Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church

Question: Why the calendar went from Old to New?

Answer: Indeed, why? To begin with, let us first see where the New Calendar comes from, who inspired its creation and whether it is ‘more correct’ than the Old, or Julian, or Church Calendar. For some answers to these questions we shall turn to A Scientific Examination of the Orthodox Church Calendar, a book by Hieromonk Cassian. We are not going to publish here the whole book, but rather offer it to you in a best-seller form. So, let us begin.

A Concise Account Of The Origin Of The Modern Calendar
Or Why The Orthodox Feast Days
Do Not Coincide With Holidays Of Other Christian Communities

Introduction

    Orthodox Church lives by Julian Calendar, that is by the calendar that was the Church Calendar since the time of Christ. Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches live by Gregorian Calendar which was introduced in 1582. Today the difference between the two calendars amounts to thirteen days. For example, the day which is January 1 on the Julian Calendar is January 14 according to the Gregorian Calendar. The Gregorian Calendar reform has nothing to do with the Orthodox Church, for the reason that when the Gregorian Calendar was introduced into practice by the Pope of Rome the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches lived different lives and moved into spiritually different directions for 600 – 700 years. Still, since the Gregorian Calendar is not only the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches but also a civil calendar throughout most of the world, it would not be void of interest to look back and see how the Gregorian Calendar came about and why.

Glossary

Jews, Jewish — here, these words are used to signify not people of the Jewish nationality, but those practicing Judaism as a religion.
Pascha — Feast of the Resurrection of Christ. The word Pascha was used in the times of the Apostles, and as such, it has been preserved in the practice of the Orthodox Church. The word Easter that the Western Christianity uses is of pagan origin as it is the name of a pagan goddess.
Paschalion — tables that calculate the day for the celebration of Pascha, as it varies from year to year.
Vernal Equinox — a day in the spring when the duration of the day equals that of the night.

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   The Church Calendar (and we must talk about the Church Calendar, since we are concerned with the Christian Holy Days) was designed to suit the need and requirements of the One Holy and Apostolic Church, and, as such, is subject only to the Church. Yet, it was not drafted as something abstract, as something isolated from either life in general or science in particular. The Church Calendar has never contradicted scientific developments, but has in every way, served as an invaluable aid to those seeking God. The Church Calendar functions as a spiritual chronometer set to the rhythm of Scriptural events, especially those of the New Testament.
    When Julius Cæsar inaugurated his eponymous calendar in 46 B. C., it was intended for general use in the Roman Empire, and so it remained until the First Ecumenical Council (325 A. D.). In the immediate centuries after Christ, Christianity quickly spread throughout the Empire and beyond. The impediments to communication at the time allowed local traditions to develop an undue strength. So it was that the early Christians did not necessarily celebrate Pascha at the same time. It thus became imperative to formalize the Apostolic teaching concerning the celebration of this Feast of Feasts as an inviolable rule. The Seventh Apostolic Canon proclaims: “A Bishop, a Presbyter, or a Deacon who celebrates the Holy Day of Pascha before the vernal equinox, together with the Jews, shall be deposed from his holy rank”. It stipulates that the Pascha be celebrated after Jewish Passover and after the vernal equinox. The Passover is always celebrated on the fourteenth of the month of Nisan (March/April), which is the date of the first full moon of spring in the Jewish Calendar. Therefore, the Paschal full moon is determined by the lunar calendar, while the vernal equinox is determined by the solar calendar.
   Summoned in Nicæa, a town of Asia Minor, the First Ecumenical Council not only defended some of the most important dogmatic principles of Christianity, but also appropriated the Julian Calendar for the ecclesiological use by conjoining it to the Jewish Calendar in the establishment of a uniform calculation of Pascha — the Paschalion —, a calculation that was to supersede the various local practices which up to that time had caused liturgical confusion within the Church.
It was the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of 325 A. D. who synchronized the lunar calendar and the solar calendar in compliance with the Seventh Apostolic Canon, cited above. It did so by introducing a universal time-reckoning scheme, which remains to this day as the basis of all of the service books of the Orthodox Church.

History of the Calendar Reform of Pope Gregory XIII

Keep that which is committed to thy trust,
avoiding profane and vain babblings,
and oppositions of science falsely so called:
which some professing have erred concerning the Faith.
1 Timothy 6:20 –21

   In 1411, the French theologian and future Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly presented a project for a new calendar to Pope John XXIII. However, it was tabled in the face of a much more immediate issue — the necessity of quashing an uprising in Czech lands led by the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus, who was agitating against the Latin practice of denying the laity communion from the Eucharistic cup. Hus was burned at the stake, becoming a national hero to the Czechs and igniting the Hussite Wars (1419 – 1436).
   During the sixteenth century, two councils of the Roman Catholic Church discussed matters relating to the reformation of the calendar: the Fifth Lateran Council (1512 – 1517) and the Council of Trent (1545 – 1563). When the Lateran Council appointed a commission for the reformation of the calendar, the Roman Curia invited Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish astronomer famed throughout Europe, and his colleagues to Rome. Copernicus, however, declined, because he considered the calendar reform an exercise in futility. During the reign of Pope Pius V (1504 – 1572) a new service book, the Breviarium Romanum, was published containing a new liturgical calendar. However, this provoked disquiet and general commotion among both the clergy and the laity, compelling the Pope to invalidate the calendar.

     During this time, Protestantism began to spread. In the fluctuating circumstances of the ongoing Reformation and Counter-Reformation, Ugo Buoncompagnia came to the Papal throne as Gregory XIII. Ambitious and power-hungry, he was willing to pay any price to strengthen the authority of the Roman see. Endeavoring to satisfy the rationalistic bent of Protestants, Gregory disregarded both the Apostolic Canons and the Canons of the First Ecumenical Council of 325 A. D. The keynote of his calendar reform was the idea that the vernal equinox should be invariably fixed to the date of March 21, (which, that is the fixed date for the vernal equinox, was never a concern of the Fathers of the early Church) and the Pascha was to be celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon after March 21. This entails a violation of a crucial stipulation of the Fathers of the early Church, that the Holy Day of Pascha should never coincide with the Jewish Passover.
The physician Luigi Lilio, a Calabrian instructor in medicine at the University of Peruggia, was the actual architect of the Gregorian Calendar. Lilio’s working premise, the belief that the seasons and all events related to them were the result of planetary motion around the earth, stemmed from the notion of geocentrism, i.e. of the planet Earth being the center of the universe! Thus, the earth — or, to be more precise, Rome or Italy, since Lilio only observed the vernal equinox in his corner of the world — served as the point of the reference in this new calendar. From a scientific perspective, the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemæus, upon which Lilio based himself, are hopelessly naïve. But the Roman Catholic Church was, at the time, theologically committed to geocentrism, and, accordingly, in 1616, it decried as false and erroneous the Copernican theory of heliocentrism, i.e. the view that the earth, along with other planets, revolved around the sun. (From the historical point of view, heliocentric cosmology was, in fact, nothing more than a revival of an ancient idea.) In 1543, on his deathbed, Copernicus published his classic statement of heliocentric theory, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. Despite the earlier positive repute in which the Roman Catholicism had held Copernicus (recall that in 1514 he had been invited to Rome to contribute to the calendar reform, but had declined the offer), in 1616, Pope Paul V placed this treatise on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Copernicus’ Revolutions had started a scientific revolution against the sacred cow of Scholasticism and its obsession with Aristotle as the philosopher. Heliocentrism unmasked the pretended “scientific character” of the Gregorian Calendar.

   The key figure in this revolution was Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). The inventor of the telescope could see by the means of his invention that it is not the sun that revolves around the earth, but vice versa. He went to Rome to defend Copernicus and argued that both the Holy Scripture and nature speak the Word of God, yet do so in different languages. His arguments, however, fell on deaf ears. At the time, the Latin Church was little concerned with the scientific truth, instead, its attention was wholly focused on gaining the upper hand in its struggle with Protestantism. Thus, Rome declared Copernicanism to be a heresy “more scandalous, more detestable, more pernicious to Catholicism than any contained in the books of Calvin, of Luther, and all other heretics put together.” It seemed that dreadful of a theory because it undermined the idea of Papal supremacy: Pope of Rome being the earth, and the rest of the planets and stars being his subjects whose existence depends solely on his person.
   Galileo Galilei, already being a frail old man, was hauled before the Inquisition on “grave suspicion of heresy,” that is of the earth revolving around the sun. Given the opportunity to contemplate “burning faggots, the wheel, the rack, the gallows, and other ingenious refinements of torture,” the aged astronomer quickly realized his errors. Having uttered the forced abjuration of his previous beliefs, he subsequently muttered the famous words, “Eppur si muove!” (Nevertheless, it [the earth] does move!)”

 
Part II

   Once the work on the new calendar was underway, the famous French scholar Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540 – 1609) — recognized as the father of modern chronology — was invited to contribute. But like Copernicus before him, Scaliger energetically opposed the idea of reforming the calendar, even writing a major treatise, proving the superiority of the chronological system of the Julian/Old Calendar over that of the Gregorian. He demonstrated the practical convenience inherent in the Julian Calendar’s ability to provide an invariable continuity of the reckoning of events. In fact, the modern disciplines of astronomy and chronology continue to utilize Scaliger’s “Julian Period”, a 7,980-year cycle, with Julian day 1 beginning at noon, January 1, 4713 BC.

   The commission established to reform the calendar was headed by a Jesuit, the German mathematician Christopher Clavius (1537 – 1612). Despite his ardent Roman Catholic beliefs and his sincere desire to help in the task at hand, Clavius’ conscience as a scholar compelled him to confess several deficiencies of the Gregorian Calendar. The most serious of these was that the data upon which the reform was based — the Prutenic Tables — were grounded on uncertain, even preposterous hypotheses. Clavius admitted four deficiencies, two of which are of highly technical nature and therefore are not discussed here, but other two are the following:

   1. The vernal equinox is unstable and thus incapable of being fixed to a given date, contrary to the stated goal of the reform. For instance, in 2005, the vernal equinox falls not on March 21, but on March 17.

   2. The reform allowed the Pascha to be celebrated before or together with the Jews. Again, taking the current 2005 (the synopsis was comprised in that year), we can see that the Easter, calculated according to the Gregorian Calendar falls on Sunday, March 27; Jews celebrate the Passover on Saturday, April 23; the Orthodox celebrate the Feast of Feasts, the Holy Pascha, on Sunday, May 1, in accordance with the Holy Apostolic Tradition.

   Other scientists, whom the Papal throne came in contact with seeking their support to the new calendar, either expressed no interest in the scheme or gave responses close to the one that came from the Sorbonne: “Since this reform is not in accordance with the Œcumenical Councils, its acceptance will place us in the same category as the Quartodecimans (the heretics who celebrated Pascha on the 14th of Nisan, i.e. together with the Jews), and we will be in contradiction to the whole ecclesiastical and historical past.”

    In carrying out his calendar reform, Pope Gregory XIII wished to stay abreast of the latest astronomical advances and to create a work that was on the cutting edge of scientific achievement. But the suffering inflicted by the Inquisition upon a host of famous scientists — Galileo Galilei, Joseph Scaliger, Andreas Vesalius, Giordano Bruno, Molilio Vaniny, etc. — showed that the Papal commitment to “scientific precision” was mere window-dressing.

    Despite this largely negative reception from the scholarly world, on February 24, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII issued a special Papal bull entitled “Inter Gravissimas”, declaring that the dates of the Julian Calendar were to be moved ten days ahead. The day after Thursday, October 4, 1582, was to be considered not October 5, but Friday, October 15, 1582.

The Spread of the New Calendar

    The acceptance of this Papal calendar reform has steadily grown over the centuries since its introduction. In the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nations of Italy, Portugal, Spain and Luxembourg, the Gregorian Calendar took effect as scheduled, on October 4, 1582. Other Roman Catholic countries soon followed suit: France — December 9, 1583; Catholic states of Germany eradicated the last ten days of 1583; Austria, Poland, Belgium and Switzerland enacted the reform in 1584; and Hungary adopted the Gregorian Calendar in 1587.

   But in the countries where the Reformation had made greater inroads, the Gregorian Calendar met with strong initial resistance. Protestants organized processions openly protesting and ridiculing the Gregorian Calendar. Nevertheless, flexing his temporal muscle, Gregory forced his reform on Protestant Germany by compelling the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, Rudolf II, to proclaim the ecclesiastical and civil usage of the Papal Calendar throughout his realm. The Bavarian Duke Wilhelm advised the bishops of Salzburg to accept the reform, but, despite their assent, popular opposition obstructed their efforts, including an uprising centered in Staemark that was eventually quenched by bloodshed. Another similar uprising was incited in Augsburg. The old town of Speyer refused to accept the Gregorian innovation, expressing its intentions of living in peace with its neighbors. Archduke Ernst requested that the Emperor rescind his decree, but Rudolf disregarded his sound advice. The Gregorian Calendar thus further aggravated the rivalry between Roman Catholics and Protestants, a rivalry that ultimately erupted in the destructive Thirty Years’ War (1618 – 1648). This protracted conflict rapidly disintegrated Germany into city-states, retarding its political unification for centuries to come. Germany partially adopted the new calendar in 1700, followed by its full acceptance in 1778, by order of King Frederick II of Prussia. We must also note the so-called “Calendar Riot”, which burst out in Riga in 1584. The struggle lasted several years and ended in 1589, when its leaders were arrested, tortured and executed.

   Yet the old adage, “Time heals all wounds” proved true in the case of Catholic-Protestant hostilities. Protestant resistance to the Gregorian Calendar grew weaker. This is not surprising, since the initial protests were in no way dogmatically or canonically motivated by the ancient teaching and traditions of Christianity. Slowly but surely one Protestant country after another acquiesced. Denmark accepted the Papal Calendar in 1700. In Great Britain and Ireland (as well as in the British colonies in North America) September 2, 1752, was followed by September 14, furthermore, in accordance with the reform the New Year’s Day was transferred from March 25 to January 1. Thus, in English history, the year 1751 has only 282 days. Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, who introduced this reform, could not show himself in public, for the people viewed him as a traitor; crowds derided him with the cry: “Give us back our eleven days!” Finland and Sweden were next, in 1753, the Netherlands — in 1775, while some cantons of Switzerland held out until 1811.

 Answer of the Orthodox

   Thus, through patience, persistence, and pressure, the Papacy effectively imposed its New Calendar on the West. The East, however, proved much more difficult for the reformers. Pope Gregory XIII sent envoys bearing lavish gifts to Constantinople, hoping to entice Patriarch Jeremiah II (1536 – 1595) to embrace the Papal Calendar. The Patriarch convened three councils in Constantinople, in 1583, 1587, and 1593, which condemned the New Calendar. Patriarch Sylvester of Alexandria attended the first of these, and, at the same time, wrote an encyclical to the Christians of the Western Europe, wherein he states: “The Orthodox Church has determined once and for all never to accept any innovation and never to abandon anything traditional.” The proclamation of the 1593 council read: “Whosoever does not follow the Tradition of the Church and all that the Seven Œcumenical Councils have ordained concerning the Holy Pascha and the Menaion (calendar of the festal days), wishing instead to follow the new Paschalion and Menaion of the Papal astronomers, opposes all the ordinances of the Holy Councils. Let such a one be anathema, excommunicated from the Church of Christ and from the assembly of the Faithful. And you, pious and Orthodox Christians, live long with what you have learned and, if necessary, shed your very blood to defend the Faith of your Fathers and your religion.” This decision was conveyed to all of the holy local Orthodox Churches, to the Doge of Venice, to Pope Gregory XIII, and to others. In the subsequent three centuries, the Orthodox Church produced several crucial documents illustrating the irreconcibility of the Orthodox Faith with the Gregorian Calendar. In the eighteenth century, the Roman Pontiff’s unrelenting policy of Drang hach Osten provoked Patriarch Cyril V to issue an encyclical that declared: “Whosoever does not follow the words of the partaker of the heavenly mysteries, Paul, who in his Epistle to the Galatians said, ‘But though we, or an Angel from Heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed,’ that man — be he a priest or a layman — will be excommunicated from God, damned…”

   In the nineteenth century, Patriarch Anthimos VI addressed all Orthodox Christians in defense of the Faith of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. His encyclical of 1848 states: “In Our Church, neither Patriarch nor Councils can introduce anything new, because the guardian of piety is the very Body of the Church herself… Let us cling to the confession which we have received from such men — the Holy Fathers; let us avoid every innovation as a demonic suggestion… And even if they be Popes, Patriarchs, clergy, laymen, or an Angel from Heaven, let them be accursed.” There are numerous other examples of the Orthodox condemnation of the Papal calendar reform: 1672, Patriarch Dositheos II of Jerusalem proclaimed: “Wrongly have the contemporary astronomers of the Old Rome removed ten days from the month of October”; in 1827, Ecumenical Patriarch Agathangelos forbade any correction of the Church Calendar; in 1895, Patriarch Anthimos VII forbade even so much as a discussion of the calendar issue; and in 1903, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Church of Russia, and the Church of Greece each concluded that the acceptance of the Gregorian Calendar would be deleterious to the Orthodox Faith.

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      Centuries after the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, an unexpected vindication of the Church Calendar came in the XIX century in the works of the mathematical genius Carl Friedrich Gauss. Director of the Göttingen Observatory and a professor at Göttingen University, Gauss derived the mathematical formulæ for the calculation of the Orthodox Paschalion. By this time, in the West, Easter was celebrated according to the Gregorian Calendar. Yet the Western Paschalion was of no scientific interest to him. (In fact, it is by relying on the calculations of the Orthodox Pascha that the Gregorian Paschalists recalculate and make corrections to their own Paschalion). Although Gauss was not Orthodox, he was obviously impressed by the antiquity and cyclicity of the Julian Calendar, clearly recognizing its scientific worth.

     In 1905 Albert Einstein developed his famous theory of relativity, which radicaly transformed our concept of time. Once thought of as something absolute, static, and fixed, time is now thought of as something relative, dynamic, and flexible. Ironically, the “New” Gregorian Calendar is only compatible with the older view of temporality, while the “Old” Julian Calendar is wholly compatible with the newer view. Adopted from A Scientific Examination of the Orthodox Church Calendar, by Hieromonk Cassian

Question: Why the Orthodox practice infant baptism, whereas Protestants do not? .

Answer: The New Testament does not directly call for baptism of children? Well, it does not directly call for baptism of women and old people either. The Lord said: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them…” (Matt. 28:19). Here no one is excluded either because of his nationality, gender or age. The Holy Scripture always specifies if the women and children are not included among those mentioned (for example, in Matt. 14:21). When talking about baptism, such specifications are not given.

On the contrary. The New Testament describes events that presuppose that children were baptised together with their parents: Lydia was baptised with “her household” (Acts 16:15); to the keeper of the prison who wanted to commit suicide, Holy Apostle Paul said: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31); Saint Paul writes to the community in Corinth: “I baptized also the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor. 1:16). The Apostles baptized an entire community in Samaria (Acts 8:14-17) and it is possible that there were children in it.

Apostle Peter says to those who have received faith: “The promise is to you and to your children” ( Acts 2:39). He also says that children can be “believers” (he explains who can be a spiritual leader of the community: “If any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers” (Titus 1:6)). Here, the Scripture uses word pistoV which in the New Testament signifies a Christian, a baptized person, a partaker of the inheritance of Christ. For example: “When she was baptized with her household, she besought us, saying: ’If you judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay’” (Acts 16:15; compare: Eph. 1:1, Acts 10:15, Rev. 17:14, I Tim. 4:10, 1 Cor. 7:14).

Here is another significant passage: “The unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy” (1 Cor. 7:14). Can the people who are outside of the Covenant, that is not baptized children, be referred to as “holy”? Can be holy those who are not grafted to the only root of holiness there is — Christ (Rom. 11:16)?

When expounding on this passage, the Protestants say that those children were ’holy’ with the holiness they received by birth from their believing mother, and, therefore, they do not need to be baptized. In this case, they should say the same about the husband of a believing wife: if he, when yet a pagan, was sanctified through his believing wife, shouldn’t he be accepted into Christianity without baptism, too?

If it were so, then we have two doors for entrance into the Church: those who do not have Christian relatives will have to be baptized; whereas those who have Christians among their relatives would only have to bring a notarized affidavit from them. If this is absurd, then the suggestion that the mother’s faith on its own sanctifies her children, without the Mystery of the regenerating grace of Christ, is no less absurd.

Therefore, we are compelled to admit that the children have become ’holy’ through their own personal sanctification, that is through baptism.

Protestants insist on the most literal understanding of the Gospel words: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark 16:16). No faith — no baptism. Children cannot have faith, therefore, they may not be brought to the baptismal font. However, if one is to apply this text to everyone, not only the adults, then we have a monstrous teaching. Why? Because this text is continued with the following words of Christ: “But he who does not believe will be condemned”. If the children cannot believe and this formula is to applied to them, then, consequently, they are already condemned. If the child dies — he cannot be saved (or your child lives in the state of condemnation till he is baptized).

Hence, this baptismal formula, stipulating baptism after confession of faith, is applied only to adults and in no way to children.

What is the age when the Baptists consider baptism a possibility? When is the age of the childish lack of intellect over? Dealing with this problem, the Baptists usually follow the civil law, i.e. when the young person is considered ’of age’, or responsible for his actions.

Here is a story for us to reconsider the age limits of the spiritual maturity. I was in a place called Noiabrsk in Siberia, with no Orthodox priest in town. It was December of 1996. I was invited to visit a family who had recently entered the Orthodox Church; I was introduced to their youngest child Maksim, a six-year-old boy. And here is what his father told me: “Last week I was in bed with osteochondrosis and for 24 hours I just couldn’t get up. Next morning, Maksim warily peeped into my room and asked: ‘Dad, do you feel any better?’ —’Well’, I said, ‘a little bit better, I think I can almost get up’. Then Maksim turned around and, running from the room, dropped: ‘Alright, Dad, then I am going to pray for you a little bit longer!’” Here is a question for the Protestants: here is little Maksim, here is his faith, here is water. What prevents him from being baptized?

Metropolitan Benjamin (Fedchenkov) used to recall how a girl from a Protestant family who died without baptism appeared in a vision to a priest and asked him to pray for her. Such a testimony cannot just be brushed off — Christianity is a sphere of action.

In the same manner one cannot fit into the narrow frame of the Protestant theology the spiritual progress of thousands of Orthodox ascetics, who had been baptized as infants and later in their lives achieved unquestionable holiness. Who will say that Elder Amvrosii of Optina was not a Christian at all, that he was not a member of the Church only because he was baptized in infancy, instead of after having had arrived at the full legal age, and not according to the Protestant practice?

 Saint Irenæus of Lyons

The Church has always considered admissible baptism of children of the Christian parents. Hieromartyr Irenæus of Lyons (†202) testifies to this when he says: “Christ has come to save everyone through Himself; I say everyone, who are regenerated through Him for God: infants, children, adolescents, youths and elderly” (Against Heresies).

Origen

Origen (†254) speaks about baptism of children as about Apostolic tradition: “The Church has received from the Apostles the tradition to minister baptism to infants, too” (On the Romans).

In 252 the local council of Carthage decreed: “We have no right to keep anyone away from baptism and from the grace of God, Who is merciful to everyone; Who is good and compassionate. If this is faithfully to be applied to everyone, then especially, so we think, this must be applied to the newly-born infants who have an advantage in deserving our help and God’s mercy only because, right from the moment of their birth, all their existence is supplication expressed by their crying and tears”.

Even Martin Luther himself, the instigator of the Protestant movement, in 1522 condemned the Anabaptists who denied validity of children’s baptism. Luther was baptized as a child and refused to be re-baptized, using himself as an example proving the grace-filling power of the children’s baptism: “That the children’s baptism is pleasing to God is abundantly proved by His own activity, namely, that God makes many of them saints and gives them the Holy Spirit… If God did not accept children’s baptism, then at all times up to this day there has never been a single Christian on earth…” (For it were Anabaptists in the 16th century who invented to withhold baptism from children).

For Luther, as well as for the Orthodox Christians, baptism is a washing with water, which is permeated by Christ’s grace, and, therefore, it is a Mystery.

Protestants are convinced that in their baptism the Holy Spirit is not imparted to them. Hence, what they’ve got is empty ritualism; dead form; rather pointless imitation of the ancient tradition of the Church. They also have their children from whom Christ is hiding behind the pages of their “dogmatic theology”.

THE END

Question: (cont.) Why the Orthodox practice infant baptism, whereas Protestants do not? .

Answer: We are told that children may not be baptised because they cannot pledge allegiance to God, since, according to Apostle Peter, baptism is “the answer of a good conscience toward God” (1 Peter 3:21 (King James Version)). This Protestant argument is founded on an incorrect translation of the Scripture. The Church Slavonic translation, as well as Revised Standard Version, is closer to the original text: “Baptism… an appeal to God for a clear conscience” (RSV), or “beseeching of God for a good conscience” (Church Slavonic translation). Here, baptism is not an offering, not a promise, but a plea…

Could there be a mistake in the traditional Orthodox reading and understanding of the passage? Holy Hierarch Gregory the Theologian (4th century) confirms that Holy Apostle Paul talks about a gift of a good conscience that the newly-illumined receives in baptism (Holy Hierarch Gregory the Theologian, Fortieth Word on Baptism). What Saint Gregory is saying excludes any possibility that the passage can be understood otherwise, for he, alluding to Ecclesiastes 5:4, writes: “Do not promise anything to God, not even anything insignificant, because everything belongs to God even before it was received by Him from you”.

The verb eperwtao, in classical Greek, can mean ‘promise’. But the New Testament is written not in classical Greek but in Koine, that is, a version of Greek which used in court, literature and commerce, where the word means ‘request’, ‘plea’. For instance, in Matthew 16:1, Pharisees ‘‘ephrwthsan’’ — ‘asked’ Christ. This verb is also used in Matt. 22:46, Mark 9:32, 11:29, Luke 2:46, 6:9, Rom. 10:20, 1 Cor. 14:35. And it is the verbal noun of this verb that is used in the 21st verse of the 3rd chapter of Apostle Peter’s First Epistle. More than that, in the entire New Testament this Greek verb is never used in the meaning of ‘promise’, ‘offering’, or ‘vow’.

So we see that baptism is a request. But request of what? Continuation of this passage of Saint Peter explains: “Baptism… saves you… through resurrection of Jesus Christ”. Which means that baptism delivers a gift from God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We do not offer a gift to God, but we hope to receive help from Him. Baptism saves us not because in it we promise something to God, but because in it the Saviour offers us the fruit of His resurrection. In baptism we ask God to give us a good, renewed conscience. The gift of conscience, which distinguishes good from evil, is renewed through the resurrection of Christ. Heathens are judged by the law of conscience, as well as every person is judged by it, but the conscience of a Christian is illumined by the gift of salvation. Holy Apostle Peter says that we have to live in good conscience.

But if I, without Christ, already possess a good conscience (which I am called upon to offer to Christ) — then why do I need Him? If I am good and righteous (so good that I can give some of this goodness to Christ at my baptism) — why do I need the Cross of Christ?

Here we see that we need a “renewal of mind”, we must beseech God for the gift of discernment of spirits — and this is a radical change which cannot happen in the person without God entering him, cannot happen just by our exercise of will or intelligence. Therefore, baptism is not a pledge, not a vow, not a legally binding commitment, as the Protestants understand it, but the inward change which makes us the people “who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:14).

Is this plea for a clear conscience untimely for children? Yes, the child cannot promise anything, but can’t he ask? Isn’t all his life a continuous plea? “God is greater than our hearts” (1 John 3:20) and, nevertheless, He gives us this greatness, He puts it into us.

Do children need Christ or they don’t? — this is the ultimate question when talking about baptism of children. How to place them under the protection of Christ? How to instill in them the full-of-grace gift of Christ’s sacrifice?

Are the Baptist parents’ children in Christ? If yes, then how did they come into the fold of Christ? Sometimes, the Baptists say that their children outside of Christ, since they are not yet baptised. (“We sternly affirm that children, both ours who are without baptism or any other’s even if baptised, cannot follow the adults into the Church and they shall never be in the Church, as they cannot repent and do not have personal faith”. From Baptist, #2, 1912). So, if the children are not with Christ, if they are outside of the Body of the Head of the Church, they must be in the hold of the “prince of this world”, i.e. Satan. Could a Protestant parent say looking in his child’s eyes: “You are not of the Church. You are not of Christ. In this I cannot help you. The teaching of our Church forces me to think that the only way to enter the Church is off limits for you”?..

 Since not every Baptist can substitute his heart with a book of Protestant theology, there appear in the Protestant literature strange things explaining possibility of salvation without baptism and possibility of purification without entering the Covenant with Christ. Thus, to justify their conviction that their unbaptized children are pure, Baptists appeal to the words of the apostles that “sin is abolished by the sacrifice of Christ”. But this sacrifice was offered for the whole world. Therefore, if this sacrifice makes it unnecessary for children to be baptised, then they shouldn’t baptize adults also. If the Evangelical Christians believe that the gifts of the sacrifice of Christ are transmitted without baptism only to children and that only to them it makes baptism unnecessary, then let the Protestants offer us any biblical proof of their teaching.

And they’d better not cite Christ’s words about children: “of such is the Kingdom of Heaven” (KJV), for the Gospel text uses not the demonstrative pronoun ‘theirs’, as it is sometimes translated, but ‘of such’,  which means that Christ is saying that people who are like children in some of their traits will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. This passage should not be understood as a promise of the Heavenly Kingdom based on age. Besides, Christ said: “Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15).

If they, in the sects, receive the children into the Kingdom of God without baptism, let them also receive adults like children, that is, without baptism. To Be Continued...

Questions:  Why do some people get baptized as babies and some as adults? What is the difference?   Why do some religions believe in infant baptism and some believe in young adult baptism? Could you please explain? .

Answer: The divergence that exits in views of Orthodox and Protestants concerning baptism of children is not merely a problem of the baptismal rite. Fundamental differences between the Eastern and Western Christianity are behind the issue.

Protestantism understands salvation as forgiveness which Christ proclaims to those who believe in Him.

Orthodoxy understands salvation as life of God within us, as healing.

Protestants say that since infants are legally incapable and unintelligent, they cannot profess the Gospel doctrine and, therefore, cannot be members of the people of God.

Orthodoxy, on the other hand, proceeds from the notion that to know what the air is is one thing, but to breathe this air is something different. Infant does not know characteristics and origin of milk but he cannot live without it. What kind of mother can say to her sick child: “First you have to grow up, finish the course of medical studies and only when you know what the medicine you need now does to you, and when you promise to never eat snow again — then I shall give you the medicine!”?

We understand that a criminal who has not wholeheartedly repented of his misdeeds cannot be pardoned. But does the doctor have a right to deny help to the patient only because the patient doesn’t know why he got sick?

Yes, child does not know what is the Church. However, the Church is not a lodge of philosophers, not a gathering of people who share the same views. Church is life in God.

Are the children denied union with God? Are they strangers to Christ? Isn’t it absurd to leave children outside of the Christ (universally, baptism is understood as the door opening into the Church of Christ) only because the statutes of the Roman legal codex do not recognize the child as a legal entity? True, human being cannot be coerced. But why should we consider infants to be demons? What grounds do we have to conclude that infants object to their union with Christ?

The Protestants disagree with Tertullian’s thoughts that the human soul is Christian by nature?

 It is only normal for a person to long to Christ, not to oppose Him. Therefore, only person’s evil will can divert him from striving for Christ. Obviously, we cannot believe that the infants are so evil that there is no place for them in the Church, as we cannot believe that infant baptism should be considered only a violation of their will.

Now let us turn to the Bible.

Anyone who read the Bible knows that the Old Testament shows several prototypes of baptism. All of these events include children.

 First prototype is the passage through the Red Sea. All Israel, including infants, crossed the Red Sea and Holy Apostle Paul recognizes it as a symbol of baptism: “I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1-2). If the infants took part in the Old Testament baptism, on what grounds can we deny them a right to receive baptism of the New Testament?

Second prototype of baptism was circumcision. Circumcision was a sign of one’s entry into the Holy Nation of God, a sign of the Covenant and it was performed on the eighth day of boy’s birth (Genesis 17:9-14).

So what are to think now: before Christ, an infant could be a member of the Church, of the God’s people, but after His coming and His sacrifice it becomes impossible? Has Christ come to make our path to God easier or to make it more difficult? — To make it easier. Has He come only for adults or for children also? — For children too He makes it easier to come into the House of the Father… Circumcision was replaced by that which prototype it was — by baptism (Col. 2:11). Are we to believe that as a result of the change of the Covenants the children are refused the opportunity to become member of the Church?

Protestants’ understanding of baptism is too primitive: there they see only a negative aspect — washing off of the stain of sin, but since children do not sin (?) they do not need baptism.

But baptism does have a positive aspect and it transcends man. Baptism is not merely an outward expression one’s convictions (“promise of good conscience to God”). Baptism is an event which changes the world where the person lives. Baptism is entry into the God’s people, not a legal “acquisition of the rights of a citizen” but joining to the Body of Christ, receiving of the protection from above, Divine help.

To understand the connection of the prototypes of the Old Testament with the practice of baptism of the New Testament, first we should see who was the recipient of the Covenant. Covenant is an agreement, and as any agreement it presupposes two sides which establish certain relationships with one another. In the Covenant of the Bible, one side is God. But who is another side? Who He enters into the Covenant with? In the Old Testament, is it Moses? Or maybe Aaron? — No, with the entire nation of Israel. In the New Testament, we see that Christ establishes His Covenant not with Peter, nor with John, but with the new people of God; to the Cup of the New Testament, “shed for you and for many”, He invites “everyone”.

God bestows His grace and protection not upon an individual, but upon a community — the Church. Christ is not only a bearer of the eternal Good News which He repeats to one astonished person after another, but He speaks to the Church. Therefore, it is important to understand that both circumcision and baptism are not private rites, they are not just some private or family events, — they are the events that encompass the entire God’s people. To enter the Covenant is to receive the rights of a citizen in the God’s people, to begin living the life which beside me and before me thrived in other people through whom I meet the Creator.

Christ came not to separate us one from another but to unite us, therefore we should not be surprised that the word Church is used 110 times in the New Testament. To acquire salvation the person has to enter the ’holy land’, that community of the faithful through which the light of grace is spread all over the world. Church is the God’s people, His holy nation. Can there be a nation without children?

The Law of God, the fact of being chosen, the rights and promises of the Old Testament extended to children. To enter the Covenant meant, first of all, to become a member of the people of God. People would entered the nation of God when they were children. And to enter, it was not enough to simply be born in the Jewish family — one had to go through the mystery of circumcision. The same we see today: it is not enough to be born into a Christian family — one has to go through the mystery of baptism. With this mystery the parents include their children into the Covenant, into the fold of God’s people, so that the full-of-grace protection of God that covers the entire people would overshadow the child also.

Just as on the night of the most dreadful Egyptian Plague the Jewish children were saved from death when their houses’ doorposts were marked with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, so also in the Christian epoch the children are protected from the angel of death by the Blood of the True Lamb and by His seal — baptism (Saint Gregory the Theologian).

Protestants say that the person cannot have any deeds that would help him to be saved. However, this formula of the Protestant theology is in a drastic contradiction to their own understanding of baptism.

Is baptism simply a human action or, beside man, God also acts in it? Is baptism only what I want to testify before the face of God, or there is also an act of the Creator in it, His response, His hand filling me with grace?

If the former is true, then baptism is no more than a strange, purely human ceremony, human act void of grace, and the Christ’s command to baptize appears rather strange: “Whoever believes and accomplishes this strange ceremony will be saved, whereas whoever doesn’t accomplish exactly this form of the ceremony will be condemned even if he has faith”.

But if we acknowledge that God Himself acts in baptism, which makes baptism a Mystery of the Church, that is, such a human activity which summons the grace of God into our world. If what the most important there is in baptism is accomplished by the Holy Spirit, then how the Protestants dare to restrict the sphere of action of Him Who breathes where He pleases? Why are they so sure that the Holy Spirit does not want to act in children?

In the text of the New Testament there is a direct command of Christ : “Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them” (Matt. 19:14). However, there is only one door to Christ — “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Christ “took them in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands upon them” (Mark 10:16). You see, the Lord blesses the children, He can bless them, therefore the Orthodox hope that the Lord blesses their own children.

God sanctifies the children even before they are born, and John the Baptist (Luke 1:15) is an example of it. One could also remember Prophet Jeremiah (“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you” (Jer. 1:5) and Apostle Paul: “He Who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through His grace” (Gal. 1:15). As we see, Divine Grace can touch the children even regardless of their inability to reason.

Why should we deny our children the grace given in baptism and communion? In the Old Testament we see that forty-day-old first-born children were dedicated to God. Could they on their own at this age give a vow to God, promise that they would serve Him relentlessly all their lives (Ex. 13:2, I Sam. 1:28)? Parents made vows for their children even before the children were born, and God blessed their intentions (1 Sam. 1:11, Judges 13:7). In the New Testament we also see that God saves children according to the faith of their parents: demon-possessed boy is healed according to the faith of his father (Mark 9:17-27); through the prayer of the Canaanite woman her daughter was saved (Matt. 15:22-28); by the faith of an official from Capernaum his son was healed (John 4:46-53); through the blessing of God parents regained their children who had been dead (Luke 7, Mark 5, Luke 8).

(We could remember other instances when one person was saved on a request and because of the faith of another person: according to the Centurion’s faith his servant was healed (Matt. 8); Christ healed the paralytic in Capernaum “seeing their faith”, i.e. the faith of the men who carried the paralytic on his bed, for He said to him seeing their faith: “Your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2:5)).

 It should be noted that we all have much closer and more mysterious ties to one another than it appears to positivism and individualism. Protestantism has forgotten these ties, but it is being reminded of them by those who, having followed the path of Protestantism to the end, arrived at witchcraft, occult and oriental religious practices where these interpersonal connections are introduced as newly-repackaged anti-Christian, diabolical revelation. To Be Continued.....

Question: If you can, could you elaborate of some people’s belief that the current Pope is the Antichrist.

Answer: In the Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Holy Church, antichrist is sued in two ways:

 • In a general way when this word describes any opponent of Jesus Christ, anyone who denies His Divinity, His teaching, and who attacks His Holy Church. Holy Evangelist John writes: “Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come… Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:18, 22). “Every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which you heard that it was coming, and now it is in the world already” (1 John 4:3). “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7).

• In a special way when it defines the ultimate opponent of Christ, him who will come before the end of the world to pose as a savior of the world and the final enemy of the Holy Church of Christ. “I have come in My Father’s Name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (John 5:43). Again: “Children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichrist is coming” (1 John 2:18). “That day will come… and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, who … takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God… and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and destroy him by His appearing and His Coming. The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, and with all wicked deceptions for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:3-12).

If someone says that the current Pope of Rome is the Antichrist he implies that we live in the ‘last hour’. But the last hour will be revealed by subjugation of the whole world (with the exception of the few faithful Christians) to the benevolent ruler who will feed the hungry and shelter the homeless as long as they deny Christ and acknowledge him. Apparently, this hour has not yet come, therefore the current Pope of Rome is not the ultimate Antichrist. However, the history of Christianity shows innumerable examples of papacy waging bloody wars against the nations professing the Orthodox Faith and slaughtering people only because they would not renounce the Faith of the Church. One of the most renown Roman Catholic Saints — Bernard of Clairvaux — encouraged crusaders to ‘kill the Orthodox like dogs’. In the modern times the infamous Ustashi regime in Croatia during the WW2 not only received a wholehearted support of Vatican, but the Roman Catholic clerics were instigators of the massacres of the Orthodox population who refused to abandon the Faith, and, more than that, they took hands-on part in those atrocities when hundreds of thousands of Orthodox were slaughtered. But this was in the past and the world did not end then. If anyone who opposes the Church is antichrist in a general sense (which includes us when we stubbornly refuse to follow the salvific path of the Church with its fasting, prayer, tithing, love for everyone, etc), so the Pope is to be counted in for what he does, what he says and what he professes to be — the substitute of Christ on earth (for this is what the word Vicar means). But the Antichrist is not come yet for we are still given time for repentance.

Question: When is it proper to stand up in the beginning of the Liturgy: when the priest starts censing in the Altar or when he comes out to cense on the Amvon?

Answer: By standing in the church we acknowledge that we are in a holy place, the place dedicated to prayer and mystical communing with God. If we are not late to church on Sunday morning we are aware that the Liturgy begins with the service of the Hours which is read by the reader. The service of the Third Hour, which is supposed to be read at that time of the day, is a Divine Service and a part of the daily prayer rule of a Christian. The Divine Service of the Third Hour introduces to and prepares us for the Divine Liturgy. And the temple is censed during this short Divine Service. So we see, that when the priest starts censing in the Altar he prepares the temple and us, the faithful, for the unique experience of the Divine Liturgy, plus another Divine Service, that of the Hours, is still in progress. Therefore, weighing all these factors we should decide for ourselves whether to stand or to sit when the priest is censing and is still in the Altar.

Question: Since Jesus Christ was the Son of God, what's that make the Antichrist?

Answer: Saying that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, we somehow are drawn to make comparisons between relationship within the Holy Trinity and the human relationships of father and son, that is, that father and son are two different people, no matter how deep their affection for one another might be. This comparison does not work when we speak about Persons of the Holy Trinity. God is one, and the Persons of the Holy Trinity are not three distinct beings, but one. How is it possible? No human knows. It is a mystery. Yes, Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who became Man for the sake of our salvation. We must always keep in mind that Jesus Christ is God and Creator of all visible and invisible forms of existence.

       To discourage any parallels between Christ and the Antichrist, it should be known that whereas Christ is uncreated God, Antichrist will be a creature, a man, a son of human mother and father. Antichrist is not going to be Satan’s son, although definitely he will be filled with his foul spirit. Antichrist will be a person who will bring about the abomination of desolation, the reign of iniquity, worldly prosperity to all who would renounce Christ and persecute the Holy Orthodox Church. Under the reign of the Antichrist in the last years of the existence of the world as we know it, the people will ultimately choose whether they are with Christ or with Antichrist. To be with the Antichrist would mean to abandon the holiness of the Church for the prosperity and security of the world; it would also mean to abandon saving fasting and asceticism of the Church for the abundance of food, entertainment and various pleasures. For many the choice is very difficult already; at the end times the decision will be made any easier.

Question: When is it proper to stand up in the beginning of the Liturgy: when the priest starts censing in the Altar or when he comes out to cense on the Amvon?

Answer: By standing in the church we acknowledge that we are in a holy place, the place dedicated to prayer and mystical communing with God. If we are not late to church on Sunday morning we are aware that the Liturgy begins with the service of the Hours which is read by the reader. The service of the Third Hour, which is supposed to be read at that time of the day, is a Divine Service and a part of the daily prayer rule of a Christian. The Divine Service of the Third Hour introduces to and prepares us for the Divine Liturgy. And the temple is censed during this short Divine Service. So we see, that when the priest starts censing in the Altar he prepares the temple and us, the faithful, for the unique experience of the Divine Liturgy, plus another Divine Service, that of the Hours, is still in progress. Therefore, weighing all these factors we should decide for ourselves whether to stand or to sit when the priest is censing and is still in the Altar.

Question: Could you please explain the difference between Saint Nick, Santa Claus, and Saint Nicholas?

Answer: Probably we all agree that the image of Santa Claus has its source, or at least one of its sources, in the historical person of Holy Hierarch Nicholas Archbishop of Myra in Lycia the Wonderworker. Saint Nicholas was a severe ascetic who for his faith suffered for many years in prison and yet he was a loving hierarch of the Christian community in Myra and is remembered among other virtues for his generosity practiced in secret. We try to be generous during the Nativity season which is marked by gift-giving, especially to children. In the Life of Saint Nicholas we read that he saved one man’s daughters from disgrace by providing them with money so that they could get married. As the saint’s memory is celebrated in the pre-Nativity season, a connection is made between Saint Nicholas bringing gifts and the second Pascha — Nativity of the Lord. We all know what goes into making of the image of our western Santa Claus — this image has very little in common with the austere image of the giant of prayer and fasting, who Saint Nicholas was. Other than the name, there is very little in Santa that reminds one of Saint Nicholas. Indeed, he is but a fairy tale character with all what it implies. And it is unfortunate, that his name resembles the name of a saint. A parallel can be drawn with Saint Patrick’s Day with its rowdy festivities and the image of the real Saint Patrick — an Irish ascetic of great renown. Let us also say that it is improper to refer to Saint Nicholas as Saint Nick, for by doing so we bring harm not to the great saint of the Church but to our souls which we should nourish with piety and keeping everything pertaining to the Lord, His saints and His Holy Church in greatest honor.

Question: The prayer for deceased parents in the prayer book contains the line “...in according to Thy just judgment they are detained in Mytarstvo, …”. What or where is Mytarstvo? It almost sounds like purgatory but I thought that the concept of purgatory wasn’t part of Orthodox belief.

Michael Coffman

 Answer: Indeed, the concept of Mytarstvo, or aerial toll-houses, as it is referred to in the patristic English literature, may seem close to the Roman Catholic teaching of purgatory. However, the two are very different. To see the difference, we must consider the Roman Catholic and Orthodox teachings on spiritual life and life of soul after death.  

Roman Catholic teaching: there are basically two sorts of people: saints and the rest of us. After death, the saints pass on to Heaven because by their good deeds they have satisfied God’s justice fully. The rest of us fail to satisfy the Divine justice, therefore, God, as a Just God, demands satisfaction. After death, our souls go to purgatory where by undergoing sufferings we please/satisfy God, for by being tormented our souls make up for what we failed to accomplish while living on earth. Here is an image which perfectly explains the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory: God is a just judge and we are tried for, let’s say, breaking someone’s very expensive thing. The judge understands that we didn’t break the thing on purpose, but what can he do? Law is law, after all, he is a just judge. Since we do not have enough money to have the broken thing fixed, we are sentenced to working in mines for as long as our work and suffering can be measured against the value of the thing. Once we are through with our sentence, the judge welcomes us into the free life as if nothing have happened. The same is in the spiritual life: there is a law that sinners must purge their sins through undergoing suffering. God is loving, but more so He is just and is faithful to the law He has given. Our souls will suffer in purgatory till God satisfies His righteous wrath stirred up by our sins. The cornerstone of the Roman Catholic theology Thomas Aquinas writes that among the pleasures the righteous will enjoy in paradise will be beholding the suffering of the sinners in the Hades. One of the reasons for this is that the righteous will see the Divine justice being rendered, and the God’s activities are blissful to behold.

Orthodox teaching: We are called to cleanse ourselves of passions, and some of us succeed in this exploit, some don’t. On passing away, both the righteous and the sinners go through the aerial toll-houses. Toll-houses is the image of the trial which we come through as we head for the place where we shall be awaiting the Second Coming of Christ. At death, our soul sheds the protective shield of the body and all the qualities of the soul become out-rightly exposed and manifest. The evil thoughts that we developed into passions were suggested to us by demons. As our soul is taken up from the body, all what the souls is filled with come forth, for it is now exposed. On its ascent to Heaven, the passions that the soul is afflicted with are recognized by the demons as the work of their hands. Since we indulge in various passions and sins, there are different stages, or level, or toll-houses at which various passions are checked, or at which this or that passions we have made our own is made manifest. God is ever looking for the ways to save us, even if our sins outbalance our virtues. But if we whole-heartedly yielded ourselves to sins and passions, God honors