Historic Difficulties Administering Immersion-Only Baptism

[FireDragon76]

Some eastern churches do use effusion (pouring). I have seen this done for adult converts where modest could be an issue (for women, for instance).

 

[The Liturgist]

Some eastern churches do use effusion (pouring). I have seen this done for adult converts where modest could be an issue (for women, for instance).

Yes indeed, I explicitly noted this, for example, in the case of the Serbian Orthodox church, affusion is the designated method where full immersion is impossible. That being said, in all Orthodox and Assyrian churches, threefold action is required, and in all of these churches, full immersion is strongly preferred.

I would be very interested to know exactly which church you saw this being done at, by the way, since there are a great many eastern churches, especially if one counts the unfortunate presence of Eastern Rite Catholic churches that resulted from schisms which were, in several cases, exploited by the Jesuits and other groups, and the equally unfortunate presence of Protestant and Restorationist churches which sought to spread into the Christian East on the false assumption that the Orthodox and Assyrian churches are somehow defective, idolatrous or superstitious, which is an attitude I have always found both patronizing and uncharitable.

Note that I am not specifically criticizing our shared congregationalist heritage for this, although I would note with regret that the precursors of both the UCC that you are so fond of, which I was once rather heavily invested in, and the CCCC of which I am so fond, that is to say, the Congregationalists, were among those churches to establish a missionary presence in the Christian East, chiefly in India, although they were much less interested in converting Eastern Christians than some other denominations, for example, the Anglicans, Presbyterians and especially the Adventists (conversely, there were many Anglicans who wanted to unite with the Eastern Orthodox).

 

[FireDragon76]

Yes indeed, I explicitly noted this, for example, in the case of the Serbian Orthodox church, affusion is the designated method where full immersion is impossible. That being said, in all Orthodox and Assyrian churches, threefold action is required, and in all of these churches, full immersion is strongly preferred.

I would be very interested to know exactly which church you saw this being done at, by the way, since there are a great many eastern churches, especially if one counts the unfortunate presence of Eastern Rite Catholic churches that resulted from schisms which were, in several cases, exploited by the Jesuits and other groups, and the equally unfortunate presence of Protestant and Restorationist churches which sought to spread into the Christian East on the false assumption that the Orthodox and Assyrian churches are somehow defective, idolatrous or superstitious, which is an attitude I have always found both patronizing and uncharitable.

Note that I am not specifically criticizing our shared congregationalist heritage for this, although I would note with regret that the precursors of both the UCC that you are so fond of, which I was once rather heavily invested in, and the CCCC of which I am so fond, that is to say, the Congregationalists, were among those churches to establish a missionary presence in the Christian East, chiefly in India, although they were much less interested in converting Eastern Christians than some other denominations, for example, the Anglicans, Presbyterians and especially the Adventists (conversely, there were many Anglicans who wanted to unite with the Eastern Orthodox).

I think it was an Orthodox church in Eastern Europe. I saw it on Youtube years ago.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think it was an Orthodox church in Eastern Europe. I saw it on Youtube years ago.

It could have been an Eastern Protestant church such as the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, or the Georgian Evangelical Baptist Church (since it was an adult being baptized, which is very uncommon in Eastern Europe since most people are baptized as infants), or the Ukrainian Adventist Church, as many of these churches use variant forms of the Byzantine Rite Liturgy, even wearing traditional Byzantine vestments, usually in simplified form. There are also Byzantine Rite Anglicans, who I will be mentioning later.

If you are able to find the video I can tell you what it is.

What I can positively assure you however is that no Orthodox church preferentially baptizes by affusion even for the case of preserving the modesty of women - baptismal garments do that. Indeed to a large extent the widespread availability of inexpensive baptismal garments which could be reused, combined with the Orthodox population stabilizing so that most baptisms were of infants, had the effect of rendering the deaconesses obsolete. For reasons of their safety, it would have been undesirable to revive the deaconesss for the purposes of evangelizing the new Orthodox communities in Alaska, South America and Africa, due to the extreme climate in the former and the problems of political instability and tropical diseases in the latter.

However, deaconesses could be revived to assist with the conversion of adults from other religions into Orthodoxy, and also if I recall there are small numbers of them in the Coptic Orthodox Church to assist with the operation of the orphanages, whose existence is required due to the barbaric Islamic law prohibiting the adoption of children being imposed on the Christian population of Egypt, and for similar charitable reasons in the Armenian church.

However, in recent months, those websites advocating for a restoration of deaconesses have taken on a tone I find disturbing, a tone which suggests that their real agenda is to have female priests in Orthodoxy, which I oppose, because it would cause a schism. Rather, for people who want female clergy in the Byzantine Rite, the ideal solution is to develop the Byzantine Rite Anglican community which is growing in popularity, some portion of which could presumably attach to parishes of Liberal Catholic churchmanship and thus do Byzantine Rite things outside of the Orthodox church. However, until that happens, because of the risk of a Pro-deaconess movement turning into a pro-priestess movement, I have to regrettably temporarily oppose the public consecration of any deaconesses, although I would not oppose it being done secretly in cloistered convents.