As for unworthy godparents, even their lack of churching cannot be a reason for refusing to baptize those they bring. In the act of baptism, of course, a firm decision, a "promise to God," is necessary, but this is not baptism, but only its circumstance, which is necessary for the cultivation of the fruits of baptism. All subsequent life is called to be the transfiguration of the soul, the beginnings of which are instilled at baptism. By the growth and fruiting of the seed that the infant receives into himself. What should the "steward of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1) do at the sight of unskilled gardeners asking to be sown in their field? This is indicated by the Scriptures: Behold, a sower went out to sow, and while he sowed, another fell by the wayside... some fell on stony places, where there was little earth... some have fallen into thorns... some fell on good ground and bore fruit (Matt. 13:3-8). Thus, the sower knows beforehand that only one seed out of four sown by him will not be in vain. However, this does not force him to remain inactive. Like this way of sowing the word, the priest approaches the sacrament of baptism. No one will give him an absolute guarantee that the seed of Christ's resurrection "will sprout and bear a hundredfold fruit" (Luke 8:8). But, like the sower of the Gospel, the priest serves this sacrament with prayer and faith that although not all, but the seeds of Christ's transfiguration will sprout.

Of course, sowing in such "fields", or rather, with such cultivators, is a forced practice. For as the farmer is, so is the cultivation (Ezra 9:17). Baptism is not magic. We understand this even without reminding the Protestants. Unity of spirit, faith, and determination to lead the infant into the saving life in Christ are necessary. It is no accident, therefore, that Ap. If Paul baptized infants, it was only because he saw the determination of those around them (whole families (Diary 16:15; 33; 1 Corinthians 1:16). The weakness of the Orthodox catechetical courses is the external malaise of the Church. For the Orthodox, this is one of her most noticeable wounds. It's strange, but Protestants manage to accuse us of this! Consider: are reproaches appropriate in case of indisposition? Is it Christian?

The theological level of the following argument is also not serious: "Let us see how the Gospel teaches, Christ Himself. – suggests V.F. Martsinkovsky, – Let us remember His personal example: He was baptized for 30 years." [47] First, the Lord was baptized not at all for what we accept it for. And not in order to indicate the optimal age of baptism (after all, Baptists are baptized earlier).

Secondly, He could not have been baptized earlier, for John the Baptist went out to preach only half a year before the Baptism of the Lord.

Thirdly, "His personal example", in this case, cannot be accepted by Christians, because Jesus Christ did not repent of anything at baptism, did not promise God a good conscience, did not experience the "birth again" necessary for Christians immediately before baptism, etc. Although it should be noted that the dogmatic understanding of the Baptists of the Baptism of the Lord is much more competent than the polemical one.

Relying on the natural holiness of children, Baptists carry out the following thought: "Ap. Paul says that children are sanctified by Christian parents (1 Cor. 7:14) and as such do not need the sacraments as long as they are children." [48] "In the Christian family it (infant baptism) is unnecessary, because that which is born of the saints is holy (1 Cor. 7,14)”. [49]

The Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians writes: "An unbelieving husband is sanctified by a believing wife, and an unbelieving wife is sanctified by a believing husband, otherwise your children would have been unclean, but now they are holy" (7:14). The words of the Apostle - otherwise your children would be unclean - indicate that the children of Ap. Paul called them saints not by nature. In order to interpret this verse correctly, it is necessary to go back to the previous words about the sanctification of an unbelieving husband by a believing wife and vice versa. It cannot be assumed that a pagan husband was made a saint only by marital cohabitation with a Christian wife. The Apostle further explains the words under consideration: "Why do you know, wife, whether you will not save your husband?" Or do you, husband, know if you will not save your wife? (v. 16) Consequently, the sanctification of an unbelieving husband by a Christian wife must be understood in the sense that the wife can convert her husband to Christianity and thus bring him to the number of those sanctified in the Church of Christ. In the same sense, we must understand the holiness of children born to Christian parents.

None of the unbaptized in the New Testament is called a saint. Can people who are outside the Covenant, outside the Church, be called saints? Can those who are not grafted into the only root of holiness, Christ, be saints? (Romans 11:16) Consequently, calling the children of Christians saints, Ap. Paul testifies that they belong to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints (1 Cor. 1:2, i.e. baptized). And vice versa: the children of the Gentiles are unclean not because they are corrupt, but because they are not cleansed by the grace of Christ.

Thus, the passage in question speaks not in favor of, but against this argument of the Baptists. The absurdity of their understanding of this verse is as follows: let us imagine that the Protestant interpretation of it is really correct. Children are holy by birth and sanctified by a believing mother, and therefore there is no need to baptize them. In this light, the same will have to be said about the husband of a believing wife. If he, while still a pagan, became holy thanks to a believing wife, then there is no need to baptize him, accepting him into Christianity. Following the same logic, people who grew up in Christian families should not be baptized either, since Rogozin's slip of the tongue "while children" in Ap. Paul is absent. Then one of the conditions for baptism will be the absence of Christian relatives. For those who have them no longer need baptism, for they have already been sanctified.

There is another important point here. If in all other cases Baptists try to reduce baptism to an oath, promise, testimony, etc., which children are not capable of, then here baptism is already interpreted as sanctification. And already proceeding from the fact that children, they say, have already been sanctified, they do not need baptism (i.e., they do not need consecration). Thus, in order to insist on the argument of (1 Cor. 7:14), it is necessary to cross out all other rationalistic arguments such as: "Where there is no such (conscious) faith, there can be no birth again, and if so, then baptism itself is inadmissible... Baptism must be accepted... only those who believe." [50] We have considered the inconsistency of such arguments above, but the internal disagreement of the Protestant arguments should have been noted by them themselves.

The Catholic Church, having dogmatized the legal principle in theology, nevertheless continues to baptize infants. Catholics do not abolish infant baptism, although in order to explain its necessity, they are sometimes forced to resort to significant stretches, since the naturalness of infant baptism does not follow from legal theology, but rather the opposite. Only in Orthodox theology is the baptism of children organically in harmony with its entire context and is naturally a consequence of it. The Catholic Church, continuing to baptize children, has become like a bald old man, who, nevertheless remembering the need to carefully comb his curls, continues to regularly run a comb over his bald head. Catholics know that the Church has always baptized children, but the answer to why it did so has been almost entirely eroded by Western jurisprudence. Obviously, the appearance of confirmation in the Catholic Church is not accidental, but a compromise step towards overcoming this gap in theology and argumentation.

"Infant baptism provided the state with a suitable element in the person of people baptized in childhood, but unconscious and passive, ready to obey not only good, but also evil, if it is clothed in 'noble' and 'lofty' ideas,"[51] says P.I. Rogozin. But, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles, whom he himself presents to the reader as true evangelists in the Russian land, were baptized in childhood and recognized children's baptism. Should they be expelled from the ranks of Christians for the fact that the Thessaloniki brothers brought Orthodoxy to Russia, and not Protestantism?

"It should be noted that in the monastic milieu there were people who were sincere and ideological. As, for example: Seraphim of Sarov, Sergius of Radonezh and others." [52] remarks the same theologian, apparently realizing that their spiritual experience cannot be crossed out only for the reason that their baptism does not correspond to Protestant dogma (they, like many others, were also baptized in childhood). Yes, St. Seraphim of Sarov and St. Sergius of Radonezh were "sincere and ideological," but none of them came up with the "idea" of crossing each other. Including the father of Protestantism, Martin Luther. In 1522, he categorically condemned those who rejected infant baptism. In particular, the Anabaptist movement that arose at that time in the person of Niklos Storch, Thomas Drexel and Mark Stübmer. Luther himself was baptized as a child and refused to be rebaptized, citing himself as an example proving the grace of infant baptism. "That the baptism of children is pleasing to Christ is sufficiently proved by His own act, namely, by the fact that God makes many of them saints, and gave them the Holy Spirit, who were thus baptized, and now there are still many of them, by whom it is evident that they have the Holy Spirit, both according to their teaching and according to their lives; As we are given by the mercy of God... If God had not accepted the baptism of children, it means that at all times before this day not a single person on earth has been a Christian... Wherefore we say that it is not the most important thing for us whether the person being baptized believes or not, for this does not make baptism untrue, but everything depends on the word and commandment of God. Baptism is nothing else but water and the word of God, one with the other. My faith does not perform baptism, but receives it." [53]

Historically, it is difficult for Baptists to justify their position of denying the baptism of children. More precisely, it is impossible, because, in one way or another, they have to assert that the doctrine of baptism of adults only "was at that time (the sixteenth century) a completely unknown idea, which still had to win many supporters in the future." [54] In such a situation, I think it is clear to Baptists that if a certain teaching of the Church of the Lord and God has been firmly "forgotten" and then "remembered" fourteen centuries later, then this very circumstance speaks of its falsity. For the Church is the House of God, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), and no one can steal from this House a single teaching or a single promise of the Lord.