Baptism

The Mystery of Baptism

"God shows that the grace of the Spirit is turned away by carnal impurity and the pollution of grave sin. Upon which, God, willing to restore what was lacking, sent the flood and bade just Noah go up into the ark. And he, as the flood was passing off, after having sent forth first a raven which did not return, sent forth a dove which is said to have returned with an olive twig. You see the water, you see the wood of the ark, you see the dove, and do you hesitate as to the mystery of baptism?" -- St. Ambrose, On the Mysteries

The Hidden Grace of Baptism

"The grace of the Holy Spirit which is given mystically to every Christian when he is baptized acts and is manifested in proportion to our obedience to the commandments of the Lord. That is, if a Christian obeys the commandments of the Lord more, grace acts with him more, while if he obeys them less, grace acts within him less. Just as a spark, when covered in the ashes of fire becomes increasingly manifest as one removes the ashes, and the more fire wood you put the more the fire burns, so the grace that has been given to every Christian through Holy Baptism is hidden in the heart and covered up by the passions and sins, and the more a man acts in accordance with the commandments of Christ, the more he is cleansed of the passions and the more the fire of Divine grace lights in his heart, illumines and deifies him." -- St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, Christian Morality

Who is saved?

"It is our teaching that the only way to be in the Kingdom is to die and rise with Christ. But as St. Gregory the Theologian said in the fourth century, 'what is meant by baptism?' Because it is certainly a dogma of our Church, that you can be dunked in I don't know how many pails of water -- even the Pacific Ocean; you can have pounds of chrism on you; you can receive the body and blood of Christ every Sunday in the Liturgy; and go right to Hell. And the more you do it, the worse you get. St. Theophan the recluse, who was just canonized by the Russian Church said, 'Why is it that people who go to church alot, are very Christian, belong to churches, get worse instead of better?' The answer is because they go through all the rites, all the motions, read the Bible, do everything; but they don't really love God or their neighbor." -- Fr. Thomas Hopko, On The Apocolypse, Great Tapes Series