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Question 18.
Dear Father Christopher,
Christ is in our midst!
Our parish is part of the Antiochian archdiocese (Greek
Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch) and is an English language mission. We
have many converts, but also many first generation Greeks from Greece and
Crete, that come to our parish. So, it is with this background that I have
the following question:
1) When I baptize Greek children, the "tradition" that the Greeks request
is one where the Godparents cover the child with oil after the priest has
anointed the child. They speak of having "baptized the child." (even
though it is the priest himself that immerses the child). I do not see
this practice stated in the rubrics in your euchologion, but it is found
in the bilingual "Priest's Service Book" (Mikron Euchologion) printed in
Greek and English by Fr Evagoras Constantinides. The whole body anointing
by the Godparents is not found in Antiochian, Romanian or Russian
practice. So, my questions are as follows: Do you do this in the Church of
Cyprus? What is the significance/meaning of this? Is it not theologically
incorrect for a layperson to say "he/she baptized so and so" (I do realize
they can do this in an emergency)? Do you know when and where this
practice first started?
In Christ,
Fr. Polycarp
Answer to Question 18
Dear Father Polycarp,
Christ is in our midst!
Great to hear from you again!
On reading your letter I couldn’t help smiling because there must be many
Greek customs and traditions that seem strange to people from western
backgrounds. When I first came to Cyprus I also had a sort of spiritual
culture shock by the many things people do believing it is part of their
Christian faith. In time I leant to sort out the bad customs from the good
and discovered that a great many have their roots in very old practices
that have been passed down from generation to generation. Your baptism
question is one such custom. To understand it fully we must go back to the
first centuries of Christianity. St. John Chrysostom and St. Cyril of
Jerusalem tell us that the whole body from head to toe was covered with
the exorcised oil. This doesn’t mean that this was the Priest’s duty. The
Priest anointed the parts that are mentioned in the euchologion but then
it was the duty of the Deacon or the Deaconess (for women) to cover the
body with the oil. The Deaconess was essential as men and women were
baptized totally naked and it was not appropriate for the Priest to look
upon a woman’s naked body let alone touch it. Thus we have from the very
beginnings people anointing the body with the oil who were not Priests but
rather his assistants. When infant baptism prevailed, the Deacon and
Deaconess were no longer required in this capacity and this duty was taken
over by the Godparent. Of course the Godparent is not necessary for the
anointing as the Priest can himself anoint the child’s body, but Greeks
take this part of the ceremony very seriously and insist on covering the
whole body. In Cyprus we are not so fanatical. Whether or not the
Godparent puts oil on the child depends entirely on whether the Priest
invites them to do it. The service of baptism is probably the only Church
service that has such diversity among Priests and you will rarely find two
priests that perform it exactly the same. Covering a child’s whole body
with oil can also be very dangerous. I remember once during my early and
enthusiastic years that I decided to be overzealous and perform a baptism
to the letter. I covered this child’s body completely with oil then lifted
him to place him into the font. The child began to slip out of my hands
and I only just made it to the font where he slipped into the water. When
I tried to lift him up I just couldn’t and had to wipe away the oil from
under his arms. As you can imagine I have never tried that again. In our
parish we do the following: the oil is placed in a glass and then we dip
our two fingers (many use cotton wool, but we prefer our fingers) into it
and anoint the forehead, the chest, the ears, feet and hands as mentioned
in the euchologion and also anoint the back saying “whosever will come
after me let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”. We then
invite the Godparent to also dip his or her fingers into the oil and
anoint crosswise wherever they want. They usually follow a similar pattern
as the Priest. We purposely ask them to put oil on the child as that makes
them feel that they have taken part is the baptismal ceremony and helps
them understand that being a Godparent is a serious matter. This brings us
to the custom of saying that I baptized such and such. True, people do say
that they baptized a certain child, but they do not mean it as though they
actually took upon themselves the role of the Priest and immersed the
child into the water. In Greek at least, it is perfectly correct to say
this and no one would even think that it meant that they did the actual
baptizing. It is probably one of those language things that cannot be
conveyed in another language. In English we call a child to whom we are a
Godparent as my Godson or Goddaughter, in Greek we say that such a child
is my (Βαπτιστικό) Vaptistiko which literally means
the child I baptized or my child in baptism. In short it shows the
seriousness of the relationship of the spiritual father and spiritual
child born from the font of regeneration: a bond of father and child
through baptism. In English we also call the Godparent the sponsor but the
correct Greek word for a Godparent is (Ανάδοχος)
“Anathohos” which means someone who receives and refers to receiving in
his arms the newly born child from the spiritual womb, for as St. Cyril
says: “the Water of salvation was at the same time your grave and your
mother”.
If we try to give it theological significance, then yes, it is not correct
to say I baptised such and such, but if we take into account that nowadays
(at least in Cyprus and Greece) it costs the Godparent around 2000 euros
(and more) to buy all the necessary things tradition says he must buy for
the child, then I think that earns the Godparent the right to say that he
baptised such and such. But as I have already said, no Greek would even
assume that he meant that he did the actual dipping into the water.
With love in Christ
Fr. Christopher.
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