The Fate of Unbaptized Infants
In the early centuries of the Church, there was widespread agreement among the saints regarding the purity and sinlessness of infants. Enemies of the Church looked for a way to overturn this teaching.
Nicholas and his wife Irina are Christians, and they are looking forward to the birth of their first child. She has been pregnant for a few months, but the baby is still quite small — too tiny to live outside the womb.
There is a terrible accident. Irina falls, hits her head, and goes unconscious. Nicholas does everything he can to help her, but he can’t stop the bleeding. She stops breathing, her heart stops beating, and her husband realizes the terrible truth, that his precious wife and child are dead.
His first reaction is unspeakable sadness, but he tries to console himself, thinking that he will eventually be reunited with them in heaven.
Then he panics. He’ll see his wife in heaven, yes, but what about the baby? His priest had warned him many times, that it’s impossible for an unbaptized person to enter heaven. The mother had been baptized, but her unborn child had not, and so they were to be separated forever. Jesus would welcome Irina into the heavenly kingdom, and He would condemn her unborn child to an eternity in hell.
Nicholas wavered on the edge of rage and despair, feeling utterly helpless, not knowing what to do.
But then an idea flashed through his mind. A faint glimmer of hope. A vague memory of a bloody path to salvation that is available in such circumstances. He rushed into the kitchen, knowing that time was of the essence. The infant in his wife’s womb did not die at the same moment she did. The child would live on, but only for a few minutes. There was no time to spare. He grabbed a half-filled pitcher of water and the largest knife he could see, and he ran back to his dead wife.
It broke his heart, and he sobbed uncontrollably, but there was no other way. He quickly removed his wife’s clothing and cut into her abdomen, slicing from one side to the other, covering his hands and the floor in his wife’s blood, making their home look like an unspeakable crime scene. He found the baby, cut it out of her body, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the little child was still moving, ever so slightly. Using the pitcher, he poured water onto the tiny baby three times.
"I baptize you, Dmitry, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
Another minute passed, and Nicholas was still breathing heavily. His heart was still beating rapidly. Then his child’s tiny heart stopped beating, and all motion ceased. Nicholas was heartbroken, and he was surrounded by a blood-stained nightmare that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
But it was all worth it.
Little Dmitry was now in heaven.
I wish this story was only a dark fairytale, but it’s not. It is a true historical practice which happened many times in Europe for hundreds of years, both before and after the Great Schism between Rome and the Orthodox Church.1 According to the historical record, many dead women were sliced open so their babies could receive emergency baptism. And in many dioceses, even the bishops commanded it to be done.2
Does God require us to butcher the dead, to save the soul of an unborn child? Does Jesus command us to desecrate a corpse, and to cover our hands in blood? Is this the gruesome price our Lord requires, before He will allow these little children to come unto Him? And would such a bloodthirsty God even be worthy of worship?
If we are supposed to believe that cutting open a dead woman and ripping a child from her womb is the only way to get that child into heaven, then perhaps we should go back to worshiping Perun, Baal, and Molech, because the story we just heard is no better than bloody ancient paganism.
Thankfully, this dark tale is not part of sacred tradition. It is only a corruption of it. If we properly understand the history and the teachings of the Church, then we understand that infants are innocent, and that their lack of baptism does not hinder them from entering the Heavenly Kingdom.
In the early centuries of the Church, there was widespread agreement among the saints regarding the purity and sinlessness of infants:
St. Aristides said infants are without sins.3
St. Athenagoras says they have not sinned, and will not be judged.4
St. Irenaeus said they are innocent, with no sense of evil.5
St. Methodius of Olympus said they are innocent.6
St. Cyril of Jerusalem said that infants are sinless.7
St. Basil the Great said that sin is not a consequence of our birth.8
St. Gregory of Nyssa said they are innocent.9
St. John Chrysostom said they are sinless.10
Enemies of the Church were unhappy with this teaching, and they looked for a way to overturn it.
In the 3rd century, St. Clement of Alexandria was writing in opposition to a fringe heretical sect called the Encratites. They were trying to introduce false teaching into the Church, and St. Clement was working hard to stop them.
These heretics quoted the 14th chapter of Job and the 50th Psalm in a new way, claiming that infants are guilty of sin, even from birth. To correct their false teaching, St. Clement of Alexandria said:
"Let them tell us where the child just born has sinned or how the child who has done nothing at all can have fallen under the curse of Adam. It seems there is nothing for them to say, in order to be consistent, except that coming into being itself is bad, not only the coming into being of the body, but also of the soul, on account of which the body exists. And when David says, 'I was formed in sins and my mother conceived me in iniquities' (Ps 50:7), he speaks in a prophetic way of Eve as his mother. Yet Eve became the mother of living beings, and if he was conceived in sin, this does not mean that he is in sin, or that he is sin."11
Thankfully, St. Clement lived two centuries before Augustine of Hippo. So his understanding of the ancestral sin was not infected in any way by the later Augustinian version of it.
In a scholarly work titled "The Transmission of Sin", Pier Franco Beatrice examines the historical evidence, and explores how Encratite teachings eventually influenced Christianity in Africa, creating an environment where Augustine was able to popularize his views of infant damnation.12
In the 5th century, Augustine attended the Council of Carthage. This council promoted an incomplete canon of Scripture, and it mandated celibacy for priests and deacons, which none of us would accept today. It also made a false claim about the early Church’s interpretation of the 5th chapter of Romans.
This council did not only promote Augustine’s interpretation of Romans 5. It falsely proclaimed that this interpretation is how the "Church everywhere diffused has always understood it". But the historical record shows otherwise.
Many saints taught that infants are innocent, not guilty of any sin. When St. John Chrysostom preached on the 5th chapter of Romans, he said that we inherit physical death from Adam, but that infants are not guilty of Adam’s sin. And when St. Clement rebuked the Encratite sect, he denied their claim that infants are sinners under the curse of Adam. A person may agree or disagree with what the Council of Carthage teaches, but the historical record proves that this teaching is not what the whole Church everywhere had previously taught.
When the Council of Carthage made this claim, it was telling a falsehood. And it remained a falsehood more than two centuries later, when the Council of Trullo erroneously accepted this particular canon from the Council of Carthage.
Augustine did not merely consign unborn infants to limbo, but to the very flames of hell. He said,
"There is no middle place where you can put infants; . . . when you confess the infant will not be in the kingdom, you must acknowledge he will be in everlasting fire."13
Augustine's followers, St. Prosper, St. Avitus, and St. Fulgentius taught the same. St. Gregory the Dialogist agreed regarding the damnation of unbaptized babies. He said,
"by a secret and righteous judgment ‘wounds are multiplied to them without cause.’ For they even receive everlasting torments, who never sinned by their own will."14
This is not limbo. This is not a gentle nursery somewhere outside heaven, where unbaptized infants are kept in peace. This is everlasting torment in the fires of hell. This is the outrageous injustice that Augustine and his followers were promoting.
Now, contrary to popular belief, Pelagius did not say that unbaptized infants would enter the heavenly kingdom. He said that God provides a place of rest, outside heaven, where they would not be tormented. Augustine rejected such a view, and condemned Pelagius as a heretic.
There are some in the Church today who side with Augustine in words, and with Pelagius in doctrine. Like Augustine, they praise the council of Carthage, and they exclude infants from heaven. And like Pelagius, they imagine that there is some place outside heaven, where these infants will not be tormented.
But many Orthodox saints held different views. Unlike Pelagius, they did not imagine a place of eternal comfort, outside heaven. And unlike Augustine, they did not believe that unbaptized infants are excluded from the heavenly kingdom. Many saints, both ancient and modern, said that unborn children are able to enter heaven, because Christ is able to save them.
Later in the 5th century, the Council of Arles pointed out that every person, without exception, receives an opportunity for salvation, and anathematized those who claim otherwise.15
There are Saints who were holy in the womb, filled with the Holy Spirit even before they received circumcision or baptism.16 Among these are St. John the Baptist, Saint George of Amastris, and St. Lazaros of Mount Galesion.
St. Ambrose of Milan said that "grace is not limited by time nor age", and that John had "in full measure the greatest of virtues" even before he was born.17 There is even an ancient iconographic tradition which depicts St. John the Baptist in the womb, with a halo.18 And if unborn children can have halos, then unborn children can be saved, and they can be the friends of God.
In the Old Testament, no passage says that infants are guilty of Adam’s sin, and many passages contradict such an idea. This is why the ancient Jews, both before and after Christ, did not have a doctrine of inherited guilt. When they read the 3rd chapter of Genesis, the 14th chapter of Job, and the 50th Psalm, they understood them in a way which would have surprised Augustine of Hippo.
Likewise, the New Testament says nothing about inherited guilt, though a Latin mistranslation of the book of Romans persuaded Augustine to think otherwise.
Thankfully, Augustine’s version of original sin is not the only option. There is a more ancient understanding of the ancestral sin, which is more faithful to Scripture and the teachings of early saints. There are Orthodox bishops, both ancient and modern, who understood the truth: We inherit the detrimental effects of Adam’s sin, such as sickness and physical death, but we do not inherit the guilt of his sin.
Today in the Russian Church, one widely respected hierarch is Bishop Irenei of London & Western Europe. In a recent video titled, "Are We Born Guilty of Sin?", Bishop Irenei says,
"We are born spotless. There is no human ever born sinful, as if he were already a sinner by virtue of his constitution. God does not create like this. Every human being is born pure, as Adam was fashioned pure. Yet we are touched by sin from the very beginning. By the time we open our eyes to the world, the sinfulness of the world is already having an impact on us."19
Another Orthodox bishop, considered by many to be a modern Saint, is Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas, Texas. He was disinterred after nearly five years in the grave, and his relics were found to be incorrupt.20 A number of Orthodox Christians are now painting icons of him and venerating him as a Saint.21
Archbishop Dmitri wrote many books, including a Commentary on the Book of Romans. In this book, he writes,
"Death, then, is what all men have inherited from their forefather Adam; because of sin's being unleashed in the world, all men were in a sinful state: all have sinned and all die. Do all men inherit Adam's guilt? The consensus of the holy Fathers is, no, they do not."22
In the 4th century, St. Gregory of Nyssa said that unbaptized infants are "perfectly free from the sufferings which flow from wickedness, having never caught the disease of evil at all", and he said they will enter the heavenly kingdom.
St. Ephrem the Syrian said that "people of all ages" will go to heaven, including "old, young, children and babes, infants in their mothers’ arms and others still unborn in the womb."23
In the 8th century, St. Anastasios of Sinai said that unbaptized infants "will not enter hell."24
In the 20th century, St. Athanasius the Confessor asked everyone to pray for unbaptized infants who died, "so that the Lord may baptize them in the sea of His bounty and save them by His inexpressible grace."25
And from Romania, St. Cleopa of Sihăstria (+1998) said,
"Children who die unbaptized, for reasons beyond the control of their parents or priests, can be considered participants in the baptism of desire, like the Old Testament righteous, or by analogy with the healings performed by Jesus Christ through the prayers of parents or friends. After all, God does not punish the innocent, but on the contrary, for he created man for happiness." 26
Elder Ephraim of Arizona founded 19 Orthodox monasteries in America, and he recently reposed. Many expect him to be canonized as an Orthodox saint in the near future. Regarding infants who die from abortions, he said,
"...many millions of children now comprise an entire army in Heaven. All of them protest. Their innocent blood cries out to God that they were killed unjustly..."27
These teachings of the saints and holy elders are encouraging, and are being recognized by Orthodox churches around the world.
For example:
At the Proskomedia service28 in the Romanian Orthodox Church, priests pray for children who died via miscarriage.29
The Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church approved use of the Orthodox Christian burial service for infants who died without baptism.30
And the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America approved a Service after a Miscarriage or Stillbirth, in which they recognize the child’s patron saint, and ask for Christ to admit the child into His heavenly kingdom.31
This is reminiscent of the practice in medieval Russia, prior to the time of Tsar Peter I. According to Eve Levin, in his scholarly article titled, Infanticide in Pre-Petrine Russia, priests were sometimes permitted to give a Christian burial to unbaptized infants.32
So there is a strong tradition in the Orthodox Church, both ancient and modern, in which saints, bishops, and holy elders have taught us about the purity and sinlessness of infants, and about God’s ability to save them.
We might not reject the idea of original sin, but we must reject Augustine’s corrupted version of it.
We don’t need the Roman Catholic superstition of limbo, and there is no need to invent an Orthodox version of it.
We must never accuse God of injustice. We must never accuse Him of causing a child to inherit the guilt of an ancestor. We must never slander God, by claiming that He sends infants to hell.
In the Holy Scriptures, the prophet Ezekiel said, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son" (Ezekiel 18:20). This principle from Scripture is an ironclad law, at the very foundation of righteous judgment, and it is impossible to have justice without it.33
Many saints faithfully upheld this principle. They understood that infants are not guilty of sins committed by ancestors. And according to one of the ancient canons, "it is forbidden to interpret the Scriptures in a way that is different from how the Fathers understood it."34
God created all people in the image of God, including small children. Unborn infants are innocent, not guilty of any sin. God is able to save them, God desires to save them, and according to many Orthodox saints, God actually does save them.
1 The Great Schism between Rome and the Orthodox Church occurred in the late 13th century, not in the year 1054 as is often assumed. For more information, see The Great Schism was in 1285
https://kalebatlantaprime.medium.com/the-great-schism-was-in-1285-572890aa8af0, accessed May 31, 2024.
2 Bednarski, Steven & Courtemanche, Andrée. (2011). "Sadly and with a Bitter Heart": What the Caesarean Section Meant in the Middle Ages. Florilegium. 28. 33-69. 10.3138/flor.28.003.
3 St. Aristides of Athens (+134) — "And when a child has been born to one of them, they give thanks to God; and if moreover it happen to die in childhood, they give thanks to God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins." - (Apology, Chapter XV)
4 St. Athenagoras of Athens (+190) — "Although all human beings who die are resurrected, not all those resurrected are judged. If justice in the judgment were the only cause of the resurrection, it would follow, of course, that those who have not sinned nor done good, namely quite young children, would not be resurrected." (On the Resurrection, 14)
5 St. Irenaeus of Lyons (+202) — "Who were those who were saved and received the inheritance? Those, obviously, who believed in God and kept their love for him, such as Caleb and Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun, and innocent children, who have no sense of evil. Who are those now who are saved and receive eternal life? Is it not those who love God and believe his promises and "in malice have become little children"? (Against Heresies 4.28.3)
6 St. Methodius of Olympus (+311) — "the tender and innocent age of babes and sucklings hath obtained the first place in raising to God with thankful confession the hymn... “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” - (Oration on the Palms, I)
7 St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+386) - "For you do not sin because you were born that way... And learn this also, that the soul, before it came into this world, had committed no sin, but having come in sinless, we now sin of our free-will." (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, IV.18-19)
8 St. Basil the Great (+379 AD) - "The origin and root of sin is what is in our own control and our free will." - (IV Homiletical, Homily IX) — "If the origin of our virtues and of our vices is not in ourselves, but is the fatal consequence of our birth, it is useless for legislators to prescribe for us what we ought to do, and what we ought to avoid; it is useless for judges to honour virtue and to punish vice... since from the moment that man does not act with freedom, there is neither reward for justice, nor punishment for sin. Under the reign of necessity and of fatality there is no place for merit, the first condition of all righteous judgment." - (Hexaemeron, Homily VI, Chapter VII)
9 St. Gregory of Nyssa (+395) - "Whereas the innocent babe has no such plague before its soul’s eyes obscuring its measure of light, and so it continues to exist in that natural life; it does not need the soundness which comes from purgation, because it never admitted the plague into its soul at all . . . Certainly, in comparison with one who has lived all his life in sin, not only the innocent babe but even one who has never come into the world at all will be blessed." - (On Infants' Early Death, Para. 3-4)
10 St. John Chrysostom (+407) - "You have seen how numerous are the gifts of baptism. Although many men think that the only gift it confers is the remission of sins, we have counted its honors to the number of ten. It is on this account that we baptize even infants, although they are sinless, that they may be given the further gifts of sanctification, justice, filial adoption, and inheritance, that they may be brothers and members of Christ, and become dwelling places for the Spirit." - (Baptismal Instructions, Third Instruction)
11 St. Clement of Alexandria. Str. 3.100-4-7 (GCS 15, 242).
12 Pier Franco Beatrice. The Transmission of Sin: Augustine and the Pre-Augustinian Sources. Oxford University Press. 2013.
13 Augustine of Hippo, De Verbis Apostoli, serm. 14
14 Gregory the Dialogist. Exposition on the book of blessed Job, Volume 1, Book IX, Chapter 32.
15 Some of the key anathemas from the 5th century Council of Arles:
iii. Also anathema to the one who says that the foreknowledge of God inclines a person to death.
iv. Also anathema to the one who says that the one who perished did not receive that by which he could be saved.
v. Also anathema to him who says that a vessel of wrath cannot rise to a vessel of honor.
vi. Also anathema to the one who says that Christ did not die for everyone, and that He does not want all people to be saved.
16 Gleason, Joseph. Unborn Children With Halos,
https://movingtorussia.substack.com/p/unborn-children-with-halos-the-churchs, accessed June 4, 2024.
17 "Saint John, even before he was born and while still in his mother's womb, gave signs of the wonderful grace that he had received from the Spirit... grace is not limited by time nor age — it is not extinguished by death nor shut out by our mother's womb... He who possesses the Spirit of grace wants for nothing, and whoever receives the Holy Spirit has in full measure the greatest of virtues... you cannot have the Spirit without virtue nor virtue without the Spirit." (St. Ambrose of Milan, Commentary on Saint Luke’s Gospel, p. 20)
18 This 14th century icon is from an Orthodox church in Cyprus. The icon is well loved and many subsequent copies have been made. This particular icon was documented in Davies, E. 2010. ‘Byzantine attitudes towards foetuses, newborn babies and infants: a multidisciplinary approach.’ Rosetta 8: 1-41.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180409214325/http://www.rosetta.bham.ac.uk/issue8/davies-foetus.pdf
19 Bishop Irenei of London & Western Europe (ROCOR), Are We Born Guilty of Sin?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mYG_bCZR6k, accessed May 31, 2024.
20 Rod Dreher. The American Conservative. Dallas Has a Saint,
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dallas-saint-dmitri/, accessed May 31, 2024.
Vladimir Grigorenko. Miracle? American Orthodox Bishop's Body Did Not Decay After 5 Years of Burial in Dallas, https://russian-faith.com/people/miracle-american-orthodox-bishops-body-did-not-decay-after-5-years-burial-dallas-n952, accessed May 31, 2024
21 For example: Greekartstore1. Archibishop Dmitri of Dallas, https://www.ebay.com/itm/152619001398, accessed May 31, 2024.
22 Archibishop Dmitri (Royster) of Dallas. Orthodox Archbishop: We Are Not Guilty of Adam's Sin, https://russian-faith.com/explaining-orthodoxy/orthodox-archbishop-we-are-not-guilty-of-adams-sin-n7674, accessed May 31, 2024.
23 St. Ephrem the Syrian. Hymns on Paradise,
https://orthodoxchristiantheology.com/2020/12/02/ephrem-the-syrians-hymns-on-paradise-highlights/, accessed May 31, 2024.
24 St. Anastasios of Sinai, Questions and Answers, Question 9,
https://dokumen.pub/anastasios-of-sinai-questions-and-answers.html, accessed May 31, 2024.
25 St. Athanasius the Confessor, Bishop of Kovrov. On the Commemoration of the Deceased according to the Statutes of the Orthodox Church,
https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Afanasij_Saharov/o-pominovenii-usopshikh-po-ustavu-pravoslavnoi-cerkvi/5_8, accessed May 31, 2024.
26 St. Cleopa of Sihăstria, Lumina și faptele credinței, p. 97 [Romanian], https://doxologia.ro/unde-se-afla-sufletele-copiilor-avortati, accessed May 31, 2024.
27 The Art of Salvation; homilies of Elder Ephraim, published in English by The Holy Monastery of St. Nektarios, Roscoe, New York, 2014, pages 104-114. https://www.orthodoxprolife.org/contemporary-saints-and-elders/elder-ephraim-of-arizona, accessed May 31, 2024.
28 RÂNDUIALA DUMNEZEIEŞTII PROSCOMIDII, https://www.dervent.ro/resurse/liturghia/index-P.html,
accessed May 31, 2024.
29 The service includes prayers for the deceased, including three different groups of children: "copilandri" (teenagers), "copii" (infants and young children) and "prunci fără de vreme" (stillborns). — In the Romanian language, the word "prunci" means "child". When a baby dies prematurely and is stillborn, it is said to be miscarried “de vreme”. This phrase "de vreme" is used in the Romanian Bible in 1 Corinthians 15:8, where St. Paul compares himself to a miscarriage. The phrase can also refer to babies who die as a result of abortion.
30 Greek Church Eases Burial Rules for Suicides, Infants,
https://web.archive.org/web/20210126113006/https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/2001/03/greek-church-eases-burial-rules-for-suicides-infants.aspx, accessed May 31, 2024.
31 Orthodox Church in America. Service after a Miscarriage or Stillbirth,
https://www.oca.org/orthodoxy/prayers/service-after-a-miscarriage-or-stillbirth, accessed May 31, 2024.
32 Eve Levin, Infanticide in Pre-Petrine Russia, p. 218, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41047709, accessed May 31, 2024.
33 Augustine of Hippo violated this principle and dismissed this passage of Scripture. He claimed that children do inherit guilt, and that Ezekiel was only talking about children being innocent of sins that a father commits after a child is born.
To see how ridiculous this is, and to see how poorly Augustine understood the Scriptures, it is only necessary to read the 18th chapter of Ezekiel in full. The Israelites were not complaining about sins that had been recently committed, after their birth. They were complaining because they thought they were being punished for sins that had been committed by their forefathers, long before they had been born.
If Ezekiel had merely told them that they wouldn't be punished for their fathers' recent sins, it would have been no comfort to them, and it would have made no sense, because he wouldn't even have been addressing their problem.
34 Canon #19 of the Council of Trullo
Father, thank you for the excellent post. God's grace and compassion are evident in what you write as well as is His justice. The implications are reassuring for parents and family of infants. Your observations go well beyond the immediate impact on innocent babies. At the heart of your observation is reconciliation of us all to each other as well as God. Thank you for the time and effort that you put into this piece.
Can you recommend any resources for those interested in the orthodox faith? What are the main differences between Catholicism and the Orthodox Church? Hard questions to answer briefly I know, yet appreciate any answer you could give me :$