Literary Discussions

Can one PROVE that Apostle Paul or any of the other Apostles or the "good" thief on the cross was baptized? There does not seem to be a great stress upon this issue in the scriptures. In the early centuries when literally thousands of people apostatized to some Arian or Monophysite heresy and then wanted to return to the "true Orthodox" mainstream church, the debate arose as to whether to re-baptize them or to accept them simply by chrism anointing. A decision was made that SINCE the FORM of baptism (triple complete immersion) was maintained by the heresiarchs, then all that is necessary is chrismation  to fill that empty form of baptism with grace.. BUT if the ceremony of baptism by the heretics was not complete THEN rebaptism would be necessary.  And yet when Cyril and Methodius went to the Slavs in Russia there were mass baptisms of entire towns in rivers and it is my understanding that there were not enough priests or bishops to baptize each person individually with complete immersion and so crowds of people would enter a river and immerse themselves while a priest or bishop read prayers.  Rome and Constantinople mutually anathamatized each other in 1054. The Roman West had taken to baptism by aspersion or sprinkling and had abandoned complete immersion.  The conservative Greeks to this day hold that Roman Catholics are heretics and that they do not possess the valid grace of the sacraments.  The Roman Catholic Church by contrast holds that the Eastern Orthodox are not heretics but simply schismatics and that they do possess the grace of the sacraments and apostolic succession of ordination.  It all gets to be a sticky wicket. There are many Evangelical groups who avoid any sort of water baptism as being unnecessary since they believe in a baptism by "Spirit" in being "born again."