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An Agreed Statement
of The North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation
Baptism
and "Sacramental Economy"
St.
Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary, Crestwood, New York, June 3, 1999
INTRODUCTION
For the past three years the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological
Consultation has directed its attention to the concluding section of the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: in particular to the confession of
"one baptism," and to the faith in one Holy Spirit and in
"one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church" to which this single
baptism is so closely related, and with which it constitutes an
indivisible unity. We have chosen to consider this topic, first of all, as
part of a larger and continuing reflection on baptisms constitutive role
in establishing and revealing the fundamental character of the Church as a
communion. Secondly, we wish to respond to the criticisms made by various
groups of the statement issued by the Joint International Commission for
Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches at
Balamand, Lebanon, in 1993, "Uniatism, Method of Union of the Past,
and the Present Search for Full Communion," especially to protests
against that statement's call for an end to the practice of rebaptism of
converts (n. 13) and its reference to the Catholic and Orthodox communions
as "sister churches"(n. 14). Finally, we recognize that our
consideration of these protests directs us back to earlier statements
which our own Consultation has issued: "The Principle of
Economy" (1976); "On the Agenda of the Great and Holy
Council" (1977); "On the Lima Document" (1984);
"Apostolicity as God's Gift to the Church" (1986); our
"Response" (1988) to the "Bari Document" issued by the
International Commission in 1987; and finally our "Response"
(1994) to the Balamand document itself. In drafting this present
statement, we have elected to take our own advice and to offer a
"deeper historical and theological investigation" of whether
"our churches do in fact find the same essential content of faith
present in each other" ("Response to the Balamand
Statement," n. 9).
In the following sections we shall endeavor a) to summarize our findings
regarding our common understanding of baptism, as well as its unity with
the life of the Church and the action of the Holy Spirit; b) to elucidate
the problems which, in relatively recent times, have arisen with respect
to the mutual recognition of each other's baptism; and c) to present our
conclusions, together with certain recommendations which we feel are
necessary, in order that on various levels our dialogue be established on
a solid and unambiguous foundation. Only if we have reached clarity on our
common understanding of baptism, we believe, can our churches proceed to
discuss, charitably and truthfully, those issues which at present appear
to constitute genuine impediments to our unity in the one Bread and Cup of
Christ.
I. ON BAPTISM
A.
A Matter of Faith: Baptism rests upon and derives its reality from the
faith of Christ himself, the faith of the Church, and the faith of the
believer.
1. The faith of Christ: With this Pauline expression we refer to the fact
that baptism, like all the sacraments, is given to us first of all as the
result of Christ's loving fidelity to his Father, and as a sign of his
faithfulness in the Holy Spirit to fallen humanity, "so that we are
justified not by the works of the law but through the faith of Christ
Jesus" (Gal 2.16, cf. Rom 3.22,26; Phil 3.9). Baptism is not a human
work, but the rebirth from above, effected through "water and the
Spirit," that introduces us into the life of the Church. It is that
gift by which God grounds and establishes the Church as the community of
the New Covenant, the "Israel of God" (Gal 6:16), by engrafting
us into the body of the crucified and risen Messiah (Rom 6:3-11;
11:17-24), into the one sacrament (mysterion) which is Christ himself (Eph
1:3; 3:3; Col 1:27 and 2:2).
2. The faith of the Church: In the Church of the Apostles and Fathers,
baptism was never understood as a private ceremony, but was a corporate
event. This is indicated by the development of the Lenten fast in the
fourth century, when catechumens attended their final instructions before
baptism at the paschal vigil: their baptism was the occasion for the whole
community's repentance and renewal. Likewise, the definitive statement of
the whole Church's faith, the "We believe" of the Creed, was
derived from the solemn questions addressed by the sacramental minister to
the candidate in the baptismal font. Whoever, then, is baptized, is
baptized into the unique community of the Messiah, and it is that
community's common faith in the Savior's person and promises that the
candidate is obliged to make his or her own. As the Church, we acknowledge
the trustworthiness of him who said, "Whoever believes in me, though
he die, yet shall he live" (Jn 11:25). This is the faith of the
Apostles and Fathers, of the martyrs and ascetics, and of "all the
saints who in every generation have been well-pleasing to God"
(Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom). In the words of the renewal of baptismal
promises in the Easter liturgy of the Roman Rite, "This is our faith.
This is the faith of the Church. We are proud to profess it in Christ
Jesus our Lord."
3. The faith of the Christian: As just noted, every Christian is obliged
to make his or her own the faith of the Church. The "We believe"
of the whole Church must become the individual Christian's "I
believe," whether spoken by the adult candidate for baptism on his or
her own behalf, or on behalf of a child by its sponsor and the assembled
community, in the full expectation that, when it has grown, the child will
make the common faith its own as well. By baptism, every Christian becomes
a "new creation" (2 Co 5.17), and is called to believe and to
grow "into the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God...to the measure of the stature and fullness of Christ" (Eph
4:13). Baptism is the beginning of each believer's life in the Spirit, the
implanting within each of the seed of the fullness of Christ "who
fills all in all" (Eph 1:23): a life on earth which is at once the
present reality and the continuing vocation of each Christian, as the
"temple of the Holy Spirit" (I Co 6:19) and the dwelling place
of divine glory (Jn 17:22-24). Christian initiation is the ground of our
transfiguration "from glory to glory" (2 Co 3:18). It calls each
of us to spiritual warfare as Christ's soldiers (Eph 6:10-17), and anoints
us each with the oil of the Holy Spirit as priests who, in imitation of
Christ, are to offer up ourselves as "a living sacrifice pleasing to
God" (Rom 12:1; cf. Phil 4:18), and as prophets who are to call down
upon ourselves and upon our world the fire from heaven which transforms
(cf. I Kg 18:36-39; Mt 3:11; Lk 12:49). Also in baptism, we believe that
we recover the royalty of Adam in Paradise, and that, as "having been
clothed with Christ" (Rom 13:14), we are called to become ourselves
the "christs" - the "anointed ones" - of God.
B. Baptism within the Rites of Initiation
1. One Moment in a Single Action: In ancient times, initiation into the
Church was understood as a single action with different
"moments." Thus in Acts 2:38-42, we find baptism with water
directly followed by the reception of the Holy Spirit and "the
breaking of bread" (Eucharist) by the community; other texts in Acts
present the gift of the Spirit as preceding baptism (Acts 10:44-48;
11:15-17). This continuity between the various stages of initiation is
consistently reproduced in the oldest liturgical texts and in early
patristic witnesses: baptism with water in the name of the Trinity, a
post- (or pre-) baptismal anointing and/or laying-on of hands invoking the
Spirit, and participation in the Eucharist. The present-day ordering of
the Eastern Christian rites of initiation and the Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults in the Roman liturgy preserve this unity. In the case
of infant baptism, medieval Latin practice separated this unity of action,
deferring confirmation by the bishop and Eucharistic communion to a later
date. Indeed, the distinction which is customarily made today in both
churches between baptism and chrismation, or confirmation, was never
intended to separate the reception of the Spirit from incorporation into
the body of Christ, whose quickening principle is the same Spirit (see,
e.g., Rom 8:9-11, as well part III, B5 below).
2. The Method of Baptism: In ancient times, and in the contemporary
Orthodox Church, baptism is administered as a threefold immersion in water
hallowed by prayer and oil, while the baptizing minister invokes the Holy
Trinity. In the Roman rite of the Catholic Church since the later Middle
Ages, baptism has usually been administered by the infusion or pouring of
water sanctified by prayer and the sign of the Cross, accompanied by the
Trinitarian invocation. In past centuries and even today, some Orthodox
have protested against infusion as being an invalid form of baptism,
basing their protest on the mandate of baptismal immersion implied in such
Biblical passages as Rom 6.4 ("We were buried with [Christ] by
baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, we too
might walk in newness of life") . This criticism, however, should be
measured against the following considerations: a) "immersion" in
the ancient church did not always mean total submersion--archaeological
research indicates that many ancient baptismal pools were far too shallow
for total submersion; b) the Orthodox Church itself can and does recognize
baptism by infusion as valid in cases of emergency; c) for most of the
past millennium, the Orthodox Church has in fact recognized Catholic
baptism as valid (see our discussion in Part II below).
3. The Symbolism of Baptism: Baptism is at once a death and a new birth, a
washing-away of sin and the gift of the living water promised by Christ,
the grace of forgiveness and regeneration in the Spirit, a stripping-off
of our mortality and a clothing with the robe of incorruption. The
baptismal font is the "tomb" from which the newborn Christian
rises, and, as the place of our incorporation into the life of the Church,
the "womb" and "mother" of the Christian, the pool of
the divine light of the Spirit, the well-spring of immortality, the gate
of heaven, entry into the kingdom of God, cleansing, seal, bath of
regeneration and bridal chamber. All these are meanings the Fathers saw in
this sacrament, and all of them we continue to affirm.
4. The Non-Repeatability of Baptism: It is our common teaching that
baptism in water in the name of the Holy Trinity, as the Christian's new
birth, is given once and once only. In the language of fourth-century
Fathers of East and West, it confers the indelible seal (sphragis,
character) of the King. As the definitive entry of an individual believer
into the Church, it cannot be repeated. To be sure, the grace of baptism
may be betrayed by serious sin, but in such cases the modes prescribed for
the recovery of grace are repentance, confession, and -- in the Orthodox
usage for apostasy -- anointing with the sacred chrism; reconciliation
with the Church is never accomplished by baptism, whose repetition we have
always recognized as a sacrilege. C. The Results of our Investigation:
"We Confess One Baptism"
The Orthodox and Catholic members of our Consultation acknowledge, in both
of our traditions, a common teaching and a common faith in one baptism,
despite some variations in practice which, we believe, do not affect the
substance of the mystery. We are therefore moved to declare that we also
recognize each other's baptism as one and the same. This recognition has
obvious ecclesiological consequences. The Church is itself both the milieu
and the effect of baptism, and is not of our making. This recognition
requires each side of our dialogue to acknowledge an ecclesial reality in
the other, however much we may regard their way of living the Church's
reality as flawed or incomplete. In our common reality of baptism, we
discover the foundation of our dialogue, as well as the force and urgency
of the Lord Jesus prayer "that all may be one." Here, finally,
is the certain basis for the modern use of the phrase, "sister
churches." At the same time, since some are unwilling to accept this
mutual recognition of baptism with all its consequences, the following
investigation and explanation seems necessary.
II. PROBLEMS IN THE MUTUAL RECOGNITION OF BAPTISM A. Inconsistencies in
the Reception of Adults into Ecclesial Communion
1. The centralized administration of the modern Catholic Church, and the
absence of any office resembling the papacy in the modern Orthodox Church,
helps to explain the contrast between the diversity in modes of reception
of Catholics practiced by local Orthodox churches and the (relatively)
unitary practice of the Catholic Church over the past five hundred years
in receiving Orthodox. From the fifth-century writings of St. Augustine on
the Donatist Schism, the Latin tradition has been able to draw on a
clearly articulated rationale for recognizing the validity, though not
necessarily the fruitfulness, of trinitarian baptism outside the bounds of
the visible church. This does not mean, however, that the rebaptism of
Orthodox has never occurred in the Catholic Church; it appears, in fact,
to have occurred rather frequently in the Middle Ages. Pope Alexander VI
affirmed the validity of Orthodox baptism just after the turn of the
sixteenth century, and Rome has periodically confirmed this ruling since
then. Nevertheless, rebaptism continued to be practiced on the eastern
frontiers of Catholic Europe in Poland and the Balkans - contrary to Roman
policy - well into the seventeenth century. In addition, the practice of
"conditional baptism," a pastoral option officially intended for
cases of genuine doubt about the validity of a person's earlier baptism,
was also widely - and erroneously - used in the reception of
"dissident" Eastern Christians up to the era of Vatican II
itself, and afterwards was practiced occasionally in parts of Eastern
Europe. Vatican II, however, was explicit in recognizing both the validity
and the efficacy of Orthodox sacraments (Unitatis Redintegratio 15; cf.
Ecumenical Directory [1993] 99a).
2. In the Orthodox Church, a consistent position on the reception of those
baptized in other communions is much more difficult, though not
impossible, to discern. On the one hand, since the Council in Trullo
(692), the canonical collections authoritative in Orthodoxy have included
the enactments of third-century North African councils presided over by
Cyprian of Carthage, as well as the important late-fourth-century Eastern
collection, The Apostolic Canons. Cyprian's position, supported by his
contemporary bishop Firmilian of Caesaraea in Cappadocia, was that
salvation and grace are not mediated by schismatic communities, so that
baptism administered outside the universal apostolic communion is simply
invalid as an act of Christian initiation, deprived of the life-giving
Spirit (see Cyprian, Epp. 69.7; 71.1; 73.2; 75.17, 22-25). Influential as
it was to be, Cyprian and Firmilian both acknowledge that their position
on baptism is a relatively new one, forged probably in the 230s to deal
with the extraordinary new challenges presented by Christian sectarianism
in an age of persecution, but following logically from a clear sense of
the Church's boundaries. The Apostolic Canons, included in the larger
Apostolic Constitutions and probably representative of Church discipline
in Syria during the 380s, identifies sacraments celebrated by
"heretics" as illegitimate (can. 45 [46]), although it is not
clear in what sense the word "heretic" is being used; the
following canon brands it as equally sacrilegious for a bishop or
presbyter to rebaptize someone who is already truly baptized, and to
recognize the baptism of "someone who has been polluted by the
ungodly." Both Cyprian and the Apostolic Canons, in any case, draw a
sharp line between the authentic visible Church and every other group
which exists outside its boundaries, and accords no value whatever to the
rites of those "outside." On the other hand, continuing Eastern
practice from at least the fourth century has followed a more nuanced
position. This position is reflected in Basil of Caesarea's First
Canonical Epistle (Ep. 188, dated 374), addressed to Amphilochius of
Iconium, whichclaiming to follow the practice of "the
ancients"--distinguishes among three types of groups
"outside" the Church: heretics, "who differ with regard to
faith in God;" schismatics, who are separated from the body of the
Church "for some ecclesiastical reasons and differ from other
[Christians] on questions that can be resolved;" and
"parasynagogues," or dissidents who have formed rival
communities simply in opposition to legitimate authority (Ep. 188.1). Only
in the case of heretics in the strict sensethose with a different
understanding of God, among whom Basil includes Manichaeans, Gnostics, and
Marcionites--is baptism required for entry into communion with the Church.
Concerning the second and third groups, Basil declares that they are still
"of the Church," and as such are to be admitted into full
communion without baptism. This policy is also reflected in Canon 95 of
the Council in Trullo, which distinguishes between "Severians"
(i.e., non-Chalcedonians) and Nestorians, who are to be received by
confession of faith; schismatics, who are to be received by chrismation;
and heretics, who alone require baptism. Thus, in spite of the solemn
rulings of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils against their
christological positions, "Severians" and Nestorians are clearly
reckoned as still "of the Church," and seem to be understood in
Basil's category of "parasynagogues;" their baptisms are thus
understood--to use scholastic language--as valid, if perhaps illicit.
3. The schism between Catholics and Orthodox, unlike the schisms of the
Non-Chalcedonian and East Syrian Churches, came into being much later, and
only very slowly. Relations between Catholics and Orthodox through the
centuries have been, in consequence, highly varied, ranging from full
communion, on occasion, well into the late Middle Ages (and, in certain
areas, until later still), to a rejection so absolute that it seemed to
demand the rebaptism of new communicants. There are, however, in the
Orthodox tradition two important synodical rulings which represent the
continuation of the policy articulated by Basil, and affirmed by the Synod
in Trullo and later Byzantine canonists, rulings which we believe are to
be accorded primary importance: those of the Synod of Constantinople in
1484, and of Moscow in 1667. The first ruling, part of a document marking
the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate's formal repudiation of the Union of
Ferrara-Florence (1439) with the Catholic Church, prescribed that
Catholics be received into Orthodox communion by the use of chrism. In the
service for the reception of Catholic converts which the Synod published,
this anointing is not accompanied by the prayers which characterize the
rite of initiation; we find instead formulas of a penitential character.
The rite therefore appears to have been understood as part of a process of
reconciliation, rather than as a reiteration of post-baptismal
chrismation. It is this provision of Constantinople in 1484, together with
Canon 95 of the Synod in Trullo, which the Council of Moscow in 1667
invokes in its decree forbidding the rebaptism of Catholics, a decree that
has remained authoritative in the East Slavic Orthodox churches to the
present day.
B. Constantinople 1755, the Pedalion of Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain,
and "Sacramental Economy"
1. Constantinople 1755: In an atmosphere of heightened tension between
Orthodoxy and Catholicism following the Melkite Union of 1724, and of
intensified proselytism pursued by Catholic missionaries in the Near East
and in Hapsburg-ruled Transylvania, the Ecumenical Patriarch Cyril V
issued a decree in 1755 requiring the baptism of Roman Catholics,
Armenians, and all others presently outside the visible bounds of the
Orthodox Church, when they seek full communion with it. This decree has
never been formally rescinded, but subsequent rulings by the Patriarchate
of Constantinople (e.g., in 1875, 1880, and 1888) did allow for the
reception of new communicants by chrismation rather than baptism.
Nevertheless, these rulings left rebaptism as an option subject to
"pastoral discretion." In any case, by the late nineteenth
century a comprehensive new sacramental theology had appeared in
Greek-speaking Orthodoxy which provided a precise rationale for such
pastoral discretion; for the source of this new rationale, we must examine
the influential figure of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (1748-1809).
2. Nicodemus and the Pedalion: The Orthodox world owes an immense debt to
this Athonite monk, who edited and published the Philokalia (1783), as
well as numerous other works of a patristic, pastoral, and liturgical
nature. In the Pedalion (1800), his enormously influential edition of -
and commentary on - canonical texts, Nicodemus gave form and substance to
the requirement of rebaptism decreed by Cyril V. Thoroughly in sympathy
with the decree of 1755, and moved by his attachment to a perceived golden
age in the patristic past, he underscored the antiquity and hence priority
of the African Councils and Apostolic Canons, and argued strenuously, in
fact, for the first-century provenance of the latter. Nicodemus held up
these documents, with their essentially exclusivist ecclesiology, as the
universal voice of the ancient Church. In so doing, he systematically
reversed what had been the normative practice of the eastern church since
at least the 4th century, while recognizing the authority of both
Cyprian's conciliar legislation on baptism and the Apostolic Canons.
Earlier Byzantine canonists had understood Cyprians procedure as
superseded by later practice, and had interpreted the Apostolic Canons in
the light of the rulings of Basil the Great, the Synod in Trullo, and
other ancient authoritative texts.
3. "Sacramental Economy" according to Nicodemus of the Holy
Mountain: Nicodemus was clearly obliged, however, to reckon with the
approach of Basil the Great and the ecumenically-ranked Synod in Trullo to
baptism "outside" the visible Church, different though it was
from that of Cyprian. His attempt to reconcile his sources with each other
drew on a very ancient term, oikonomia, used in the New Testament and
patristic literature to denote both God's salvific plan and the prudent
"management" of the Churchs affairs, and employed in later
canonical literature as roughly the equivalent of "pastoral
discretion" or stewardship. In adapting this term to differentiate
between what he understood as the "strict" policy (akriveia) of
the ancient Church and the apparently more flexible practice (oikonomia)
of the Byzantine era, Nicodemus inadvertently bestowed a new meaning on
the term oikonomia. By means of this new understanding, Nicodemus was able
to harmonize the earlier, stricter practice of Cyprian with that of Basil
and other ancient canonical sources; so he could read the fathers of the
4th century as having exercised "economy" with regard to baptism
by Arians in order to facilitate their reentry into the Church, just as
the Synod in Trullo had done with respect to the "Severians" and
Nestorians, and could interpret the treatment of Latin baptism by
Constantinople at the Synod of 1484 and later Orthodox rulings as acts of
"economy" designed to shield the Orthodox from the wrath of a
more powerful Catholic Europe. In his own day, he argued, the Orthodox
were protected by the might of the Turkish Sultan, and so were again free
to follow the perennial "exactness" of the Church. Latins were
therefore now to be rebaptized.
4. Varying Understandings of the Phrase, "Pastoral Discretion":
After the publication of the Pedalion in 1800, backed by Nicodemus's
formidable personal authority, the opposed principles of akriveia and
oikonomia came to be accepted by much of Greek-speaking Orthodoxy as
governing the application of canon law in such a way as to allow for
either the rebaptism of Western Christians (katakriveian), or for their
reception by chrismation or profession of faith (katoikonomian), without
in either case attributing to their baptism any reality in its own right.
This is the understanding that underlies the "pastoral
discretion" enjoined by the Synod of Constantinople of 1875, as well
as by numerous directives and statements of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
since then. In the work of some modern canonists, oikonomia is understood
as the use of an authority by the Church's hierarchy, in cases of pastoral
need, to bestow a kind of retroactive reality on sacramental rites
exercised "outside" the Orthodox Church - rites which in and of
themselves remain invalid and devoid of grace. The hierarchy is endowed,
in this interpretation, with a virtually infinite power, capable, as it
were, of creating "validity" and bestowing grace where they were
absent before. This new unders tanding of "economy" does not,
however, enjoy universal recognition in the Orthodox Church. We have
already noted that the East Slavic Orthodox churches remain committed to
the earlier understanding and practice of the Byzantine era, which does
not imply the possibility of making valid what is invalid, or invalid what
is valid. Even within Greek-speaking Orthodoxy, "sacramental
economy" in the full Nicodemean sense does not command universal
acceptance. As a result, within world Orthodoxy, the issue of
"sacramental economy" remains the subject of intense debate, but
the Nicodemean interpretation is still promoted in important theological
and monastic circles. Although these voices in the Orthodox world are
significant ones, we do not believe that they represent the tradition and
perennial teaching of the Orthodox Church on the subject of baptism.
III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Conclusions
The "inconsistencies" to which we referred at the beginning of
our second section turn out, on closer inspection, to be less significant
than they might appear to be. Granted, a vocal minority in the Orthodox
Church refuses to accord any validity to Catholic baptism, and thus
continues to justify in theory (if less frequently in fact) the
(re)baptism of converts from Catholicism. Against this one fact, however,
we present the following considerations:
1. The Orthodox and Catholic churches both teach the same understanding of
baptism. This identical teaching draws on the same sources in Scripture
and Tradition, and it has not varied in any significant way from the very
earliest witnesses to the faith up to the present day.
2. A central element in this single teaching is the conviction that
baptism comes to us as God's gift in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. It
is therefore not "of us," but from above. The Church does not
simply require the practice of baptism; rather, baptism is the Church's
foundation. It establishes the Church, which is also not "of us"
but, as the body of Christ quickened by the Spirit, is the presence in
this world of the world to come.
3. The fact that our churches share and practice this same faith and
teaching requires that we recognize in each other the same baptism and
thus also recognize in each other, however "imperfectly," the
present reality of the same Church. By Gods gift we are each, in St.
Basils words, "of the Church."
4. We find that this mutual recognition of the ecclesial reality of
baptism, in spite of our divisions, is fully consistent with the perennial
teaching of both churches. This teaching has been reaffirmed on many
occasions. The formal expression of the recognition of Orthodox baptism
has been constant in the teaching of the popes since the beginning of the
sixteenth century, and was emphasized again at the Second Vatican Council.
The Synods of Constantinople in 1484 and Moscow in 1667 testify to the
implicit recognition of Catholic baptism by the Orthodox churches, and do
so in a way fully in accord with the earlier teaching and practice of
antiquity and the Byzantine era.
5. The influential theory of "sacramental economy" propounded in
the Pedalion commentaries does not represent the tradition and perennial
teaching of the Orthodox Church; it is rather an eighteenth-century
innovation motivated by the particular historical circumstances operative
in those times. It is not the teaching of scripture, of most of the
Fathers, or of later Byzantine canonists, nor is it the majority position
of the Orthodox churches today.
6. Catholics in the present day who tax the Orthodox with sins against
charity, and even with sacrilege, because of the practice of rebaptism
should bear in mind that, while the rebaptism of Orthodox Christians was
officially repudiated by Rome five hundred years ago, it nonetheless
continued in some places well into the following century and occasionally
was done, under the guise of "conditional baptism," up to our
own times.
B. Recommendations
On the basis of these conclusions we would like to offer to our churches
the following suggestions:
1. That the International Commission begin anew where the Bari statement
of 1987, "Faith, Sacraments, and the Unity of the Church," came
to an abrupt conclusion, simply recognizing similarities and differences
in our practice of Christian initiation, and that it proceed to reaffirm
explicitly and clearly, with full explanation, the theological grounds for
mutual recognition by both churches of each other's baptism;
2. That our churches address openly the danger that some modern theories
of "sacramental economy" pose, both for the continuation of
ecumenical dialogue and for the perennial teaching of the Orthodox Church;
3. That the Patriarchate of Constantinople formally withdraw its decree on
rebaptism of 1755;
4. That the Orthodox churches declare that the Orthodox reception of
Catholics by chrismation does not constitute a repetition of any part of
their sacramental initiation; and
5. That our churches make clear that the mutual recognition of baptism
does not of itself resolve the issues that divide us, or reestablish full
ecclesial communion between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, but that
it does remove a fundamental obstacle on our path towards full communion.
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