BAPTISM

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Everybody is pleased to see a new-born baby and Christians are as pleased as anyone else. Each new baby is a gift from God. So God is thanked for it and the baby is welcomed into the Church. Most Christian babies are baptised soon after birth.

Christians also pray that the baby will grow up to be a Christian. In many Christian churches, a service takes place around a font. This is a big basin, often close to the entrance to the church. People enter the church through a door; and baptism is a baby's 'doorway' into the Church.

First, the parents will have picked godparents for the child. These are people who promise to look after the child's religious upbringing or training until he or she can do it for themselves. In some churches, the parents make promises too.

There is water in the font. During the service, the priest will dip the baby into it [ the Orthodox Church] or use it to make a sign of the cross on the child's head [Anglican and Catholic Churches]. It is a sign that God washes away sins. Then the baby is given its first names in public. That is why people often call them Christian names.

The series of pictures on the right show what happens during an infant baptism in the Orthodox Churches. As you can see, Orthodox baptism is very different to the way it is done in the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches [see above].

The baby does not have water sprinkled over its head three times or has water used to make the sign of the cross; in the Orthodox tradition the baby is dipped right under the water three times.
This symbolises the death of Jesus Christ, whose body lay in the tomb for three days before he was resurrected.

Chrism, or holy oil, is used by the priest to make the sign of the cross on the baby's fore-head [see right].

Then three pieces of hair are cut from the baby's head to symbolise that the baby's life has been dedicated to Jesus Christ.

Finally, the newly baptised infant is given a candle, to symbolise that it has passed from darkness [ or evil/wickedness] to light [the joy of a righteous life in Christ].