Concerning the Latins (Roman Catholics) and Their Baptisms
An Excerpt from The Rudder
All this theory
which we have been setting forth here is not anything superfluous; on the contrary, it
is something which is most needful, both on every occasion in general, but especially
today on account of the great controversy and the widespread dispute which is going
on in regard to the baptism of the Latins, not merely between us and the Latins,
but also between us and the Latin-minded (otherwise known as Latinizers). So, following
what has been said, since the form of the Apostolical Canon demands it, we
declare that the baptism of the Latins is one which falsely is called baptism, and for
this reason it is not acceptable or recognizable either on grounds of rigorism or on
grounds of economy. It is not acceptable on grounds of rigorism: (1st) because they
are heretics. That the Latins are heretics there is no need of our producing any proof
for the present. The very fact that we have entertained so much hatred and aversion
against them for so many centuries is a plain proof that we loathe them as heretics,
in the same way, that is to say, as we do Arians, or Sabellians, or Spirit denying and
Spirit-defying Macedoniacs. If, however, anyone should like to apprehend their heresies
from books, he will find all of them in the books of the most holy Patriarch of
Jerusalem Sir Dositheus the Papomastix (i.e., Scourge of Popes) together with their
most learned refutations. Nevertheless, he can obtain sufficient knowledge even
from the booklet of learned Meniatos entitled A Rock of Scandal, to translate into
English the Greek title of it, Petra Scandalou. Enough was said concerning them by
St. Mark of Ephesus in Florence (at the twenty-fifth general assembly), who spoke
frankly as follows: We have split ourselves off from the Latins for no other reason
than the fact that they are not only schismatics but also heretics. Wherefore we must
not even think of uniting with them. Even the great ecclesiarch Silvester (Section 9,
ch. 5) said: The difference of the Latins is a heresy, and our predecessors also held
it to be such. So, it being admitted that the Latins are heretics of long standing, it is
evident in the very first place from this fact that they are unbaptized, in accordance
with the assertions of St. Basil the Great above cited, and of the saints preceding
him named Cyprian and Firmilian. Because, having become laymen as a result of
their having been cut off from the Orthodox Church, they no longer have with them
the grace of the Holy Spirit with which Orthodox priests perform the mysteries.
This is one argument which is as strong and indisputable as the Canons of St. Basil
the Great are strong and indisputable, and the words of St. Cyprian the ecclesiastic
martyr, seeing that they have received and retain the sanction of the holy Sixth
Ecumenical Council. (2nd) The Latins are unbaptized because they do not observe
the three immersions which have to be administered to the one being baptized, as the
Orthodox Church has received instructions from the Holy Apostles from the beginning.
The earlier Latins, being the first to innovate with regard to the Apostolical
Baptism, began using affusion, which means the process of pouring a little water on
the head of the child, a practice which is still in vogue in some regions; but the most
of them take a bundle of hog hairs and sprinkle a few drops of water three times on
the infants forehead. In other parts of the earth, however, as we have been informed
by one who has returned thence, they merely take a little cotton (everyone knows how
much water cotton absorbs), and, dipping it into water, they wipe the child with it and
call it baptized. So the Latins are unbaptized because they do not perform the three
immersions and emersions, in accordance with the Apostolic tradition. As touching
these three immersions, we do not say how necessary and indispensable they are
to the celebration of Baptism. Whoever wishes may read about it, but as for any
need there may be, let him read the manual of the highly educated and most learned
Eustratius of Argent. But we too shall say in connection with Apostolical Canon L
whatever is now needed on this head. If, however, anyone among the Latins or the
Latin minded should put forward a claim to the three invocations of the Holy Trinity,
he must not pretend to have forgotten those things which he was told further above
by sacred Firmilian and by Athanasius the Great: to wit, that those supergodly names
are idle and ineffective when pronounced by the mouth of heretics. For, unless this
be the case, we must most certainly believe that those wicked old women actually do
miracles by simply repeating the divine names in incantations. So the Latins cannot
even perform a baptism because they are heretics and have lost the grace required to
celebrate Christmas rites, and they have added to their iniquities that of overthrowing
the Apostolical Baptism of three immersions. So, I say, let those who accept the
Latins sprinkling (often dignified by the name aspersion) reflect what they can say
by way of reply to the authority of the present Apostolical Canon, and further in reply
to the following one (XLVII). I know what the immediate defensors of the Latin
pseudobaptism argue. They argue that our Church became accustomed to accepting
converts from the Latins with chrism (alone), and there is, in fact, some formulation
to be found in which the terms are specified under which we will take them in. With
regard to all this we reply in simple and just words: that it is enough that you admit
that she used to receive them in chrism (alone). So they are heretics. For why the
chrism if they were not heretics? So, they being admittedly heretics, it is not probable
that the Orthodox and Apostolic Church would deliberately disregard these Apostolical
Canons and the Synodical Canons which we have noted in the preceding pages.
But, as it seems and as it is proper for us to believe, the Church wished to employ
some great economy with respect to the Latins, having as an example conducive to
her purpose that great and holy Second Ecumenical Council. For the fact is that the
Second Council, as we have said, employed economy and accepted the baptism of
Arians and of Macedoniacs with the aim and hope of their returning to the faith and
receiving full understanding of it, and in order to prevent their becoming yet more
savage wild beasts against the Church, since they were also over many in multitude
and strong in respect of outward things. And, as a matter of fact, they accomplished
this purpose and realized this hope. For, thanks to this economy those men became
more gentle towards the Orthodox Christians and returned so far to piety that within
the space of a few years they either disappeared completely or very few of them
remained. So those preceding us also employed economy and accepted the baptism
of the Latins, especially when performed in the second manner, because Papism, or
Popery, was then in its prime and had all the forces and powers of the kings of Europe
in its hands, while, on the other hand, our own kingdom was breathing its last gasps.
Hence it would have become necessary, if that economy had not been employed, for
the Pope to rouse the Latin races against the Eastern, take them prisoners, kill them,
and inflict countless other barbarities upon them. But now that they are no longer
able to inflict such woes upon us, as a result of the fact that divine Providence has
lent us such a guardian that he has at last beaten down the brow of those arrogant
and haughty monsters, now, I say, that the fury of Papism (otherwise known as Roman
Catholicism, or Popery) is of no avail against us, what need is there any longer
of economy? For there is a limit to economy, and it is not perpetual and indefinite.
That is why Theophylactus of Bulgaria says: He who does anything as a matter
of economy, does it, not as simply something good, but as something needed for
the time being (commentary on Gal. 5:11). We have employed economy enough,
says St. Gregory the Theologian in his eulogy of Athanasius, without either adopting
what is alien or corrupting what is our own, to do which would make us really bad
economists (or poor managers of economy). That is what I say too, It is certainly
poor economy when it does not serve to convert the Latins and forces us to transgress
the rigorism of the sacred Canons and to accept the pseudobaptism of heretics. For
economy is to be employed where there is no necessity of transgressing the laws,
says divine Chrysostom. The fact that that formulation was made economically is
plainly evident from this, that until then the Easterners had been baptizing the returning
Westerners, as is attested by the local synod in the Lateran of Rome, held in the
year 1211 after Christ. For it says in its fourth Canon that the Easterners would not
hold services wherever Westerners had been holding services unless they first purified
the place by the ceremony of sanctification. And afterwards it says that the Easterners
themselves rebaptized those joining the Eastern Church on the ground that they had
not had a holy Apostolical baptism. (See Dositheus, p. 8-24 of the Dodecabiblus.)
So when it is taken into account that up to that time, according to the testimonies of
the same enemies, the Easterners had been baptizing them, it is plain that it was for
the sake of a great economy that they later employed the expedient of chrism simply
because our race could not afford, in the plight in which it then was in, to excite any
further the mania of Popery; and in addition there is such evidence in the fact that they
then abrogated and invalidated all that had been wrongly done in Florence, and there
was great excitement among the Latins on this account. So, the need of economy having
passed away, Rigorism and the Apostolical Canons must have their place.
From The Rudder (Book of the Sacred Canons of the Church), pp. 72-74. This is
a footnote from Saint Nikodemos' interpretation of Canon XLVI of the 85 Canons of the Holy Apostles.
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