An Important Anniversary (June 1755 – June 2025): 270 Years Since the Synodal Condemnation of the Baptism / Sprinkling of the Latins

Metropolitan Cyprian [II] of Oropos and Fili | June 4/17, 2025 [1]

 

 

A. In the year 1755, a bull was issued by Pope Benedict XIV (1740–1758), which recognized the validity of the Orthodox Mysteries and Rites, following a relevant suggestion from the Jesuits and Uniates, who were especially active in proselytizing in our East and were spreading the claim that supposedly there was no difference whatsoever between Orthodox and Latins, especially in the Mystery of Baptism, so as to attract the pious to Papism.

Meanwhile, a deep division had already arisen in Constantinople between those who were in favor of accepting, by economy, the baptism / sprinkling of the Westerners, and those who rejected it as “falsely so called,” since it was performed by sprinkling and not by three full immersions.

Because of the long and vigorous disputes, the Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril V (first tenure: 1748–1751; second tenure: 1752–1757) convened a Synod in July 1755, in which the Patriarchs of the East also took part: Matthew of Alexandria (1746–1765) and Parthenius of Jerusalem (1737–1766).

This holy Synod condemned and rejected the baptism / sprinkling of the Latins, and generally of all the Westerners; and this Act (the relevant Definition was published in 1756) is, and continues to be, down to the present day, the last relevant official decision of the Orthodox Church.

It is noteworthy that the best Orthodox theologians of that period, for example Eustratios Argentis and Eugenios Voulgaris, together with the People and the Monks, aligned themselves unreservedly in favor of this stance of the ever-memorable Patriarch Cyril V, who possessed all the marks of a genuine Orthodox Hierarch, embracing the Hesychastic-Kollyvades Tradition.

In this regard, the characterization of Patriarch Cyril V by the distinguished scholar of his time, Sergios Makraios (1735?–1819), is very significant:

“He was ... upright in judgment, simple in manner, although to some he seemed crafty, since he opposed in many ways the many devices of his adversaries; a lover of virtue, a lover of the good, gentle, fond of learning, devoted to the reading of the divine books, having chosen the more perfect life. For this reason, he also kept greater vigils and more continuous fasts, loved longer ecclesiastical services, and seemed noble in all things; keen in matters to be done, resolute in what seemed good, unbending and fearless before opposing forces. Hence he was known as a fervent zealot of the Orthodox doctrines, and was spoken of by all the people and loved exceptionally, enchanting and drawing to himself the souls of all by the splendor of his own virtues, even though his slanderers contrived in various ways to conceal the true zeal of the man, calling him cunning, just as the heretics defamed the most Orthodox man as a heretic...” [2]

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B. Within the circles of the so-called Ecumenical Movement (1920 ff.), extensive discussions have taken place and continue to take place, especially concerning the Mystery of Baptism, by which entrance into the One and Only Church is accomplished.

The Ecumenists of Orthodox origin, in these discussions, do not take into account the Revealed Truth; they do not follow the Evangelical, Apostolic, Synodal, and Patristic Tradition.

They have formulated with utmost clarity the anti-Orthodox view, and they insist upon it, that the “spirit of brotherhood” between them and the Papists “derives from the one Baptism and from participation in the sacramental life,” since “by virtue of their Baptism they are incorporated into Christ”! [3]

Also, in the Text of the Balamand Union (Lebanon, June 1993), the following declaration, among others, was signed by the Ecumenists of Orthodox origin and by the Vatican, by which their self-consciousness was very clearly proclaimed: that Papism and Orthodoxy are supposedly Sister Churches, supposedly have Common Mysteries, and supposedly have Common Soteriological Possibilities:

“On both sides it is recognized that what Christ entrusted to His Church—confession of the apostolic faith, participation in the same mysteries, especially in the one priesthood which celebrates the one sacrifice of Christ, apostolic succession of the bishops—cannot be regarded as the exclusive property of one of our Churches. It is clear that within this framework every rebaptism is excluded.” [4]

It is most evident that the Union of the Orthodox and Papist Ecumenists at Balamand in Lebanon constituted the triumph of papal diplomacy and proved in the most indisputable manner that what was initially regarded as the small and secondary issue of the change of the Calendar in 1924 led to the rejection of the great and primary things, that is, to the complete ecumenization and Latinization of the Orthodox.

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C. Yet for one more reason, too, the review of the Definition of 1755 concerning the so-called baptism of the Westerners is very timely, since the baptism performed today, even within the bounds of Innovation, that is, of Ecumenism–New Calendarism, tends to become, according to exactness, sprinkling.

The differences, however, between the one who is baptized and the one who is sprinkled are unbridgeable, as the ever-memorable Teacher of the Nation, Konstantinos Oikonomos ex Oikonomon (1780–1857), very characteristically points out:

a) The first “is buried as one dead in a tomb,” “and rises again,” in “imitation of the Lord.” The second, “being wetted, stands upright” and “neither descends nor rises again ... as from a tomb.”

b) The first “depicts through his own body the three-day burial and resurrection.” The second “does not himself in any way depict the mystery,” not participating in the event itself. Through sprinkling, rather, he undergoes “a strange and unnatural ... burial.”

c) The first “has the tomb ... into which ... he descends.” The second “bears the tomb, as it were, placed upon his head, and from there descending down to his feet; what could be more false than this?” [5]

It is thus established that the Holy Fathers were indeed God-bearing and God-moved, when they maintained through Saint Gregory of Nyssa that: “the slight deviation from the truth has given passage to impiety.” [6]

[the small departure from the truth has given entrance / a passageway to impiety].

***

The Decree (Ὅρος) of the Holy Church of Christ Concerning the Baptism of the Westerners

[July 1755]

There being many means through which we are vouchsafed our salvation, and these, so to speak, being interlinked and intercon­nected in a ladderlike manner, in that they all look to the same end, the first of such means is Baptism, which was entrusted by God to the Sacred Apostles, inasmuch as without it the rest are inefficacious. For Scripture says: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.” For it was altogether fitting that, whereas the first birth brings man into this mortal life, another, more mystical mode of generation should be found, one neither be­ginning from corruption not terminating therein, through which it would be possible for us to imitate the Author of our salvation, Jesus Christ. For the water of Baptism in the font is understood as a womb and becomes the birth for him who is born, as Chrysostomos says; while the Spirit that descends into the water is understood as God, Who forms the embryo. And just as He, after being placed in the sepulchre, returned to life on the third day, so those who believe, go­ing under the water instead of the earth, in three immersions depict in themselves the Grace of the three-day Resurrection, the water being sanctified by the descent of the All-Holy Spirit, so that the body might be illumined by visible water and that the soul might receive sanctification by the invisible Spirit. For just as the water in a cauldron partakes of the heat of the fire, so the water in the font is likewise transformed by the energy of the Spirit into Divine power, cleansing those who are thus baptized and making them worthy of adoption as sons. But as for those who are initiated in any other way, instead of granting them cleansing and adoption, it renders them impure and sons of darkness.

Since, therefore, the question arose three years ago now as to whether the baptisms of heretics, which are administered contrary to the tradition of the Holy Apostles and Divine Fathers and con­trary to the custom and ordinance of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, are to be accepted when they come over to us: we, as having by Divine mercy been raised in the Orthodox Church, following the Canons of the Sacred Apostles and the Divine Fathers, acknowledg­ing only one—our own—Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and accepting her Mysteries and, consequently, her Divine Baptism, ab­hor by common verdict all of those rites—the inventions of corrupt men— administered by heretics not as the Holy Spirit commanded the Sacred Apostles and as the Church of Christ performs them to this day, knowing them to be strange and alien to the entire Apos­tolic Tradition. And such as come over to us from them we receive as unordained and unbaptized, following our Lord Jesus Christ, Who enjoined His Disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”; [following] the Sacred and Divine Apostles, who command us to baptize proselytes with three immer­sions and emersions, and at each of the immersions to pronounce one Name of the Holy Trinity; following the Sacred Dionysios, equal to the Apostles, who tells us “to baptize the proselyte, stripped of every garment, thrice in a font containing sanctified water and oil, invok­ing the threefold Hypostasis of the Divine Blessedness, and, as soon as he has been baptized, to seal him with the most divinizing Chrism and to render him thenceforth a participant in the most sanctifying Eucharist”; and following the Second and Quinisext OEcumeni­cal Synods, which decree that we receive as unbaptized those coming to Orthodoxy who were not baptized with three immersions and emersions and who did not invoke one of the Divine Hypostases at each immersion, but were baptized in some other fashion.

Therefore, we also, following these Divine and sacred decrees, deem the baptisms of heretics worthy of rejection and abhorrence as being disconsonant with and alien to the Divine Apostolic edict and as ineffectual waters, as the Divine Ambrose and St. Athanasios the Great say, since they provide no sanctification to those who receive them, nor are they of any avail to the cleansing of sins. We receive as unbaptized those who come over to the Orthodox Faith, who were baptized without being baptized, and without any hazard we baptize them in accordance with the Apostolic and Synodal Can­ons, upon which Christ’s Holy, Apostolic, and Catholic Church, the common Mother of us all, firmly rests. On the occasion of this our joint determination and declaration we seal this our Decree, which is consonant with the Apostolic and Synodal ordinances, confirming it by our signatures.

In the year of salvation 1755,

† Cyril, by the mercy of God Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome, and OEcumenical Patriarch

† Matthew, by the mercy of God Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria, and Judge of the OEcumene

† Parthenios, by the mercy of God Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palestine

 

Footnotes

1. Principal sources:

a. Protopresbyter G. Metallinos, “I Confess One Baptism...,” Athens 1983.

b. Ioannis Karmiris, The Dogmatic and Symbolic Monuments..., vol. II, Athens 1953.

c. Rallis-Potlis, Syntagma..., vol. V, Athens 1858.

d. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum..., vol. 38, Paris 1907.

e. Eustratios Argentis, The Flower of Piety, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1757.

f. Evangelos A. Skouvaras, Censuring Texts of the 18th Century Against the Anabaptists, Athens 1967.

g. Eleni G. Giannakopoulou, The Baptism of the Non-Orthodox, 1453–1756..., 2nd ed., Athens 2015.

h. Christos K. Papathanasiou, Baptism “According to Exactness” and the Deviations from It, Athens 2001.

The Definition was first published in 1756, in the work Censure of Sprinkling, pp. 173–176.

2. P. G. Metallinos, as above, p. 62, note 287.

3. Archim. Cyprian Agiokyprianites, Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement, p. 18, Athens 1997 (“Common Communiqué” of Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope John Paul II, Rome 1995. See the periodical Episkepsis, no. 520/31 July 1995, p. 20).

4. Newspaper Katholiki, no. 2,705/20 July 1993, p. 3: “Uniatism as a Method of Union in the Past, and the Present Search for Full Communion,” § 13 (the official text of the “Seventh Plenary Session of the International Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue,” Balamand, Lebanon, 17–24 June 1993).

5. P. G. Metallinos, as above, p. 42, note 184.

6. Saint Gregory of Nyssa, PG vol. 44, col. 1249.

 

Greek source: https://www.imoph.org/pdfs/2026/05/08/20260508a270-eti-syn-katadikis.pdf

Translation of the Oros is from the text previously distributed by the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, CA.