The Eastern Orthodox Baptismal Liturgy

The following text is one example of a twentieth-century baptismal liturgy from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is based on an English translation of a Greek Orthodox liturgy found in An Orthodox Prayer Book, edited by Fr. N. M. Vaporis and translated by Fr. John von Holzhausen and Fr. Michael Gelsinger (Brookline, Mass. : 1977). The following service orginates in the Syrian liturgical tradition. Given the continuity of liturgical texts within the Orthodox tradition, this text may be taken as representative of the tradition as a whole. In the Orthodox churches, the sacrament of baptism is as a rule administered to infants. It is rarely that adults present themselves to be baptized, partly because the Orthodox churches only have a limited organized mission among people who are not Christians. The Office of Holy Baptism is based, however, on adult baptism and is in actual fact addressed to adults. This fact is evident in the baptismal rite, which implies that an infant to be baptize…