Entering the Orthodox Church · Lesson 20 of 20
When Should an Adult Be Baptized?
Everything in this series has shown that the catechism of adults is a serious matter, not to be done in haste — for superficiality, Metropolitan Hierotheos warns, builds a secularized church rather than the Church. The same seriousness belongs to the rite of Baptism itself, and the Tradition supplies its natural setting: Great Lent.
Lent is the catechumen’s season. Its services multiply; its fast trains the will; its Sundays unfold, one by one, the very themes of the catechism — the Publican and the Pharisee, the Prodigal Son, the exile from Paradise, the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the theology of Saint Gregory Palamas, the power of the precious Cross, the Ladder of Saint John of Sinai, the repentance of Saint Mary of Egypt. The catechumen hears the Liturgies of Saint Basil, Saint John Chrysostom, and the Presanctified Gifts — in which the Church still prays aloud, as she has for centuries, for the catechumens themselves. The Church, as the Metropolitan likes to say, never does anything aimlessly.
Why Great Saturday?
The crown of the ancient practice is Baptism on Great Saturday, so that the newly baptized enter the Church exactly as they enter Christ’s Resurrection. In the ancient rite, the candidates were baptized during the Vespers readings, and entered the church as the whole congregation sang — as we still sing at every Paschal and festal Liturgy in place of the Trisagion:
“As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia.”
That hymn survives in our services precisely as the community’s joy over its new members. Then Bright Week becomes the neophyte’s honeymoon of grace — in ancient times the newly illumined communed every day of it — and the Sundays from Pascha to Pentecost, with their Gospels of water, healing, and the opening of eyes, continue the mystagogy. Baptism may also fittingly be joined to any great feast of the Lord — Christmas, Theophany — whenever the baptismal hymn replaces the Trisagion.
Why Is Baptism Celebrated Within the Divine Liturgy?
Because that is its inherent home: we are baptized in order to commune. Metropolitan Hierotheos provides a full order of service for celebrating Baptism within the Liturgy — the blessing of the waters and the anointing with oil, the triple immersion, the chrismation, the white robe with its troparion “Grant me a robe of light,” the entrance, the Epistle and Gospel — and then, at “With the fear of God, with faith and love, draw near,” the newly baptized approaches the Chalice first of all, together with the sponsor. Nicholas Cabasilas’ teaching is thus enacted: from the font straight to Communion. (The rite even quietly tests the godparent: one who cannot commune cannot stand sponsor.) The tonsure and the prayers of ablution complete the rite, and afterward the parish gathers around the newly illumined with congratulations and a modest feast.
What Guidance Does the Newly Baptized Need?
Baptism is the beginning of the journey, not its end — and the book closes with six counsels of remarkable pastoral wisdom for the life that follows.
First, the new Christian must become an organic member of a parish community — a family with a spiritual father and spiritual brothers and sisters. Faith is ecclesial, not an individual acquisition; experienced spiritual fathers even advise against baptizing someone for whom no parish community can be secured, lest he be left belonging nowhere.
Second, catechism continues after Baptism. As Saint Paul kept lifelong contact with the churches he founded — “my little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” [Galatians 4:19] — so the priest continues to teach and guide: keep the commandments, commune regularly, and in the case of grave sin, repent and confess.
Third, patience with oneself. The convert understands Orthodoxy intellectually long before it becomes his instinct; years may pass before the truths of the faith displace the habits of a former religious and cultural formation. This is normal, and continuous, gentle guidance carries him through it.
Fourth, avoiding the trap of fanaticism — which shows itself in two ways: mocking one’s former religion, and setting oneself up as a teacher of other Orthodox. The wise priest joins in neither. Saint Paul himself, after the revelation on the Damascus road, went not to Jerusalem but into Arabia for three years of repentance [Galatians 1:17] — and Paul warns against making a recent convert a teacher, “lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil” [1 Timothy 3:6]. The neophyte’s zeal is precious; humility must season it.
Fifth, preparation for scandal. The convert will meet sinners in the Church — living and dead members, healthy and sick. He should know in advance that the Church is a hospital whose members are in three conditions: the healed (the saints), those being healed, and the still-sick who may yet begin their healing. Many left Egypt; not all reached the Promised Land. The final sorting belongs to Christ at His coming [Matthew 13:24–30] — not to us.
Metropolitan Hierotheos also describes periods when the newly baptized no longer feel the consolation they first experienced. A loss of that feeling does not mean that God has abandoned them or that their Baptism was ineffective. Christians experience spiritual life differently; no fixed sequence or timetable should be expected. In times of dryness or discouragement, continue in prayer and the life of the Church, and seek the guidance of a trusted priest rather than judging your faith by emotion alone.
With this, the catechism comes full circle: from the first prayer over a seeker, through the Prodigal Son and the Creed, to the font, the Chalice, and a lifetime of growth in grace. Anyone who feels this path calling is warmly invited to speak with Father at Saint George — the door of the catechumens has never closed.
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 concludes our series presenting its teaching.
