In case you doubted me when I stated that according to the Catholic, he believes that water baptism enters him into a process of grace for justification that continues to be acquired and maintained through the sacraments. Then Purgatory, which never existed. All of this is to keep the person subservient to a hierarchy that uses it for power and money.
This is a complete mischaracterization. I never used the word “justification” and I do not believe in Purgatory and I require you to retract this statement immediately.
Purgatory is not a component of Orthodox doctrine and never has been.
We pray for the dead, but not on the basis of delivery from purgatory, the existence of which we reject. Rather, our reasons for praying for the dead are an appeal to the unlimited mercy of Christ, which by the way provides a means of salvation, as I sought to explain, that does not require water baptism - rather baptism which is both in water and in the Spirit, which is a unified event, and can be conferred by any Christian, is the ordinary means of reception of this grace, but there are many other forms.
Likewise martyrs are baptized in their own blood.
And Christ may save anyone who He desires. There is no legalism in this respect, for we believe God is infinitely merciful, and infinitely loving. We also reject the Augustinian idea that infants who die before baptism are damned.
For example if one dies before receiving Baptism, one is baptized by their desire, which is why catechumens get a full Orthodox funeral (whereas those who terminate their own lives without having a mental illness, which is an extreme minority but it does happen, would usually not, although perhaps an exception might be available in the case of captured pilots or intelligence officers who would face torture that could be a threat to national security, frankly I don’t know, but ordinarily if a sane person kills themselves that precludes a full funeral, although all deceased persons are entitled to an abbreviated service called “the Trisagion prayers” for the hymn.
Our faith is that Christ will save us, but like most Christians, we believe that Baptism and Holy Communion are the primary means of grace for the laity.
I strongly suggest that to understand the Orthodox theology of the mysteries of the Church, which is what we call the sacraments (which are usually counted as seven by the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox; the Assyrian Church of the East which is closely related to us also counts seven but their list differs from ours) but we also have other blessings which some count as well, essentially any kind of blessing such as the memorial service or the consecration of a church are all grouped together in a book called the Trebnik or Euchologion.
The focus of Orthodox theology is on Communion, not Baptism - we desire to be in communion with each other, with the Early Church, and with Christ our God, but Baptism is the ordinary means of the remission of sins and of the formal reception of the Holy Spirit (who has already acted to move one towards Baptism, but Baptism and Chrismation, the Seal of the Holy Spirit, ensure that one is Baptized in the Holy Spirit).
You are correct that ordinarily, this is the beginning of a lifelong process of reception of Grace through the sacred mysteries, but there are cases where people have been unable, for various reasons, to access the sacraments in ideal conditions and yet are still regarded as saved. For example, some of the great Hermits such as St. Anthony the Great or the Stylites (who literally lived atop pillars) would not have been in a position to receive the Eucharist in the ordinary way at an ordinary frequency due to the specific nature of their vocation, but were still very much a part of the communion of the church. Unlike in the Roman church, in the East it normally takes two or more to celebrate Communion, so its not possible for a legalistic regimen, which indeed even Rome acknowledged to some extent in special cases (such as the Missa Sicca or “dry mass” used by hermits). So the Roman church itself is much less legalistic than you argue, especially today.
The important thing to understand, where Luther’s arguments can be helpful, is the idea of Gottesdienst; as I said before - while we Orthodox do not deny that there is a sacrifice in the Eucharist of praise and of bread and wine, we are not re-sacrificing Christ but are participating in His sacrifice, that is to say, receiving something God did for us (this being a point of near-convergence between Lutheran and Orthodox perspectives; I don’t know if Lutherans would agree that the Liturgy is a “sacrifice of praise” or that the bread and wine are sacrificed, but my point is that the primary sacrifice that we are partaking of in anamnesis (the Greek word translated into early Modern English as “remembrance” but more correctly interpreted as something like “recapitulation” is the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, which He formalized by offering His Body and Blood to the Holy Apostles and commanded them to continue doing. Just as he commanded baptism.
Which is what this is really about - we are following the instructions of Christ, not legalistically, but spiritually, but retaining the elements of bread and wine, which become the Body and Blood, and the water which becomes the Water in the Jordan on which the Holy Spirit descends, as the New Testament clearly asserts.
And while there are a number of Orthodox specific nuances which you should comment on rather than dismissing me as “the Catholic” and falsely claiming I believe in Purgatory and other doctrines which Orthodox Christians absolutely reject and regard as extreme errors, on a par with the filioque, errors that preclude full communion with the Roman Catholic Church, the majority of historic Christian denominations including even Zwinglians, members of the Christian Church/Churches of Christ/Disciples of Christ and low church Anglicans regard baptism in water and the spirit, as a unified event, as an important and appropriate activity in the spiritual life of Christians.
The position you appear to be taking with regards to opposition to water baptism, assuming you are opposed to the idea of it, is an extremely fringe position; to my knowledge only Quakers, the Salvation Army and a few other denominations take such a view. If you could clarify your position that would be helpful.
Regarding the specifics of Eastern Orthodox theology, I recommend An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus, or more recently, The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Ware by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (which clarifies the distinctions between our theology and those of the Western church which did not exist at the time of St. John of Damascus, which predated the Scholastic trend in the Roman church).
