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First Holy Communion At Saint Ephraim Syrian Orthodox Church, Sunday, May 30, 2004, Burbank, California

http://dorgalli.com/pictures205.htm

Did you know about the first communion at the Syrian Orthodx Church as a separate ceremony from the two first sacraments of christian initiation (baptism, chrismal unction)?

Dear Francisco,

I did a little research for you. I did a search on the Church of St. Ephraim in Burbank, California and found the following:

Go here and read about the SYRIAC Orthodox Church:

http://sor.cua.edu/Intro/index.html

It seems to be closely related to the Patriarch of Antioch, seems to have a filial relationship with them, but is not the SYRIAN Orthodox Church.

This Church seems to be a meld of Orthodox and Catholic tradition.

No wonder the Patriarch of Antioch (Eastern Orthodox) is so loving, charitable and desiring of unity with the West. It seems that both faiths co-exist well in that part of the world.

In Christ,
Alice

Hopefully someone here will be able to enlighten us more about this phenomenon and about this Church.

The lack of an agreed terminology to distinguish the various Churches of Antiochian provenance is sometimes confusing. In this case, the Church in question belongs to what is politely referred to nowadays as the "non-Chalcedonian" family of Churches (like the Armenian Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church); the Syriac Church is sometimes called "Jacobite" after Mar Jacob Baradeus.

The "first Communion" phenomenon: what's going on is that the parents, who love pageantry for their children, decided that the children should have something similar to what the Latins and Maronites do, so they stage these "first communion" affairs, blithely ignoring the consideration that the children in question have already been receiving Holy Communion since they were baptized as infants. Ah, well . . . what can we say? I'm actually a trifle edified that someone had sense enough to dress the children in identical robes for the occasion, thus (I hope) avoiding the incredible competition and ridiculous expense people in the Western Churches sometimes go to in an effort to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak.

Incognitus

St. Ephraim is definitely Syriac Orthodox, but the "pretend" first communion is just that - pretend. Unless all these kids are converts (which I highly doubt). Anyhow, in the Syriac Orthodox Church children recieve chrismation immediately after Baptism - as should be done in the Syriac and Malankara Catholic Churches (altho some Churches in these do succomb to the imitation phenomenon).

Thank you Incognitus (knew we could count on your amazing wealth of ecclesial knowledge!) and Michael Thoma.

As for the competition Incognitus mentions regarding the white dresses of Latin children at their first communion...as one who loved dressing up for as long as I can remember, the one time I remember expressing true grief over not being Roman Catholic was when all my neighborhood friends (as well as my Episcopalian cousins) got to legitimately dress up as brides and I didn't!!!

Ofcourse, our little baby darlings in the Orthodox church look just as sweet at their baptisms, donned in their beautiful little white dresses from hat to shoes, but that was no fun for me at that age!!!

In Christ,
Alice, who is feeling a wee bit silly this morning

Well, I suppose we could remember that spiritually we are all neophytes and invite the ladies to wear white bridal attire on Pascha. Should the gentlemen wear ice-cream suits?

Incognitus