Cyprian Was Wrong on Rebaptism

Jean-Serge · Post by **Jean-Serge** » Sun 13 April 2008 3:00 am

Please Starman, stop! We all know that you are the evicted Evfimy!! You were recognised!!

Starman · Post by **Starman** » Sun 13 April 2008 3:31 am

No, I'm not even Orthodox. I was following some of these threads and got upset that he wasn't even warned before he was evicted, so I stepped in.

Jean-Serge · Post by **Jean-Serge** » Sun 13 April 2008 6:20 am

How are you sure that he was not warned by private message? This indicates your are really Evfimy... It will be very easy for the moderators to check the IP address of Evfimy's messages and yours...

Albert · Post by **Albert** » Tue 15 April 2008 4:17 pm

Jean-Serge wrote:
How are you sure that he was not warned by private message? This indicates your are really Evfimy... It will be very easy for the moderators to check the IP address of Evfimy's messages and yours...

Moderator, did you send Evfimy a private message to warn him? Remember lying is a sin.

GOCPriestMark · Post by **GOCPriestMark** » Tue 15 April 2008 4:57 pm

Albert/Starman/Evfimy wrote:
Moderator, did you send Evfimy a private message to warn him? Remember lying is a sin.

No, I did not send you a PM. I take it you were not very good at hide-n-seek when you were young, eh?

DavidS · Post by **DavidS** » Sun 18 May 2008 11:13 pm

I think what Pope Stephen was condeming, was not the practice of "re-baptizing," but the practice of re-baptizing en masse. Due to large numbers, chrismation was permitted with large crowds through economia. Saint Cyprian wanted to "re-baptize" everybody. I think that is what Pope Stephen objected to.

There is a lot of information on the baptismal issue that the author of this thread did not mention.

1st CANON OF SAINT BASIL

This canon is cited in the First Act of the Seventh Ecumenical Council. It has ecumenical authority!

Here are sections from this canon on baptism:

"So it seemed good to the ancient authorities to reject the baptism of heretics altogether, but to admit that of schismatics, on the ground that they still belonged to the Church."

"The Cathari are schismatics, but it seemed good to the ancient authorities, I mean Cyprian and our own Firmilian, to reject all these --Cathari, Encratities, and Hydroparastate--by one common condemnation."

"Nevertheless, since it has seemed to some of those in Asia that, for the sake of economy for the many, their baptism should be accepted, let it be accepted."

"....it is our duty to reject their [Encratities] baptism, and that in the case of any one who has received baptism from them, we should, on his coming to the Church, baptize them.

[Notice he does not use the term "re-baptism." Only "baptism.].

The same opinion is held by Athanasius the Great:

"For it is not he that says merely 'O Lord' that gives a correct baptism, but he that utters the invocation of the name and at the same time possesses a correct faith...t is for this reason, indeed, that many other heresies, true enough, do say only the names of the Holy Trinity, but inasmuch as they do not believe these correctly and they have not a sound faith either, the baptism given by them is of no benefit to them, owing to its lacking piety."

St. Chrysostom too (in his sermon on the proposition "In the beginning there already was the Logos) says:

"Let not the systems of the heretics fool you, my dear listener: for they have a baptism, but no illumination; accordingly, they are baptized, it is true, with respect to the body, but as respects the soul they are not illumined."

Apostolic Canon 46:

"We order any Bishop, or Presbyter, that has accepted any heretics' Baptism, or sacrifice, to be deposed; for "what consonancy hath Christ with Beliar? or what part hath the believer with an infidel?"

Canon 47: "If a Bishop or Presbyter baptize anew anyone that has had a true baptism, or fail to baptize anyone that has been polluted by the impious, let him be deposed, on the ground that he is mocking the Cross and death of the Lord and failing to distinguish priests from pseudopriests."

ON HERETICAL BISHOPS

The heretical Balamand Agreement of 1993 said that anybody, whether Coptic, Roman Catoholic, Orthodox or whatever, as long as they have apostolic succesion, have valid mysteries. That belief is essentially the ecumenistic "branch theory" as proposed by The Balamand Agreement in 1993. But I do not believe that position was maintained by the Holy Fathers.

Those who have walled themselves off due to innovating / heretical bishops, even before an ecumenical council, synodal decision or verdict, are allowed by the Fifteenth Canon of the First-and-Second Council.

This same Canon refers to bishops teaching heresy as "pseudo-bishops."

Regarding the office of an Orthodox bishop, Saint Symeon of Thessalonica says that:

"by his divine consecration, the grace of God ceases not to work through him, unless he err regarding the Faith." [Vlatadon 165.220].

The 46th Apostolic Canon deposes those who accept heretical "mysteries" ("We ordain that those who accept those who accept the baptism or the sacrifice of heretics be deposed.)?

Saint Ignatius:

"Let no one be deceived; whosover is not within the altar is deprived of the Bread of God." [Letter to the Ephesians 5:2].

In the very Acts of the 7th Ecumenical Council, reference is made to Saint Basil's words:

"I acknowledge no bishop, nor would I number among the priests of God one who had been advanced [to the priesthood] by defiled hands for the destruction of the Faith." [PG 32, 897 AB].

Saint John Chrysostom:

"......Neither do we offer any part of that hope to the ungodly heretics, but we place them entirely outside that hope; indeed, they have not the least participation in Christ, by vainly assume for themselves that saving Name." [PG 59:725].

Saint Basil:

"[The clergy] who broke away [from the Church] and became laity are no longer able to impart the grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves fell away. Hence, they who were baptized by them were commanded to come into the Church like ones baptized by laymen and to be cleansed again by true Baptism of the Church." [Epistle 118:1].

Laodicia, Canon 32:

"It is not meet to receive the blessings of heretics, for they are rather fooloshness than blessings."

Pope Saint Leo the Great:

"No heretic grants sanctification through his mysteries." [Epistle 159, to Nicetas].

Apostolic Constitutions 6:15:

"For they are not priests....nor are they that are baptized by them initiated, but rather they are defiled, nor have they received the forgiveness of sins, but rather the bonds of ungodliness."

Saint Gregory the Great of Rome:

"The sacrifices of heretics can never be acceptable to God, unless they are offered in their behalf by the hands of the universal Church.....these [sacrifices of the heretics] are not united to the perfection of sevenfold grace, except by [the heterodox] returning." [Interpretation of Job, Prplogue 17, p.28].

We see in light of the above, that the Roman Catholic Balamand doctrine is in direct violation to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and Canons of the Church.