Romanian Baby Dies During Orthodox Baptism

Source: DNA India

Romania witnessed the death of a six-week-old baby, who died in tandem with its baptism ritual practised by an orthodox priest in the Church.

Prosecutors in this southeastern European country, popular for its forested area of Transylvania, have established an investigation into this case.

Moreover, this case has highlighted the issue with the specific Romanian ritual of immersing the new-born in holy water three times, consequently displaying the need to bring reforms in the same.

Around 59000 people have signed a petition to bring amendments to the baptism ritual exercised by the Orthodox Romanian Church.

According to the petition, the passing away of the infant owing to its immersion in holy water in accordance with the orthodox ritual had accentuated the need for changes in the latter.

This incident which happened in the last days of January 2021, had become the cornerstone in the execution of rituals by the Church.

 

Baptism

It is a religious sacrament followed by the Christians, where the purification or regeneration plus admission to the Church is indicated by either sprinkling or pouring the water on the head, or by immersing in water wholly or partially.

In many places, this rite is usually followed by the name-giving ceremony. In accordance with the Catholic Church, this ritual forms the basis of the Christian life. 

Also, this manoeuver is the act of obedience for the believer. Moreover, this rite should be preceded by ‘change’ or in other words repentance. It’s the changing from a self-centric path, where ‘I’ is the most essential, to a path to serve the Lord. 

More or less, turning the sin into a dutiful service to serve the Lord. However, many people have this preconceived notion that this ritual acts as a direct ‘ticket’ to heaven. But to simply put, a person can reach heaven by believing in the salvation morals taught in the Bible and through Jesus Christ. 

Besides, baptism is further of three kinds according to the Catholic Church: sacramental baptism which is using water, baptism of desire wherein the individual is desirous of joining the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and baptism of blood which is referred to mostly the soldiers and symbolizes the martyrdom.

In this case, the first kind of baptism ritual was executed. Moreover, the baby was immersed in water for about three times at the Church located in Suceava, Romania. 

Owing to this, the baby endured a heart attack, as a consequence of which he died a few hours later in a hospital. Besides, an autopsy report presented a fact that the newborn's lungs were filled with water which made the baby extremely vulnerable to such an outcome.

 

Stance of Vasile Bănescu

Vasile Bănescu, a spokesperson representing the Orthodox Romanian Church, called for the investigation teams and prosecutors to look into this issue.

According to him, this incident is way too tragic and the graveness of this situation calls out for investigation. Furthermore, he added that in the future, the Church should at least have his mouth, nose and ears covered before conducting such rite.

Besides, Bănescu was also of the opinion that there exists a specific way or technique with which baptism is executed and the experienced priests bring that technique into use. Moreover, he claimed that this was the only way baptism is followed with utmost care.

 

Stance of Archbishop

Teodosie Petrescu, the Archbishop has had contradicting opinions and further had rejected any proposals for reforms in the ritual owing to which the baby had died of the cardiac-respiratory arrest. 

Besides being an influential Romanian cleric and the holder of the position of Archbishop of Tomis since the year 2001, Petrescu had been of the opinion that the sacrament must not digress from its way as described in the scriptures.

According to this leader of the conservative wing of Church, the oppositions and the proposals for amendments in the execution of a particular ritual, would exist for next thousands of years, however, this cannot be the seen as a sheer reason for bringing about changes.

In his opinion, the Church was not intimidated by such calls for changes.

 

Message Behind the Petition

A petition was signed by approximately 59000 people. This online petition was initiated by Vladimir Dumitru.

According to him, the basic idea behind the petition was not to completely abolish this sacrament but to bring about reforms in the same that could supposedly prevent such mishaps to occur in present times as well as the future. 

This incident probably has proved to be a lesson for the Church authorities to implement a particular rite with much caution and sensitivity.

In the opinion of Dumitru, the petition had a constructive intention rather than being a blunt action against the Church. He basically wanted to change the pattern of baptism from complete immersion in water to just sprinkling or pouring of the same on the head.

 

Written by - Khushboo Dhuliya

Edited by - Christeena George