Ecclesiological and Ecumenical Implications of Baptism

Ecumenical Review, The, Oct, 2000 by Walter Kasper

Thus an unprecedented hardening of positions took place on these two sides in the 17th and 18th centuries, with each side advocating an ecclesiological exclusivity and disputing that the other was a means of salvation. Later, Constantinople returned to the canons of 1484 at different councils, for instance in 1756.

Nikodomos Hagioreites's influential Philokalia (1782), a compilation of the spiritual wisdom of the fathers which contributed essentially to the renewal of patristic theology in Orthodoxy, tried to harmonize the contradictory canons of the ancient church. It endorsed the stricter positions in fundamentally not regarding baptism outside the Orthodox church as valid, but also took account of the milder positions by considering recognition of such baptisms as possible in accordance with the principle of oikonomia -- that is, in line with shrewdness, wisdom, clemency and pastoral evaluation of the local circumstances, as well as the ecumenical situation.(29)

But this solution in terms of oikonomia, which is often advocated nowadays, does not meet with general approval even within Orthodoxy.(30) While it rightly says that the Spirit of God is not tied to the limits of church institutions, it seems to me to create the impression that the hierarchy has the authority to "make" effective for salvation a sacramental action which, in itself, is invalid and so ineffective for salvation. For the Orthodox churches this confusion can only be cleared up at the planned pan-Orthodox council, or at a future ecumenical council.

On account of the divergent views among the Orthodox churches, the international theological commission could not deal explicitly with this question in the Bari document (1987).(31) The sacraments were described simply as "sacraments of faith" (15), the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Creed or the Apostles' Creed was described as the criterion for baptism (20) and communio, and agreements and differences in the practice of initiation in the churches were described. The Balamand document (1993)(32) brought progress, expressly rejecting rebaptism and indirectly recognizing the baptism received in the Roman Catholic Church (10,13). The national dialogue in North America between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches happily went a step further, and in a notable declaration (1999) arrived at an explicit full mutual recognition of baptism.(33)

For all the regret and criticism the Catholic church has expressed concerning the practice of a number of Orthodox and also Coptic churches, we nevertheless acknowledge their concern, in the spirit of the flexible position of Basil of Caesarea. These churches make the recognition of baptism dependent on the doctrine of God and of the Trinity. Thus their practice has an entirely different background to that of the Baptist churches. While the latter -- as we will see below -- are concerned with the subjective dimension of the decision of faith made by the recipient of baptism (fides qua creditur), the foremost concern of the Orthodox is for the correct objective faith of the person administering baptism and for the baptizing church (fides quae creditur). They wish thereby to preserve an important biblical concern, namely the link between baptism and faith -- more precisely, the church's faith. They do this sometimes on an ecclesiological basis that is exclusivist in regard to salvation, something I can hardly regard as biblically justified, or even as necessarily called for by their own Orthodox tradition.