IB World Religions 3.2.1. Rites of Passage and the Seven Sacraments Across the Denominations Notes

3.2.1. Rites of Passage and the Seven Sacraments Across the Denominations

Rites of passage and sacraments

1. A rite of passage is a ceremony marking a person's move from one stage of life to the next, and the Christian examples run from birth to burial.
2. Christians mark birth, entry into the community, adult commitment, marriage, ordination, serious illness and death, though no two denominations treat all of these the same way.
3. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches count seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation or chrismation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing of the sick, marriage and holy orders.
4. The number was fixed in the West by Peter Lombard in the twelfth century and confirmed by the Council of Trent, so the list is much later than the rites it collects.
5. Most Protestant churches recognize only baptism and the Lord's Supper as instituted by Christ, acknowledging the other five as practices of the wider Church while emphasizing few or none.
6. The two categories cut across each other. A funeral is a major rite of passage in every church and a sacrament in none, while holy orders is one most Christians never receive.

Infant baptism and dedication

1. Baptism is the rite of entry into the Church, using water and the formula from Matthew 28, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
2. Most Christians in the world are baptized as infants, a practice shared by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches.
3. The reasons given are that baptism deals with original sin, that it parallels circumcision as a covenant sign, and that grace comes before any decision a child could make.
4. Godparents or sponsors answer on the child's behalf and promise to see the child raised in the faith, and the child confirms those promises later.
5. Orthodox infants are immersed three times, then chrismated with myron and given communion at the same service, so all three rites of initiation happen at once.
6. Western practice normally pours water over the head at a font, and the priest anoints the child with chrism, gives a white garment and lights a candle from the paschal candle.
7. Baptist, Pentecostal and many independent churches hold a dedication instead, in which parents present the child and the congregation prays, with no water and no claim that it is baptism.

Believer's baptism

1. Believer's baptism is baptism given only to someone old enough to profess faith, and the churches that practise it hold that a rite of entry needs a decision.
2. The position appeared with the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, persecuted by Catholic and Protestant authorities alike for baptizing adults a second time.
3. Baptists, Pentecostals, the Churches of Christ, the Brethren and most independent evangelical churches follow it today.
4. The candidate is normally fully immersed, in a baptistery built into the floor of the church, or else in a river, a lake or a swimming pool.
5. A spoken testimony often comes first, so the congregation hears why the candidate is asking for baptism before the immersion itself.
6. Churches differ over age. Many will baptize a child of ten or eleven who asks, others wait longer, and the phrase age of accountability covers the judgement involved.

Confirmation, chrismation and communion

1. Confirmation completes Christian initiation for those baptized as infants, and the candidate takes on the promises that were made for them.
2. In Eastern Orthodox practice the equivalent is chrismation, anointing with myron consecrated by a patriarch, given immediately after baptism in infancy rather than years later.
3. The Western sequence separates the two, and a Roman Catholic is normally confirmed by a bishop between about seven and sixteen, with a sponsor and often a chosen saint's name.
4. First communion in the West usually comes at around seven or eight after a course of preparation, and it is a significant family occasion with photographs and gifts.
5. Anglicans are confirmed by a bishop and were traditionally admitted to communion afterwards, though many dioceses now admit children earlier.
6. Lutheran and Reformed churches confirm in the teenage years after a course of catechism, treating it as a public profession rather than as a sacrament.
7. Churches practising believer's baptism have no confirmation at all, since the baptism itself already carries the profession of faith.

Confession, anointing and orders

1. The sacrament of reconciliation, also called penance or confession, restores a baptized person after serious sin, and Catholic teaching requires contrition, confession and a penance before absolution.
2. Catholic confession is heard by a priest in a confessional or a reconciliation room, and the seal of the confessional binds the priest to absolute secrecy.
3. Orthodox confession is made standing before an icon of Christ, with the priest beside the penitent as a witness rather than opposite them as a judge.
4. Anglican practice is summarized in a well known formula about private confession, that all may, none must, and some should.
5. Anointing of the sick uses blessed oil and prayer, following James 5, and the Catholic Church renamed it from extreme unction at the Second Vatican Council to stress healing rather than the deathbed.
6. Orthodox churches celebrate the same rite as euchelaion, often for a whole congregation in Holy Week, so it is not reserved for the dying.
7. Holy orders ordains deacons, priests and bishops by prayer and the laying on of hands, and Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican churches keep that threefold order while others ordain ministers, elders or pastors.

Marriage and funeral rites

1. Marriage is a sacrament for Catholic and Orthodox Christians and a covenant blessed by the church for most Protestants, and the difference shows in who is said to perform it.
2. In Roman Catholic teaching the couple are the ministers of the sacrament and the priest is the Church's witness, which is why consent freely given is the heart of the rite.
3. Orthodox weddings have no exchange of vows at all. The couple are crowned with wreaths or metal crowns and led three times around the table in the dance of Isaiah.
4. Protestant weddings centre on vows, the giving of rings, a reading such as 1 Corinthians 13, and a blessing pronounced by the minister.
5. Churches differ sharply over remarriage after divorce. Catholic teaching permits it only after an annulment, Orthodox churches allow a second and third marriage with a penitential rite, and most Protestants decide case by case.
6. Funerals move from a service to a committal, and the forms differ: a requiem Mass in Catholic practice, the panikhida and memorial services at set intervals in Orthodox practice, and a service of thanksgiving in many Protestant churches.
7. What is done over the body is much the same everywhere. The dead are commended to God and the mourners are addressed with the resurrection hope, which is why funerals carry so much doctrine.