A sermon on using your Christian Baptismal name always

[尼古拉前执事]

Why do you keep calling it only Russian when the older Greek Church does this as well?

[joasia]

I don't see the logic in NOT giving a Christian name when baptising a child or even an adult, if their name is not Christian.

As for Abo, perhaps he was baptised with a Christian name(which I think would be necessary), but has been referred to by his first name, as St. Vladamir was.

Jean-Serge, Greeks also baptize with Christian names. Where do you think Vladimir got the name Basil from?

[Jean-Serge]

I don't see the logic in NOT giving a Christian name when baptising a child or even an adult, if their name is not Christian.

As for Abo, perhaps he was baptised with a Christian name(which I think would be necessary), but has been referred to by his first name, as St. Vladamir was.

Jean-Serge, Greeks also baptize with Christian names. Where do you think Vladimir got the name Basil from?

The facts are those :

• Georgians and Serbs kept their traditional names when they were baptized (no doubt about this)

So in these times, it was clearly admitted that it was not mandatory to have a so-calles Christian name. I would not blame them for "modernism" If we read the Act of Apostles, we never find that peoplle changed their names for the baptism. I f they had to change their name, the possibility of choice would have been tiny since today So changing the name was not a systematical practice in the Church as the examples from Serbia and Georgia show this.

Theologically speaking, remember what we sing at the baptism (You all that have been baptized in Christ you have .... erhhh I do not remember the Christ). The Christ and not a Saint...

If you want I could give you a full list of Saint who were the first to have their names... which means they did not use a new name.

• Saint Abo
• Saint Blandine of Lyon (France) etc

I am just against the idea of systematically giving a new name, and judging those who do not have this habits as modernists or unorthodox...

Oh it is the baptism that makes us Christians not the name... If there is no logic, please explain me why Georgian and Serbs kept their traditionnal names.

For Saint Wladimir, it confirms my idea, he was baptized as Saint Basil but is called Saint Wladimir (so he kept his former name) and was called according to his former name.

If you read the Acts of the Apostles, you will see that the newly baptized people never changed their names...

[尼古拉前执事]

Bp Tikhon on the importance of using your Catechumenate/Baptismal Name only, from the Indiana Orthodox List.

... when, as in the case of Vladimir, Olga, Boris, Gleb, etc., etc., etc., you begin your New Life in Christ, and as did they, HUMBLY take a New Name (In their cases the new names were, respectively, Basil, Helen, Roman, David, etc.,) you may, indeed, continue to follow the Tradition in such a way that when you fall asleep you are glorified by the Church. In THOSE cases, it is your pre-Christian name that becomes sanctified with you, and you, like Vladimir being glorified as Basil, Olga as Helen, Boris as Roman and Gleb as David, etc, are glorified AS Vladimir, Olga, Boris and Igor are glorified as whatever your old name was.

... It is indeed a VERY Holy and VERY serious thing. Naming was something given to man by God in the very beginning! God Himself named His new human creatures and gave to them the Grace of bestowing names on the rest of the creatures. The HOLY act of naming takes place in the Orthodox Church, if one follows the inherited Order (i.e., the order of decency and order, often synonymous with Tradition), on the 8th Day, and the Feast of Christ's Circumcision is observed every time an infant is Named on the 8th Day according to the historic Office of Naming on the 8th Day, found in the Trebniki or Evkhologia of our Church. The common, even accepted use of the term' Baptismal Name is NOT correct, if by it one means that the Orthodox Church traditionally BESTOWS a name in Baptism. It does not. Traditionally, a child is brought for Holy Baptism already holding a Christian name and already under the heavenly protection of the Saint whose name he or she bears. Saint Vsevolod came to Holy Baptism and in the Baptism he was baptized as (i.e., already bearing the name of) Gabriel. No, Dorothy, I differ with you: one's name is a VERY serious matter. "What's in a name?" A LOT, a whole lot. However, all this discussion is very distasteful to anyone who wants to be considered American and feels that it is the name "AMERICAN" which outweighs in holiness any Saint's name, especially those Saints who are Old-Country and Foreign Saints. If a Saint's name might dim or obscure one's American-ness, what could be more egregious!?!

... Naming, I believe, heartily, would be included in any list of Mysteries which might be concocted in the future to demonstrate how the Orthodox Church is not artificially limited to a given number of Mysteries through some scholastic definition or other, along with the Great Blessing of Waters at Christ's Baptism, etc.

[尼古拉前执事]

Like Bp Tikhon above, below is another person that I usually disagree with but who makes a great point here:

"In the past the name of each Christian was referred to as holy name, and from his very childhood he was taught to respect it as holy. From this intuition of the name's sacredness there
developed the tradition of giving a child the name of a Saint, i.e. a name already 'fulfilled' as holy by a Christian. This was not merely seeking the protection of a heavenly 'patron'; rather it was the fruit of a living experience of the Church as 'communion of Saints,' of the certitude that holiness is the only true destiny and calling of man. In the light of this tradition, how sad and even demonic is the present desacralization of man's name, its reduction to all kinds of vulgar nicknames, the growing indifference to the Christian understanding of word in general and of name in particular. How wonderful it would be if we Orthodox Christians in the West, rather than simply following this progressive degradation of the human name — and therefore of the person named by it — would begin the restoration of the name as holy name: first, by returning to the use of names sanctified by the holiness of the Saints, and then, by using them with the same love and veneration with which we invoke the unique and holy Name of Jesus."

[jacqueline]

My family is Russian but I think I have a somewhat unique situation. I was baptized as a child in a Russian orthodox church (in Morocco) as "Jacqueline-Yvonne". I am the only one in my family without a Russian (orthodox) name. This very French name is also my given name and, as far as I know, is not an orthodox name. I assume this doesn't happen very often.

[Jean-Serge]

I was baptized in the Catholic church as Jean-Serge. When I was baptised in the Orthodox church, I was also baptized as Jean-Serge. None raised the issue of having a compound name; maybe nobody thought about this...

The worst thing for you Jacqueline-Yvonne is that there s no orthodox saint called Jacqueline and no orthodox saint called Yvonne... How do you manage to commune? The priest must be upset, mustn't he?