Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Water is poured on the head of an infant held over the baptismal font of a Roman Catholic church. Infant baptism [1] [2] (or paedobaptism) is the practice of baptizing infants or young children. Infant baptism is also called christening by some faith traditions. Most Christians belong to denominations that practice infant baptism.
Though water baptism is extremely common among Christian denominations, some, such as Quakers and The Salvation Army, do not practice water baptism at all. [20] Among denominations that practice baptism, differences occur in the manner and mode of baptizing and in the understanding of the significance of the rite.
A full-immersion baptism in a New Bern, North Carolina river at the turn of the 20th century. 15th-century painting by Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, Florence. Immersion baptism (also known as baptism by immersion or baptism by submersion) is a method of baptism that is distinguished from baptism by affusion (pouring) and by aspersion (sprinkling), sometimes without specifying whether the ...
In the West, baptism by aspersion and affusion slowly became the common practice in later centuries. In aspersion, an aspergillum may be used to place the water on the skin. The Roman Catholic Church regards baptism by aspersion as valid only if the water actually flows on the person's skin and is thus equivalent to pouring ("affusion"). [1]
The use of holy water is based on the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, and the Orthodox interpretation of this event. In their view, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance, and the people came to have their sins washed away by the water.
They understand Peter’s words to imply that water baptism is a symbolic picture of the Holy Spirit baptism. If this is right, affusionists contend, then water baptism should be, or, at least, can be, by pouring, because the baptism with the Holy Spirit of which it is a picture occurs by pouring.
One of the earliest of the Church Fathers to enunciate clearly and unambiguously the doctrine of baptismal regeneration ("the idea that salvation happens at and by water baptism duly administered") was Cyprian (c. 200 – 258): "While he attributed all the saving energy to the grace of God, he considered the 'laver of saving water' the instrument of God that makes a person 'born again ...
By then, postponement of baptism had become general, and a large proportion of believers were merely catechumens (Constantine was not baptized until he was dying); but as baptisms of the children of Christians, using an adaptation of the rite intended for adults, became more common than baptisms of adult converts, the number of catechumens ...