There have been many who have been received into the Church by chrismation but who have later found that this was done to their detriment. Sometimes they have learnt that there was some question about, or known deficiency in, the method of their non-Orthodox baptism, and have found themselves plagued with doubt and spiritual anxiety. Some have even sought to be baptised afresh, often after years of living Orthodox lives. It seems that the pastorally prudent thing to do in order to avoid such situations is simply to receive new converts by baptism unless there is some pressing pastoral reason to do otherwise.

By so doing, we provide for them not only the scriptural, canonical, and apostolic means of entry into the Church, but we also afford them the spiritual peace of knowing that what they have received is truly the grace of God in the mysteries of his Church, and that the manner by which they were received into the Church is beyond reproach. We who have been given this assurance ourselves must not deny it to others if we are to remain obedient to the Lord Jesus, Who commanded us: ‘Freely you have received; freely give’ – Matthew 10:8