Spitting?!?

[GBTWC]

Does anybody know where or how or when the tradition we practice of spitting to the east upon the devil started that takes place during the baptismal ceremony?

 

[andy b]

ive never heard that,what does everyone do just spit

 

[RosaryChaplet9]

I've never heard of that ..

 

[Chesterton]

I've seen it at a baptism, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. It's done to renounce Satan and the spirit of Satan; the ultimate insult in most every culture is to spit at someone. Let him be embittered.

 

[Lukaris]

I remember this during when I was baptized/chrismated. It was done as a gesture.

 

[andy b]

I remember this during when I was baptized/chrismated. It was done as a gesture.

who cleans it up yuk

 

[Chesterton]

who cleans it up yuk

The priest did not actually spit. Just made the gesture of spitting.

 

[buzuxi02]

The actual custom may or may not pre date Christianity. It's still a greek custom to make such a gesture of spitting with certain things. Perhaps another greek can explain better when for instance a compliment is paid to a baby and the mom says "ftis ton".

 

[Dorothea]

It's professing that you spit on the devil, meaning you are rejecting him and turning away from him toward God in the sacrament of baptism. Never heard about spitting to the east.

http://www.stgeorgerossford.org/ref...-repentance/16-understanding-the-holy-baptism

"The one to be baptized turns from Satan and joins oneself to Christ. In the Orthodox Baptism service this action begins when the candidate for baptism faces the west and renounces Satan three times, spits on him, then turns to the east and confesses that he unites himself to Christ three times, and then three times announces that he has united himself to Christ."

 

[ArmyMatt]

my priest once told me that it is because the devil inspired the Jews and Romans to spit upon the Lord at the Passion, so we spit upon him when we enter into the Church, to show where our loyalties lie

 

[Lukaris]

The priest did not actually spit. Just made the gesture of spitting.

Precisely.

 

[GBTWC]

It's professing that you spit on the devil, meaning you are rejecting him and turning away from him toward God in the sacrament of baptism. Never heard about spitting to the east. "

Yep sorry I meant west ? dyslexia

 

[Dorothea]

Yep sorry I meant west ? dyslexia

It's all good.

 

[ma2000]

Perhaps another greek can explain better when for instance a compliment is paid to a baby and the mom says "ftis ton".

I don't think they are related(baptism and complimenting babies). However, we do have that tradition in Romanian culture too. It's meant to protect the child from "the evil eye". Not that it's common. But I've seen it. And it's more the gesture, not the actual spitting.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I know when I was received my priest did have us spit, but he would open the doors so that when you would spit it would go outside to the West, and not in the narthex of the Church.