PART SEVEN

The Particular Services or Needs

§ 133. Teaching on the Needs. By the particular services we mean those services conducted by a priest for a particular need or at the request of individual members of the faithful. All the mysteries (sacraments), with the exception of the Eucharist, are included in the services of Needs, as well as molebens (services of supplication) for various occasions, funerals and panikhidas (memorial services). As all these services are served in response to particular requirements and for that reason they are called “Needs.” The orders of the service for these are found in the Book of Needs.

§ 135. The Prayers for a Mother. The maternal care of the Church for her members embraces every important event in the life of man, beginning with his birth even unto his death. When, for instance, a child is born, he is welcomed into a good Christian family, which is a blessing of God. Representing the whole Christian community, the priest visits the home into which the newly-born infant has been born to give thanks to the Lord for protecting the mother at the time of her birthgiving. He asks that she be delivered from sickness, that she be given strength, and that she quickly be raised up (from her bed). He also beseeches that God will surround the new-born infant with His heavenly succour, and grant him to worship his earthly temple. Together with a prayer in which the child is named after a Christian saint, the greater part is devoted to praying that he will live a God-pleasing life. (Actually, according to the Church order, the name is given to the infant on the eighth day). After naming the child, the priest blesses the infant and asks the Lord that the light of Divine teaching may always illumine the soul of the newly-born, that the Son of God’s suffering on the Cross may always find remembrance in his heart, that in due time, the new-born infant may be united with the Church, that he might never apostatise from faith in Christ, and that he will live his life on earth according to the commandments, preserving the seal of his calling without flaw, that he be deemed worthy to inherit the blessedness of the heavenly Kingdom of the Lord.

[Fr Antonov does not state this clearly, but in fact there are three short prayer-services for a new born infant: one on the day of his birth, one on the eighth day when he is named, and one on the fortieth day when he is churched and the mother, after her period of recuperation, takes up her church responsibilities again - transl.]

§ 136. Baptism and Chrismation. The mystery of Baptism essentially consists in the fact that the person who believes and wishes to be baptised is immersed three times in water, as these words are pronounced: “The servant / handmaid of God is baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen” The Holy Spirit descends upon the baptizand, absolving all his sins (and also ancestral sin), and the one baptised, having received a rebirth, takes up a life of holiness. When infants are baptised, their relatives and sponsors vouch that they will be instructed in faith and to safeguard the faith.

1. The Prayer at the Reception of Catechumens. The order of Baptism begins with the priest blowing three times on the baptizand, laying his hand upon his head, and beseeching God to cast out of him his former delusion, and to grant him to know that He alone is the True God, and His Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, that he inscribe him in the book of life and unite him to the flock of His inheritance, which is the Church. This is the reception of a catechumen.

2. The Exorcisms. After this, there follow four prayers of exorcism or forbidding (the evil one). In these prayers the priest, in the name of the Lord, the Creator of the world, the Almighty Providence and dread Judge, requires that the evil angel depart from the one desiring Baptism and does not incline him to evil.

3. The Renunciation of the Devil. At the end of the fourth prayer, the catechumen and his sponsors turn to face the West (the West seen as the personification of darkness, of the spirit of evil [because the sun rises in the East, and so light comes from there]), and the priest asks them three times if they renounce Satan and his service (Dost thou renounce Satan, and all his angels, and all his works, and all his service, and all his pride?). The baptizand replies: I renounce / I do. Then the priest asks him three times: “Hast thou renounced Satan?” And he replies, “I have renounced” or simply “I have.” The priest then proposes that the catechumen demonstrate his renunciation of all evil in evident way, by breathing and spitting towards the West. By these actions the catechumen shows that he is prepared to sever every bond with his former sinful life. Turning back to the East, he sets out on a life of light, a life of holiness.

4. Uniting with Christ. The priest asks: “Dost thou unite thyself unto Christ?” “Hast thou united thyself unto Christ?” He who desires baptism expresses his sincere readiness to be united with Christ: “I do,” “I have.”

5. The reading of the Symbol of Faith. To confirm his readiness, this future Christian reads the Symbol of Faith. When infants are baptised it is read for them by the sponsors. Then a prayer is read, that the Lord will deem the catechumen worthy of the great grace of Holy Baptism, and the Baptism itself begins.

… to be continued in the next issue with “The Great Litany