Pope Francis and Coptic pope agree not to re-baptize

[Fish and Bread]

Link:

Pope Francis and Coptic pope agree not to re-baptize

Was Rome not recognizing Coptic baptism before or vice-versa?

The Coptic baptismal liturgy I found online uses water and immerses the baby (I'm impressed that there are no accidental drownings) three times in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Coptic Christians are trinitarian. Those are the basic requirements for Rome to recognize a valid baptism occuring outside the institutional Church. As a bonus, Coptics even have (and believe in) Apostolic Succession of bishops and in baptism as a sacrament- two similarities Rome usually doesn't even require to recognize a baptism.

Is this a situation where the Coptic Christians weren't recognizing Roman Catholic baptisms and they just came out with cross rrcognition to make it seems like a reciporcal decision? Perhaps the Pope was trying to bring the world's focus onto the challenges Christians are facing in Egypt?

I'll be honest, if we were rebaptizing people already baptized in the Coptic church, I don't understand why. The Council of Chalcedon (The rejection of which caused the Coptic Christians/Oriential Orthodox to split with then still united Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox Church) has nothing to be with the validity of baptisms. They affirmed Nicea and Constantinople, which basically takes care of certifying them as trinitarians, whatever disagreements about the nature of Christ may have later arisen. We don't require Protestants to affirm Chalcedon to count their baptisms as valid.

Maybe someone who understands what the status quo was before this agreement can fill us in? Were they using some baptismal liturgies that weren't baptizing with water in the name of all three persons of the trinity? The one I found online did, but if they have more than one baptismal liturgy, that could explain it (Rome doesn't recognize baptisms only done in the name of Christ [Without also including Father and Son] or baptisms done without water, for example. So my first thought was that maybe the Coptics were using some non-compliant baptismal formula, but I couldn't find evidence of that online- the liturgy I found looks compliant). Form, matter, and intent (The three basic things Rome requires for a sacrament in general- any one of the seven sacraments- to be valid in general) all seem to be the same as Rome's, and baptism tends to be the one of the seven where Rome is the least stringent about applying that strictly.

 

[Philip_B]

I think you will find the Coptic split was much earlier, and that there is a lot of history in this, and the issue may have been a bit problematic on both sides. I am very pleased to see that the Coptic Church is moving at near lightening speed (in terms of orthodox time lines) and we Anglicans have a very powerful agreed statement with the Oriental Orthodox Church in which we acknowledge that they were not monophysite but miaphysite, and effectively that their exclusion at Chalcedon was in error.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, Fish and Bread, the situation was before this that the Coptic Orthodox Church was not recognizing Roman Catholic baptisms, not any of the other situations you wondered about (all baptisms are done in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and there is one baptism for all, not different rites; I was baptized on the same day as the then-youngest member of our parish, a girl of 80 days as is our tradition, and the ceremony was the same for both of us...I'd like to think I cried less, but you'd have to ask Fr. Marcus about that, since I don't remember).

Not to bum Philip_B out or anything, but just to put things in their proper historical context, this is absolutely not us 'moving at near lightning speed' towards anything, but actually a return to what was our normative historical practice for centuries: that we receive all from Chalcedonianism to Orthodoxy via profession of faith and charismation only. (This is how Eastern Orthodox Chalcedonians have been received for some time; this change only affects those coming from Catholicism, as I did.) This had been the standard since the time of HH Pope St. Timothy II (d. 477), who was the successor to our teacher HH Pope St. Dioscorus who was deposed at Chalcedon, so it is undoubtedly ancient and the authentic tradition (since how could there be anything earlier than that when directly before it was Chalcedon itself?). The change in attitude towards Catholicism in particular is really rather modern, probably (there are conflicting reports on this) having occurred under the influence of the Greeks who in the time of HH Pope Cyril IV (r. 1854-1861) nearly united with us in Egypt. Information on what exactly was going on at that time is a bit sketchy, but it is my understanding that if I had been received into the Coptic Orthodox Church 200 years ago, rather than six, I would not have been baptized.

Given that it is always our goal that we follow our fathers and not modern innovations, I for one welcome this return to the ancient practice. It is something which I have regularly heard calls to return to from within the Church, so it is good to see it come to pass.

 

[Tallguy88]

As Dzheremi said, it's more of an issue on the Orthodox side. I know different EOs do different things. The Russians (ROCOR) tend to rebaptize everyone just to be safe, while the Americans (OCA) tend to accept most Baptisms and go with just profession of faith and Charismation. I imagine it's a similar mixed bag with the various OO jurisdictions.