Baptism and the Reception of Converts w/ Fr. John Whiteford

[@shawnpatrick1877]

I always enjoy listening to and learning from Father John.

[@moldyapple1789]

like the grandfather i never had

[@diarmaidobaoill4141]

Thank you for this much needed discussion. It's incredible there is so much confusion and such strong feeling surrounding this topic. Fr. John's sobriety and knowledge is a delight.

[@RandomUserName92840]

First video I've seen of the channel. Came for Whiteford, hope he's given a more prominent role in the conversation in future discussions.

[@nicodemuseam]

Glory to God!

[@jacob4047]

Thanks!

[@NavelOrangeGazer]

Frs. Stephen De Young and Andrew Damick had a very good take on this issue on an episode of Lord of Spirits about the effect of the hyper individualism of those coming into the Church demanding special reception. Obey your Bishop.

[@Yallquietendown]

Also seems to be because we are a sophisticated western country so we have to have a complex approach and make everyone comfortable and accommodated. In the Christian area of Africa meanwhile the Greek Orthodox Church mostly baptizes everyone, due to the legacy of Fr Cosmas of Grigoriou. In Africa the people accept the gospel without asking to be accommodated. “One such issue in which [Fr Kosmas] consciously chose the blessing of God's Saints over the transient benefits of our ecumenical age was baptism. "When baptizing," he says, "I implement the Athonite order of things. We've done 250 baptisms, and not only with idol worshippers, but also with Catholics who become Orthodox, we baptize them in deep rivers. My actions will have consequences when news reaches the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which holds that the Protestants are only in need of chrism. Until then, however, we will only do baptisms so as to have St. Nicodemos' blessing." Father Cosmas, as is clear further down, was not one to fly in the face of ecclesiastical authority. His decision to baptize those coming from heterodox confessions was done purely out of love for their souls and their eternal salvation, as well as love for God and His Saints, not suffering his conscience to disobey their sacred teachings.”from Introduction to Apostle to Zaire The Life and Legacy of Blessed Father Cosmas of Grigoriou

[@acekoala457]

​@@Yallquietendown It's messed up that everything in the west is hypertheologised and in Africa and Asia it seems like there is an actual interest in Orthodoxy being Genuine.

[@sooperdt]

Wow, very helpful thanks!

[@turbodiesel2961]

I was in a protestant discord and they were doing baptisms in the voice chat. I assume those aren't proper.

[@mariorizkallah5383]

💀💀

[@nicodemuseam]

That sounds a bit out there.

[@NavelOrangeGazer]

Average protestant moment

[@turbodiesel2961]

@Apologia Veritatis Welll, they claim, that it was baptism just by the Holy Spirit.

[@turbodiesel2961]

@Apologia Veritatis Well me and our buddies we were kind of trolling them at first. Like pretending to be possessed and they were having like daily demon exorcisms (through VC of course), but then we felt bad and actually tried to get them to understand Orthodoxy, but it was very fruitless because of how unwilling they were to learn this kind of stuff. Best thing you can do is pray at that point..

[@andreipopa9180]

Hi David. It is a saint with your name, from Romania, with turkish genes I think, St. Dionysius Erhan of Cetatea Alba and Ismail.

[@LBBspock]

How were females in the O.T. received into the covenant?

[@pelopidassumfora6993]

I was dipped twice and dunked 1 time fully under the water. Is my baptism void

[@johnndamascene]

Ask your priest.

[@itoldyouso6622]

I wouldn’t doubt it if we start having Bishops saying as soon as you walk into an Eastern Orthodox Church you are baptized. And then Priests defending that saying “well, the Bishop said so.”

[@stevebarns9106]

Maybe let your guest talk more?

[@annabanana2623]

I respect Father Peter but I believe he is a bit extreme on converts, especially those coming from the Church of Rome.

[@retro-orthodox]

I wonder if his approach is colored by his own submission to a “corrective” baptism after the fact. If the ultra-rightist position that he promotes is not correct, he ultimately would have to accept he did something that is a (relatively) modern innovation. I think there’s a lot to be said of Fr. Seraphim Rose’s letter on the matter of people who set themselves in a clique of correctness over and above most priests and bishops (thereby creating for themselves a “Church” within a Church in which these converts aren’t “really” Orthodox”).

[@mariorizkallah5383]

As someone coming from RCC, i think that is needed. Especially on zealous types like we get humbled somewhere on our process and it needs to happen honestly, it’s sad and very weird seeing people online anathematizing people like we need to purify ourselves and be under guidance of a spiritual father ❤

[@mariorizkallah5383]

@@retro-orthodox which letter would that be exactly? I recently got a copy of Letters from fr seraphim and looking forward to reading it

[@retro-orthodox]

@@mariorizkallah5383 It is from that book, but I don’t know which letter. Here it is, though, thanks to the internet: Jan. 28/Feb.10, 1976 We forgot to ask you how LM is getting along in your community. Is she getting a longing for big-city life? She told me that she and JK are not getting along, and she thinks it must be jealousy. But could it be that J just can’t stand L’s type -outspoken, always right, still reflecting something of the hothouse atmosphere of the “Boston”[2] approach? I’ve written and talked to L about this hothouse approach to Orthodoxy - filled with gossip, knowing “what’s going on,” having the “right answer” to everything according to what the “experts” say. I begin to think that this is her basic problem, and not Fr. Panteleimon directly. An example: she is horrified that T was received into the Church [from Roman Catholicism] without baptism or chrismation. “That’s wrong,” she says. But we see nothing particularly wrong with it; that is for the priest and the bishop to decide, and it is not our (or even more, her) business. The rite by which he was received has long been approved by the Church out of economy, and probably in this case it was the best way, because T might have hesitated much more at being baptized. The Church’s condescension here was wise. But L would like someone “to read Vladika Anthony the decree of the Sobor” [on this subject]. My dear, he was there, composing the decree, which explicitly gives the bishop permission to use economy when he wishes! We don’t like this attitude at all, because it introduces totally unnecessary disturbance into the church atmosphere. And if she is going to tell T now that he is not “really” a member of the Orthodox Church, she can do untold harm to a soul. Another example: L was very pleased that Q was baptized [after having been a member of the Russian Church Abroad already for several years]: Finally he did it “right”! But we are not pleased at all, seeing in this a sign of great spiritual immaturity on his part and a narrow fanaticism on the part of those who approve. Saint Basil the Great refused to baptize a man who doubted the validity of his baptism, precisely because he had already received communion for many years and it was too late to doubt then that he was a member of Christ’s Church! In the case of our converts, it’s obvious that those who insist or are talked into receiving baptism after already being a member of the Church are trying, out of a feeling of insecurity, to receive something which the Sacrament does not give: psychological security, a making up for their past failures while already Orthodox, a belonging to the “club” of those who are “right,” an automatic spiritual “correctness.” But this act casts doubt on the Church and her ministers. If the priest or bishop who receives such people were wrong (and so wrong that the whole act of reception must be done over again!), a sort of Church within the Church is created, a clique which, by contrast to “most bishops and priests,” is always “right.” And of course, that is our big problem today - and even more in the days ahead. It is very difficult to fight this, because they offer “clear and simple” answers to every question, and our insecure converts find this the answer to their needs. At times we would like to think that the whole “Fr. Panteleimon problem” in our Church is just a matter of differing emphasis which, in the end, will not be so terribly important. But the more we observe, the more we come to think that it is much more serious than that, that in fact that an “orthodox sectarianism” is being formed at that expense of our simple people. Therefore, those who are aware of all this must be “zealots according to knowledge.” The Church has survived worse temptations in the past, but we fear for our converts lest in their simplicity they be led into a sect and out of the Church. God is with us! We must go forward in faith.

[@mariorizkallah5383]

@@retro-orthodox ❤

[@stevebarns9106]

Your comments are wise but you don’t seem to need your guest if you are going to talk so much.

[@painjammin]

David, you love to hear yourself speak. Geez.

[@nath6374]

"orthobros" lol

[@mertonhirsch4734]

1) Corrective Baptism denies the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no need to affirm validity in a heterodox Baptism to confirm that the Church may take a physical process done in the past, and transform it into an Orthodox baptism when the person is Confirmed. Confirmation takes the physically appropriate but spiritually incomplete procedure and baptizes it. Confirmation is corrective Baptism. I believe the Holy Spirit has this power and Bishops have this authority, the power to bind and loose, although I don't think it should be the norm. Corrective baptism, at least if not conditional is a denial of the power of the Holy Spirit and the Authority to bind and loose. Rebaptism prior to confirmation is almost certainly ideal IMO with a few exceptions, at least conditionally, but if the Church can baptize fallen human nature by the power of the holy spirit, it cantransform a spiritually invalid physical process and make it into a spiritually valid Orthodox Baptism. 2) Chrysostom rebaptized heterodox, but also anathematized those who denied the union to the Church of those who had been received by confirmation. 3) At one time I "thought about" having my kids who were baptized in the Orthodox Church do a conditional baptism for me. I had been received with my parents by confirmation and had been baptized in the Anglican Church by my dad who used the Orthodox formula and who was accepted by chrismation and then ordained a deacon and then a priest. Well, my kids had been baptized by my dad, so if he wasn't really Orthodox, then they couldn't baptize me. Again this was more of me considering the theological implications. So I wondered if my wife who had been baptized as a child in an Orthodox country in Europe could do a conditional baptism. She was certainly Orthodox and the priest who baptized her was Orthodox, but wait, HE had been ordained by a Bishop who had been baptized as a child in a village parish by an imposter Uniate priest! That bishop had ordained at least 20 priests who collectively had baptized an estimated 3000 Orthodox kids, and probably about 30 of them had become priests, and baptized kids, and at least 1 was a bishop who had ordained priests who had baptized thousands of kids.