A six-week-old child died on Monday after suffering a cardiac arrest during a baptism ceremony at an Orthodox Church in Romania, according to reports.
The incident happened in the northeastern city of Suceava, where the child was completely immersed in alleged ‘holy water’ three times for the bapstim ritual.
The child suffered a cardiac arrest during the ritual and was rushed to hospital, the AFP reports. Paramedics resuscitated the child and placed him on a ventilator, but he died early Monday morning.
The child’s father says doctors found 110 millilitres of liquid in the baby’s lungs.
“The boy was crying, but the priest immersed him three times in water and he inhaled water,” he told local paper Monitorul de Suceava.
He added that he was outraged by the priest’s conduct, especially when he saw the child’s condition after the third immersion.
“The baby had blood on his nose. I put him face down to get the water out,” the father said. “He didn’t recover.”
Local broadcaster Antena 3 reports that the child was born prematurely and was “extremely fragile.”
More than 59,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the Orthodox Church update its baptism practices in the wake of the death. The petition points out that others have died under similar circumstances in the past.
“The Church must urgently regulate this practice,” the petition says. It demands that baptism be changed, not ended, to prevent “unnecessary and even absurd risks.”
The petition recommends adopting a standard practice that some priests already employ, which consists of symbolically pouring a bit of water over the child’s head.
Or maybe they can stop baptizing babies as the bible is against it. The bible expects those who are being baptized to have a conscious understanding of the symbolism of baptism, dying in Christ and rising up (out of the body of water), a new person in Christ.
In Matthew, Christ’s grand mission to his disciples, he asks them to go out into the world, teaching and baptizing. Clearly teaching the person what sin is, Who Christ is and why baptism by immersion in water like Christ is more important before the baptism itself.
This is why the Bible is against baptism of kids. Infact Jesus says let the children go to Him as they are. He says the Kingdom of God belongs to the little ones and the adults, unless they be (in purity) as the little children they will not see heaven.
For adults, Christ says unless you are born again of the Spirit (baptism.)
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