Entering the Orthodox Church · Lesson 1 of 20
Why Does Preparation Matter?
A person’s entrance into the Body of Christ through Baptism is among the most serious and responsible acts in the Church’s life. Today many people are asking to be baptized and become Orthodox — and this is good news, for it is no small thing to desire membership in the Body of Christ and to be made worthy of receiving His Body and Blood. But precisely because it is so great a thing, the Church has never treated it casually. Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, whose book on the catechism of adults this series follows, warns that secularization tempts us to do even this superficially — and that the remedy is to look at how the Church’s own Tradition prepared people for the font.
What Does the Ancient Canon Describe?
A canon of the Second Ecumenical Council (381) preserves, almost in passing, the whole order by which converts were received in the fourth century:
“On the first day we make them Christians; on the second, catechumens; on the third, we exorcise them… and thus we instruct them and oblige them to spend time in the Church, and to hear the Scriptures; and then we baptize them.”
Each stage had its meaning. On the first day, a special prayer was read over the person — asking God to lift up the light of His countenance upon him, to plant the Cross of His Only-begotten Son in his heart, and to make him worthy in due time to be united to the holy Church. On the second day his name was written into the Church’s lists and he entered the order of catechumens — Saint Cyril of Jerusalem told his hearers, “there has been an inscription of your names and a call to service.” From the third day the exorcisms began: prayers that the influence of the evil one — experienced in the passions and disordered desires that rule the unhealed heart — would be driven out. These same prayers are still read today in the service that precedes every Orthodox Baptism.
What Did the Catechumens Actually Do?
Far more than attend lectures. The fourth-century pilgrim Etheria, who watched the process in Jerusalem, describes daily exorcisms each morning in Lent, followed by three hours of teaching — the Old Testament, the Creed, the meaning of the sacrament — with the bishop himself presiding. The council fathers required the catechumens to “spend time in the Church and hear the Scriptures”: they stood in the services, prayed, and were prayed for. To this day the Divine Liturgy contains the petitions the Church has always offered for them — that God would “catechize them with the word of truth, reveal to them the Gospel of righteousness, and unite them to His Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
The teaching, in other words, was never meant to be a dry, intellectual transfer of information. Catechism is the work of God before it is the work of men, and it was woven into prayer, worship, and personal struggle. Saint Cyril exhorted those preparing: devote yourself to the exorcisms; be diligent at the lessons; erase worldly concerns from within you; be prompt to prayer; cleanse your vessel, that you may receive grace more abundantly. And he called them to confession: “the present is the time of confession — confess what you have done in word or in deed, by night or by day.”
How Seriously Did the Church Test Intentions?
Very seriously. Etheria records that at the start of Lent, each candidate came before the bishop with his sponsor, and the bishop questioned the witnesses: Does he lead an honorable life? Does he respect his parents? Is he given to drunkenness or lying? If the candidate was well attested, the bishop wrote his name down with his own hand; if not, he was told: “Correct yourself, and when you become better, then approach Baptism.” The whole preparation could last as long as three years. Even the motive mattered: an ancient canon ruled that a man baptized only out of fear during grave illness could not later be ordained, “for his faith was not by choice, but of necessity.”
None of this severity was meant to keep people out. It was pastoral care — Metropolitan Hierotheos calls it a therapeutic science. Catechism was a journey of purification, so that the person would come to the font cleansed, be baptized and chrismated, and become a temple of the Holy Spirit — and from that purification go on toward illumination and communion with God.
What Does This Mean for Someone Drawn to Orthodoxy Today?
That the path into the Church is itself part of the gift. The period of preparation is not bureaucracy or delay; it is the Church taking your soul seriously — testing desire, healing habits, teaching prayer, and joining you to a worshipping community before the day of Baptism ever comes. If you are considering the Orthodox faith, speak with the priest: the same ancient path — instruction, prayer, worship, and honest self-examination — is still walked at Saint George today.
This article is drawn from Entering the Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, a guide to the catechism and baptism of adults, and is part of a series presenting its teaching.
