Resolution of the 1971 Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on the Reception of non-Orthodox Christians

From ROCOR Studies
On September 28, 1971 the Council of Bishops convened in Montreal determined that non-Orthodox were to be accepted into the Church only by baptism. Our newly posted article, “The 19th Canonical Answer of Timothy of Alexandria: On the History of Sacramental Oikonomia,” deals with the notion of sacramental economy as it appears in this decision. The historical circumstances surrounding the appearance of this document have yet to be studied.

Ukaz of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia on the Baptism of Converts from the West. 15/28 September 1971

Concerning the question of whether or not to baptize heretics who convert to Orthodoxy, the Council decided the following:

The Holy Church has from the beginning held the belief that there can only be one true baptism, namely that baptism which is performed in the bosom of the Church, since there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5). “One baptism” is also confessed in the Creed, and the 46th Canon of the Holy Apostles states, “We ordain that a bishop or presbyter who accepts [i.e., recognizes] the baptism or sacrifice of heretics is to be deposed.”

When in the past, however, the zeal of certain heretics in their struggle against the Church began to weaken, and when it was a question of their mass conversion to Orthodoxy, the Church, to facilitate their conversion, would receive them into its bosom in a manner other than through baptism. St. Basil the Great in his first canon, a canon later accepted by the Six Ecumenical Council, points to the existence of different practices in the reception of heretics in various countries. He explains that any separation from the Church deprives one of Grace and writes concerning schematics, “because the origin of their separation arose through schism, those who apostatized from the Church no longer had on them the grace of the Holy Spirit, for it ceased to be imparted when the continuity was broken. The first separatists had received their ordination from the Fathers and possessed the spiritual gift by laying on of hands. But they who broke off became laymen, and, because they are no longer able to confer on others that grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves are fallen away, they have no authority either to baptize or to ordain. And therefore, those who were from time to time baptized by them were ordered, as persons who had been baptized by laymen, to come to the Church and to be purified by the Church’s true baptism.” However, “for the sake of edification of many” St. Basil does not protest against the other current manner of accepting schismatic Cathari in Asia. Concerning the Encratites he writes that “if there is any likelihood of this (i.e., his recommendation) being detrimental to general discipline, “then another practice can be adopted.” He explains this in the following way, “I am under apprehension lest, in our wish to discourage them from a hasty baptism, we may, through the severity of our decision, be a hindrance to those who might be saved.”

Thus, St. Basil, and through his words and Ecumenical Council, established the principle that outside the Holy Orthodox Church there is no true baptism; he does, however, out of pastoral condescension, which is called “economy,” permit the acceptance of certain heretics and schematics into the Church without a new baptism. In accordance with such a principle, the Ecumenical Councils permitted the reception of heretics in various ways, taking into consideration the degree of the weakening of the heretics’ enmity against the Orthodox Church.

In the Russian Kormchaya Kniga (Rudder) the following explanation of Timothy of Alexandria is given. When asked, “Why do we not baptize heretics who convert to the Catholic Church?” Timothy answers, “If we did this, a man would not soon convert from his heresy, since he would be ashamed of a second baptism. So we have the presbyter lay hands on him and pray for the descent of the Holy Spirit, a practice to which the book of the Acts of the Holy Apostles bears witness.”

In Russia since the time of Peter, I, [sic.- A.P.], the practice was introduced to accept Roman Catholics and those Protestants who taught that baptism was a sacrament (e.g., the Lutherans) through a renunciation of their heresy and chrismation (Catholics who had been confirmed were received without chrismation). Before Peter, Catholics were baptized in Russia. In Greece, the practice has also varied, but for most of the past three hundred years, the practice of baptizing converts from Catholicism and Protestantism was reintroduced. Those received into the Church in any other way were sometimes not even recognized in Greece as Orthodox. There were many cases of such convert children of the Russian Church not being admitted by the Greeks to Holy Communion.

Having this circumstance in mind and also the current growth of the ecumenical heresy, which attempts completely to erase the difference between Orthodoxy and any heresy as manifested by the Moscow Patriarchate’s decision in spite of the holy canons, even to permit Roman Catholics to take communion in certain cases, the Bishops’ Council deems it necessary to introduce a stricter practice, i.e., to baptize all heretics who come to the Church. Any other practice, i.e., the acceptance of Roman Catholics and Protestants baptized in the name of the Trinity into the Church through a repudiation of their heresy and the sacrament of chrismation, may be permitted only if strictly necessary. It must be with the express permission of a bishop and be motivated by considerations of “economy” or pastoral condensation.

In regard to the decision of the Moscow Synod to permit Roman Catholics and Old Believers to take communion without renouncing their errors, the following was decided:

The lack of accord of the decision of the Moscow Patriarchate, concerning the granting of communion to Roman Catholics, with Orthodox doctrine and the Church canons is completely clear to any person even slightly trained in theology. The Moscow decision was justly condemned by the Synod of the Church of Greece. The holy canons do permit the communication of a great sinner under epitimia when he is at the gate of death (I Ecumenical Council 13, Carthage 6, Gregory 2 and 5), but there is not even one canon that would extend this to include persons foreign to the Orthodox Church, so long as they have not renounced their false doctrines.