www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Graceless Heretics?

I was discussing grace and sacraments with an Orthodox via the internet today. I asked him how it was possible for him not to believe that Catholic orders are valid because of the fact that when Catholic priests convert to (mainline) Orthodoxy, they are received through re-vesting, whereas when Episcopalians and Lutheran "priests" convert they are re-ordained.

He said that this is explained because economy is used, and that only re-vesting is needed to infuse grace. He said it was akin to converts being chrismated instead of being baptized. He claims that the further away a group is from Orthodoxy, the less economy is excercised.

He claimed that non-baptized people such a Buddhists are baptized when they enter the Orthodox Churches because they have "no baptism in which to infuse grace." He said that chrismation is "powerful enough" to "make a baptism real" post factum.

He cited the problems in the early Church and the debates about how to receive Arians. I reminded him that the Fathers declared that it was heterodox to re-baptize Arians, because Arian baptisms were valid (to use a Western term). He replied that "the issue isn't if [A]rian baptisms have grace (because all the fathers agreed they don't), the issue was if economy could be used to receive them into the [C]hurch."

So...what say ye? I've never heard this line of reasoning before.

Logos Teen

There wasn't not a complete absolute rule about reception of people into the Church (East and West). The Trinitarian Baptism is a condition si ne qua non for the recognition of the mystery as "valid" or graceful.

The case of the Arians is very confusing sometimes, since the Arian heresy believed Christ not to be God or to be of inferior nature, both Greeks and Latins agree that the Trinitarian formula is corrupted and might not confer grace. Even today, a Mormon Baptism (even if it's done in the name of Father Son and Holy Spirit) is declared invalid by Catholics and Orthodox because they do not suscribe to the Church teaching on the Trinitarian Theology. Being more liberal, as we don't know if there's grace or not, the person must be baptized when he enters the Church.

Same about the other Christian sects there's not an absolute rule. In the Roman Church even when they say a Protestant Baptism can be valid, conditional Baptism was the rule (at least before Vatican II). I recall that in our Northern Province of New Mexico, American people of Protestant background who converted to the Catholic Church were all received by Baptism (including Kit Carson).

In the Orthodox communities there are certain instructions from Bishops, but the practice change from place to place. Here Catholics becoming Orthodox are neither Chrismated or Baptized, just unction with chrism or sometimes nothing (the younger ones are Chrismated though). What your friend said about how close to Orthodoxy was the faith of the person is true. Maybe this is because the background of a Latin American Catholic is much closer to Orthodox than the background of a modern Canadian or American Catholic, but I don0t really know.

This is all part of the local people's attitude, in Greece for example, all Catholics are Baptized (in monasteries there are ceremonies for conversion of Latins, with Baptism and purification and so on) because there's antipathy toward Latins.

As you can see, the vinyard of the Lord is quite plural.

Dear Teen,

I am not sure what all you are addressing but I am limiting my response to the above quotes.

1) Not all Orthodox Churches (meaning national/ethnic jurisdictions) receive RC priests by vesting alone.

2) Of course non-baptized people must be baptized (in water in the name of the Trinity) AFAIK this is no different than the Catholic position.

Where, BTW, does "Graceless Heretic" fit in?

Tony

Your Orthodox friend is getting all mixed up, Logos Teen. When one says that a sacrament like Baptism or Holy Orders is "valid", one means that it confers the CHARACTER belonging to that sacrament. Sacramental characters are indelible. A baptized person, for instance, may lose all grace through sin--but he still has the indelible character of the baptized upon his soul.

Thus, to say that our Holy Orders are invalid, because we lack grace, does not make sense. Of course, we know that the Latins-lack-grace stuff is a bunch of malarkey anyway. Say, however, that a man in a state of mortal sin receives ordination. He is without grace, because of his mortal sin. He cannot receive the sacramental grace of ordination, but THE ORDINATION IS STILL VALID BECAUSE IT IMPOSES THE INDELIBLE CHARACTER upon his soul; the character is distinct from the grace. Every Mass that he offers unworthily is valid, and efficacious for devout souls who attend. Of course, if he should then repent and confess, he would be restored to grace and would receive all the sacramental grace pertaining to ordination.

The Arian baptism thing is much more complicated than your friend is making it out to be. It is not clear to me that all Arian baptisms were considered valid by the Church--some were and some weren't, I think. Of course, someone may receive grace from a valid baptism, even if given by a heretic, provided that the person is ignorant of the sin involved in accepting baptism from heretics when it is not necessary. But if the baptism was valid, regardless of anything it would impose the CHARACTER, and it would then be a sacriledge to re-baptize the person.

LatinTrad

The Eastern Church does not have this concept of Priestly ordination conferring an "indelible" mark" or "character" upon the Soul.

Oh. Then how is there something there to "confer grace" upon, when they "re-vest" former Catholic priests? If there is nothing there at all, no grace AND no character, it would seem like those poor guys would need re-ordination.

I don't understand their rationale for saying we don't have "grace" anyway. Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam, and all that, but we've had that discussion here before.

Viva il Papa, e la tradizione Romana.

LatinTrad


"Thou art a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."

Yes, definitely. This is not what I meant. Out of the context of my entire post, this takes on a separate meaning than what I intended. My apologies.

Well, if baptism doesn't confer grace on heretics, then I figured 1+1=2.

Logos Teen

Oh. Then how is there something there to "confer grace" upon, when they "re-vest" former Catholic priests? If there is nothing there at all, no grace AND no character, it would seem like those poor guys would need re-ordination.

As I understand it, the basic Orthodox perspective would say that you cannot speculate on who does not have grace. You can only say for sure that the Orthodox Church has grace. As for groups outside of the Orthodox Church, you cannot definitively say. A strict position would hold that no group outside of the Orthodox Church has grace. Roman Catholics, for example, would fall under such an opinion. When they are received by Chrismation, or when priests are received only by vesting, it is not that the sacraments they received from their former Church are considered valid, but merely that the Holy Spirit, by virtue of their reception into the Orthodox Church by those means, fills with grace what was an empty form.

As Mor points out, any form of reception short of baptism is already an exercise of economia. How/to what degree this is exercised reflects the variety of opinions in the Orthodox Church.

I think "graceless heretic" is a bit overboard on this one.

Perhaps I read too carefully "He claimed"? To me that indicates disagreement or incredulity.

It should be noted here that the use of economy in recieving a non-Orthodox only through Chrismation without baptizing him was governed by wether the Orthodox form of triple immerison invoking the name of the holy trinity was preserved in the heretical baptism, not wether it was performed by a priest or not- for outside of the church neither priesthood or baptism is reconized. If the form of Baptism were similar to the Orthodox form, then the church through economy could give it content through Chrismation.

Re-baptism was a former topic down there in the O-forum regarding the Jerusalem Patriarchate's reception of re-baptism of converts.

Pope Alexander VI affirmed the validity of Orthodox baptism just after the turn of the sixteenth century, and Rome has periodically confirmed this ruling since then. Nevertheless, rebaptism continued to be practiced on the eastern frontiers of Catholic Europe in Poland and the Balkans - contrary to Roman policy - well into the seventeenth century. In addition, the practice of "conditional baptism," a pastoral option officially intended for cases of genuine doubt about the validity of a person's earlier baptism, was also widely - and erroneously - used in the reception of "dissident" Eastern Christians up to the era of Vatican II itself, and afterwards was practiced occasionally in parts of Eastern Europe. Vatican II, however, was explicit in recognizing both the validity and the efficacy of Orthodox sacraments (Unitatis Redintegratio 15; cf. Ecumenical Directory [1993] 99a).

In the Orthodox Church, a consistent position on the reception of those baptized in other communions is much more difficult, though not impossible, to discern. On the one hand, since the Council in Trullo (692), the canonical collections authoritative in Orthodoxy have included the enactments of third-century North African councils presided over by Cyprian of Carthage, as well as the important late-fourth-century Eastern collection, The Apostolic Canons. Cyprian's position, supported by his contemporary bishop Firmilian of Caesaraea in Cappadocia, was that salvation and grace are not mediated by schismatic communities, so that baptism administered outside the universal apostolic communion is simply invalid as an act of Christian initiation, deprived of the life-giving Spirit (see Cyprian, Epp. 69.7; 71.1; 73.2; 75.17, 22-25). Influential as it was to be, Cyprian and Firmilian both acknowledge that their position on baptism is a relatively new one, forged probably in the 230s to deal with the extraordinary new challenges presented by Christian sectarianism in an age of persecution, but following logically from a clear sense of the Church's boundaries. The Apostolic Canons, included in the larger Apostolic Constitutions and probably representative of Church discipline in Syria during the 380s, identifies sacraments celebrated by "heretics" as illegitimate (can. 45 [46]), although it is not clear in what sense the word "heretic" is being used; the following canon brands it as equally sacrilegious for a bishop or presbyter to rebaptize someone who is already truly baptized, and to recognize the baptism of "someone who has been polluted by the ungodly." Both Cyprian and the Apostolic Canons, in any case, draw a sharp line between the authentic visible Church and every other group which exists outside its boundaries, and accords no value whatever to the rites of those "outside." On the other hand, continuing Eastern practice from at least the fourth century has followed a more nuanced position. This position is reflected in Basil of Caesarea's First Canonical Epistle (Ep. 188, dated 374), addressed to Amphilochius of Iconium, whichclaiming to follow the practice of "the ancients" - distinguishes among three types of groups "outside" the Church: heretics, "who differ with regard to faith in God;" schismatics, who are separated from the body of the Church "for some ecclesiastical reasons and differ from other [Christians] on questions that can be resolved;" and "parasynagogues," or dissidents who have formed rival communities simply in opposition to legitimate authority (Ep. 188.1). Only in the case of heretics in the strict sense - those with a different understanding of God, among whom Basil includes Manichaeans, Gnostics, and Marcionites - is baptism required for entry into communion with the Church. Concerning the second and third groups, Basil declares that they are still "of the Church," and as such are to be admitted into full communion without baptism. This policy is also reflected in Canon 95 of the Council in Trullo, which distinguishes between "Severians" (i.e., non-Chalcedonians) and Nestorians, who are to be received by confession of faith; schismatics, who are to be received by chrismation; and heretics, who alone require baptism. Thus, in spite of the solemn rulings of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils against their christological positions, "Severians" and Nestorians are clearly reckoned as still "of the Church," and seem to be understood in Basil's category of "parasynagogues;" their baptisms are thus understood - to use scholastic language - as valid, if perhaps illicit.

The schism between Catholics and Orthodox, unlike the schisms of the Non-Chalcedonian and East Syrian Churches, came into being much later, and only very slowly. Relations between Catholics and Orthodox through the centuries have been, in consequence, highly varied, ranging from full communion, on occasion, well into the late Middle Ages (and, in certain areas, until later still), to a rejection so absolute that it seemed to demand the rebaptism of new communicants. There are, however, in the Orthodox tradition two important synodical rulings which represent the continuation of the policy articulated by Basil, and affirmed by the Synod in Trullo and later Byzantine canonists, rulings which we believe are to be accorded primary importance: those of the Synod of Constantinople in 1484, and of Moscow in 1667. The first ruling, part of a document marking the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate's formal repudiation of the Union of Ferrara-Florence (1439) with the Catholic Church, prescribed that Catholics be received into Orthodox communion by the use of chrism. In the service for the reception of Catholic converts which the Synod published, this anointing is not accompanied by the prayers which characterize the rite of initiation; we find instead formulas of a penitential character. The rite therefore appears to have been understood as part of a process of reconciliation, rather than as a reiteration of post-baptismal chrismation. It is this provision of Constantinople in 1484, together with Canon 95 of the Synod in Trullo, which the Council of Moscow in 1667 invokes in its decree forbidding the rebaptism of Catholics, a decree that has remained authoritative in the East Slavic Orthodox churches to the present day.

Granted, a vocal minority in the Orthodox Church refuses to accord any validity to Catholic baptism, and thus continues to justify in theory (if less frequently in fact) the (re)baptism of converts from Catholicism. Against this one fact, however, the following considerations should be noted:
1. The Orthodox and Catholic churches both teach the same understanding of baptism. This identical teaching draws on the same sources in Scripture and Tradition, and it has not varied in any significant way from the very earliest witnesses to the faith up to the present day.
2. A central element in this single teaching is the conviction that baptism comes to us as God's gift in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. It is therefore not "of us," but from above. The Church does not simply require the practice of baptism; rather, baptism is the Church's foundation. It establishes the Church, which is also not "of us" but, as the body of Christ quickened by the Spirit, is the presence in this world of the world to come.
3. The fact that our churches share and practice this same faith and teaching requires that we recognize in each other the same baptism and thus also recognize in each other, however "imperfectly," the present reality of the same Church. By Gods gift we are each, in St. Basils words, "of the Church."
4. We find that this mutual recognition of the ecclesial reality of baptism, in spite of our divisions, is fully consistent with the perennial teaching of both churches. This teaching has been reaffirmed on many occasions. The formal expression of the recognition of Orthodox baptism has been constant in the teaching of the popes since the beginning of the sixteenth century, and was emphasized again at the Second Vatican Council. The Synods of Constantinople in 1484 and Moscow in 1667 testify to the implicit recognition of Catholic baptism by the Orthodox churches, and do so in a way fully in accord with the earlier teaching and practice of antiquity and the Byzantine era. :p
5. The influential theory of "sacramental economy" propounded in the Pedalion commentaries does not represent the tradition and perennial teaching of the Orthodox Church; it is rather an eighteenth-century innovation motivated by the particular historical circumstances operative in those times. It is not the teaching of scripture, of most of the Fathers, or of later Byzantine canonists, nor is it the majority position of the Orthodox churches today.

Regards,
ruel

Well, my post consisted of about 10 "He said"s and "He claimed"s, so I thought it was only naturally to the flow of the post to add "He claimed" right here. But yes, this is about the only thing "He claimed" that I didn't question or disagree with.

Logos Teen

Elexeie:

Axios, Axios, Axios!

Thus, if one was to look at the Orthodox historical perspective ,the baptism of the Pope and that of a Baptist minister are of equal status since neither have a valid priesthood.One can safely say that a Protestant baptism performed by triple immersion could more readily be sanctified by the Church through economy than the sprinkling of the Latins.It is evident that the present day usage in certain quaters of recieving theLatins through Chrismation only is quite late and contrary to the Holy Apostolic and Synodical Canons and the mentality of the Fathers in Relation to the usage of Economy.The Church of Constantinople up until modern times held firmly to the practice of baptizing repentant Latins when they were recieved.One of the accusations of Cardinal Humbert against the Latins in 1054 was,"that as Arians they rebaptize those baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity,and especially the Latins."The opinion of the great cannonist Theodore Balsamon,in 1193, was that all not baptized through triple immerison should be rebaptized thus, including the Latins.In 1215, the same accusation as in 1054 against the Orthodox was made at the 4th Lateran Counsil.In the first half of the 14th century, the great Matthew Blastaris holds the same opinion as Balsamon-that a Baptism without triple emmersion is no Baptism.in 1450, the Byzantine theologian Joseph Bryennios characterizes the Latins as unbaptized. Patriarch Jeremias 2 (16th cen)was of the same opinion,as was Jeremias 3rd,who in 1718 wrote to Peter the Great of Russia that the Latins were not to be recieved just by Chrismation. The Russian Church had already confermed this opinion of the Church in the Synod of Moscow in 1620 under Patriarch Philaret.But in 1666, at the Moscow Synod involving the Old Believers and Patriarch Nicon, the decision was changed; hence the letter of Jeremias 3rd of Constantinople to Peter the Great.In 1756 the tome of the Patriarchs of the east was synodically proclaimed,by which the Latins were to be recieved, as the unbaptized,through Baptism. A petition in 1750 by some Latins to be recieved into Orthodoxy at Galatia became the cause of this Synodical Tome. In 1786, there was a Canonical Decree by Patriarch Procopios which was sent to the former Bishop of Rashka,Germanos, instruction him to recieve the former Byzantine Catholic Narcissuos through "the one true baptism of the Orthodox Church". In 1803, Patriarch Callinicos published a second Canonical Decree upholding the one of 1786.In 1844,two Latin Priest asked to be recieved into the Church of Constantinople.the Synodical decison under Germanos 4th was that economy could Not Be Used.Thus, they were recieved through Baptism and then ordained.In 1875,it was synodically decided to permit by economy the reception of Latins through Chrismation alone.Three years later it was revoked in 1878. Remember that economy can never take the place of Cannons. Poor Sinner Chad