Q: Although my husband and I are Roman Catholics, we have attended a Byzantine parish for many years. We adopted four children as infants from Eastern Europe. The orphanage director gave us their baptismal certificates written in Russian, and told us that an Orthodox priest came to the orphanage occasionally to baptize.
Since we were not present at these ceremonies, we could not be certain that they had really taken place, and so explained this to our pastor. His reasoning was that since they may have been baptized Orthodox, they belonged to the Eastern Church, or that at least the Eastern Church would have jurisdiction over them because of where they were born, and that it would be okay for him to conditionally administer the sacraments that they had already likely received. He also said their case is different because of their birthplace and having been adopted, rather than born to us. (I was surprised, however, that when he did administer baptism and confirmation, he did not use the language for conditional baptism and chrismation, but just the regular formulas.)
Does any of this change anything or was the pastor’s thinking misguided? –Katherine Continue reading
