Debate Overview

This is a live debate between an Orthodox Christian (labeled Orth) and a Protestant/Evangelical (labeled Prot). Three major theological disputes are worked through in sequence, often chaotically. The transcript has been reorganized here by argument cluster for clarity. The Orthodox debater is well-read in patristics and sacramental theology; the Protestant debater reasons from a low-church evangelical framework. Neither speaker is identified by name in the available transcript.

Three debate topics:

1. John 6 and the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
2. Hebrews 13 and the Eucharistic altar
3. Baptismal Regeneration (Acts 2:38, Titus 3:5, 1 Peter 3:21)
4. Canon of Scripture and Tradition (introduced near the end, cut off)

Topic 1: John 6 and Real Presence

Positions

Prot: John 6 does not point to the Lord's Supper — it points to the cross. The Lord's table subsequently points to the cross. The "hard saying" was offensive because Jesus claimed to come down from heaven, not because of the eating-flesh language. The disciples who walked away were thinking physically/carnally about a free meal (loaves and fish). Augustine's use of "carnally" supports this reading: carnal = focused on physical bread, not literal flesh-eating. The spiritual principle is that you believe in Jesus who died on the cross, and that satisfies you so you "never hunger and never thirst" (John 6:35).

Orth: Several interlocking arguments:

1. The "hard saying" test. If Jesus was merely teaching a symbolic spiritual presence identical to the Old Testament understanding of sacrifice, there would be nothing offensive about it. A symbolic spiritual teaching would not cause hundreds of disciples to abandon him permanently. The offensiveness of the saying is evidence that Jesus meant something more than symbol. Furthermore, Jesus does not correct them or call them back — which is contrary to every other instance in John's Gospel where people misunderstand Jesus.

2. The Johannine formula argument. John 6 is not a standalone chapter. Throughout John's Gospel, Jesus consistently uses physical/earthly realities as media and signs of deeper spiritual truths — but those spiritual truths are always more, not less, than the physical. John 2: the temple is both a physical building Jesus will cleanse and a sign of his resurrection body. John 3: being born again is not merely spiritual, it involves water. John 4: living water is not merely a metaphor. The pattern is consistent: the physical participates in the spiritual reality; it does not dissolve into it.

3. The "coming down from heaven" first grumble. The Protestant argues that the grumbling began at Jesus' claim to come from heaven, not at the eating language — therefore the eating is just part of the larger metaphorical complex. The Orthodox debater responds: this does not defuse the eating-flesh language; Jesus doubles down after the grumbling with even more explicit "gnaw on my flesh" language (trōgō in Greek, used for animals gnawing, which is stronger than the earlier phagō). The escalation is the point.

4. The corrective that never comes. In John 6, Jesus allows thousands of disciples to walk away permanently over this teaching. The Orthodox argument: in every other passage where people misunderstand Jesus correctly at a literal level but wrongly at a deeper level, Jesus corrects them (Nicodemus: "You must be born again" → "I don't mean physical re-entry into the womb"). In John 6, when the disciples say "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" — Jesus does not say "I'm speaking figuratively." He repeats the command in more graphic terms. The corrective argument from silence is strong evidence here.

• Core Argument: The combination of (a) the escalating language, (b) the permanent departure of disciples, (c) the absence of any corrective metaphorical re-reading, and (d) the parallels to Hebrews 13 all converge to support Real Presence.

• Historical Context: This dispute stretches back to at least the Reformation (16th c.), when Zwingli argued for purely symbolic presence against Luther (who held consubstantiation) and against Catholic transubstantiation. Before the Reformation, Real Presence was the universal teaching of the Church — both East and West agreed, though with different philosophical framings.

• Analogy: The debate used: a person who doesn't want to be healed of cancer refuses to go to a specialist, reasoning "Well, God could heal me without a doctor." This isn't applied to John 6 directly, but the structure of the argument — normative means vs. exceptional cases — runs through all three debate topics.

• Orthodox Theological Lens:

  • The Father's Reading: St. Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on John) reads John 6 as the foundational text for Eucharistic theology. He argues that when Jesus says "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink," the word alēthōs ("truly") is the interpretive key — not "truly spiritual" in contrast to physical, but "truly" as opposed to the typological/prefigurative food of the Old Testament (manna, Passover). The manna in the wilderness only sustained mortal bodies; the Bread that came down from heaven imparts immortality. Cyril insists: the same Logos who united himself to human flesh in the Incarnation unites himself to the communicant through the Eucharistic flesh. To eat the Eucharist is to receive the Logos himself, not merely to believe propositions about him. This is why the departure of disciples is tragic rather than corrected with metaphor — they refused the very means of immortality.
  • Ascetic Movement: The Real Presence debate touches the passion of self-sufficiency — the desire to encounter God on our terms, through interior spiritual experience alone, without submission to the physical, embodied, communal means he ordained. Orthodoxy calls this individualism of the spirit, a subtle refusal of the Incarnation's logic. The virtue cultivated here is praxis: doing what God commands, including showing up bodily to receive him bodily, as an act of compunction (κατάνυξις) — the broken heart that knows it needs to be fed, not just inspired.
  • Orthodox Practice Connection: The Divine Liturgy. Every Sunday (and more frequently for monastics), the Orthodox Christian physically approaches the chalice in humility and receives the Body and Blood. This is not incidental to salvation — it is, as Cyril says, the means by which the communicant becomes a christophoros, a bearer of Christ. The Jesus Prayer prepares the heart for this; the Eucharist completes the encounter.

Topic 2: Hebrews 13 and the Eucharistic Altar

Positions

Prot: Hebrews 13:10-15 is about what happened on the cross — the blood of Christ, the high priest, the sacrifice outside the gate. Verse 15's "sacrifice of praise" defines what "eating from the altar" means — it is praising with the lips ("the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name"), not a physical eating. The contrast is between Old Covenant animal sacrifice and New Covenant spiritual worship in spirit and truth.

Orth: This is the strongest argument in the debate — the Orthodox debater reads the whole passage as a Eucharistic unit:

• v.9: "Do not be carried away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods" — the "strange teachings" are heterodox Judaizing food restrictions, not the Eucharist itself.

• v.10: "We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat." An altar is a place of sacrifice, and this altar has food that can be eaten — distinguishing the Christian Eucharistic meal from the OT sacrificial system.

• vv.11-12: The animals whose blood the high priest brought into the holy places were burned outside the camp. Jesus, as the new High Priest, suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people through his own blood. The contrast is explicit: what Israel ate under the Old Covenant (animal sacrifice) versus what Christians eat (the body and blood of the true High Priest).

• v.15: "Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God — that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name." The Orthodox debater's key move: the word translated "thanksgiving" here is eucharistia (εὐχαριστία). Most Protestant scholars acknowledge this. The "sacrifice of praise" is not the whole content of verse 10-14 — it is the verbal response that accompanies the Eucharistic offering. The entire passage moves from (a) we have an altar, (b) our High Priest sanctified us by his blood, (c) therefore we offer eucharistia. The Eucharist is thanksgiving that includes both the physical meal and the verbal praise — not one excluding the other.

• Core Argument: The Protestant reading collapses the contrast Paul sets up. Paul is not saying "we abandoned physical sacrifice and replaced it with spiritual praise." He is saying "the OT animals whose blood was brought into the sanctuary could not sanctify those who ate them — but we have an altar whose sacrifice does sanctify us, through the blood of the true High Priest." The eating is still present; it is just now eating from the right altar.

• Historical Context: Hebrews is widely thought to be addressed to Jewish Christians tempted to return to temple worship, possibly written before 70 AD while the temple still stood. The contrast between Levitical priesthood and Christ's Melchizedekian priesthood runs through the entire letter. Chapter 13 is the practical conclusion: because our High Priest has made the definitive offering, here is how we live in response — including gathering together (10:25), offering praise, and eating from our altar.

• The "false dilemma" charge: The Orthodox debater explicitly accuses the Protestant of a "false either/or" — treating "sacrifice of praise = lips" as excluding the Eucharistic meal. The Orthodox position is that verse 15 describes one component of the Eucharistic celebration (the verbal thanksgiving), not the totality of what verses 10-14 describe.

• Orthodox Theological Lens:

  • The Father's Reading: St. John Chrysostom (Homilies on Hebrews) reads chapter 13 as a direct address to Christians who are tempted by Judaizing practices, but the altar he speaks of is the Eucharistic table. "We have an altar" (thusiastērion) is Chrysostom's starting point: the word applies to a place where sacrifice is offered and where the faithful eat. Chrysostom emphasizes the danger of eating unworthily — he carries 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 ("eating and drinking judgment on yourself") into this passage. The Eucharistic table is holy because it is the same sacrifice as Calvary made present; it is not a repetition but the one offering perpetually accessible.
  • Ascetic Movement: The logismoi of rationalism press us to reduce the altar to metaphor — to feel more comfortable with a "spiritual" Christianity that does not require submitting to a visible institution, a physical act, a priest, a liturgy. But Paul calls Christians to "go outside the camp" (v.13) — to bear the reproach of Christ. In the early Church, that reproach included the accusation that Christians were cannibals. The altar is reproach-bearing because it is real. The virtue here is kenosis — self-emptying of the need to understand and control the means of grace.
  • Orthodox Practice Connection: The Great Entrance in the Divine Liturgy is the procession of the Eucharistic gifts — the moment when the prepared bread and wine are brought through the congregation to the altar. This is the visual enactment of Hebrews 13: the Church's High Priest entering with the sacrifice. When you stand and bow as the gifts pass, you are enacting the theology of this passage bodily.

Topic 3: The Gnosticism Critique — Protestant Spirit/Flesh Hermeneutics

Argument

The Orthodox debater raises this as a meta-level critique cutting across all the debate topics: Protestant interpretation systematically treats "spirit" as opposed to and superior to "flesh/body/physical." This reading is Gnostic, not Christian.

• In John 6, when Jesus says "it is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is no help" (v.63), Protestants read this as Jesus retracting his Eucharistic language ("I didn't really mean eat my flesh; I mean believe spiritually"). The Orthodox read this as Jesus distinguishing between his flesh as life-giving Eucharistic gift versus our fallen carnal understanding (thinking about a free meal of loaves and fish).

• In John 4, when Jesus says God seeks worshippers "in spirit and in truth," Protestants read this as replacing visible, liturgical, physical worship with interior spiritual devotion. The Orthodox read it as: the Holy Spirit is the mode of true worship, and the Holy Spirit works in and through the visible, embodied, liturgical life of the Church — "the Holy Spirit manifest visibly in a visible body."

• In Romans, when Paul talks about "flesh" (σάρξ) warring against "spirit" (πνεῦμα), Protestants often map this onto physical body vs. Holy Spirit — as though the physical body is the problem and the immaterial soul is the solution. The Orthodox reading: "flesh" in Paul means the fallen mode of human existence (the whole person, including intellect and will, under the dominion of sin), not the physical body as such. The resurrection of the body — a physical, material resurrection — defeats this reading definitively.

• Core Argument: Gnosticism held that matter is evil or inferior, that salvation is the escape of an immaterial soul from a material prison, and that true religion is invisible and internal. Classical Christianity — including Paul, John, the Church Fathers, and the Councils — insisted on the goodness of creation, the bodily resurrection, the Incarnation as the union of divinity with matter, and the sacraments as physical means of uncreated grace. Every time a Protestant hermeneutic pits "spiritual" against "physical" to empty a sacramental text of its physical force, it repeats a Gnostic move, whether intentionally or not.

• Orthodox Theological Lens:

  • The Father's Reading: St. Irenaeus of Lyon (Against Heresies, Book IV-V) is the patristic refutation of Gnosticism. He argues that the Gnostics despise the Eucharist precisely because they hold matter to be evil or irrelevant to salvation. "How can they say that the flesh which has been nourished by the Body of the Lord and by His Blood is cast into corruption?" — for Irenaeus, the physical reception of the Eucharistic Body is already a pledge of bodily resurrection. The anti-Gnostic argument and the pro-Eucharistic argument are the same argument. If the flesh receives Christ's Body and is thereby deified, then matter is not evil — and Gnosticism fails.
  • Ascetic Movement: The passions addressed here are pride of intellect and spiritual pride — the desire to have a Christianity that bypasses the body, the institution, the visible Church, and the physical sacraments. This is not humility before God; it is a refusal to be submitted to his chosen means. The Orthodox journey of katharsis begins precisely with submitting the body to discipline: fasting, prostrations, physical prayer postures, attendance at liturgy. The body is not the enemy — it is the instrument of repentance and deification.
  • Orthodox Practice Connection: Orthodox fasting — no meat, dairy, oil, or wine on fast days — is the most direct counter to Protestant spiritualism. You fast with your body. You prostrate with your body. You receive Christ with your body. Orthodox practice is irreducibly physical because matter is not evil and God became matter in the Incarnation.

Topic 4: Baptismal Regeneration

Positions

Prot: Regeneration occurs through the Holy Spirit prior to and apart from water baptism. Water baptism is an act of worship and obedience, not the means of regeneration itself. Cornelius received the Holy Spirit before water baptism (Acts 10); the thief on the cross was not baptized. 1 Peter 3:21 says baptism "saves you" but Peter clarifies it is not "the removal of dirt from the body" — meaning the water is not doing the work, the Holy Spirit is.

Orth: Three main arguments:

1. Acts 2:38: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The sequence is clear: repentance + water baptism → remission of sins + reception of the Holy Spirit. Three thousand people were then physically water-baptized. This is not an exception; this is the inauguration of the normative Christian practice.

2. Titus 3:5: "He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Paul calls it loutron palingenesias — the "laver/washing of regeneration." This is the strongest single verse for Baptismal Regeneration in the New Testament. The Protestant concedes not having studied this passage well.

3. The Cornelius exception argument: The Orthodox debater's response is decisive: God is not constrained to work only through the sacraments, but the existence of exceptions does not abolish the normative means. The analogy: if someone is healed of terminal cancer without going to a specialist, that does not mean doctors are unnecessary or that everyone should avoid treatment on the grounds that God could heal them anyway. Building a theology on exceptions while ignoring the explicit normative teaching is the characteristic Protestant error.

4. The normative means distinction: "Normative means" is a theological distinction (like the Protestant word "Trinity" not appearing in Scripture) — it clarifies what is already present in the biblical data. The institution of Christian baptism is Matthew 28:19 ("Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"), not Pentecost. The thief on the cross predates the institution entirely.

5. 1 Peter 3:21 re-read: Peter says "baptism now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." The Protestant reads "not as a removal of dirt" as emptying the water of efficacy. The Orthodox reads it as: Peter is distinguishing baptism from a bath — it is not mere washing, it is a sacramental act that saves through the resurrection. The "not a bath" clarification enhances, not diminishes, the sacramental claim.

• Orthodox Theological Lens:
  • The Father's Reading: St. Cyprian of Carthage (On the Unity of the Church, Letters) is the patristic anchor for baptismal theology. He argues that outside the visible Church — and outside her sacraments — there is no salvation, not because the Church owns God, but because the Church is the Body of Christ and the Spirit dwells in her. Cornelius's case is addressed by Cyprian's contemporaries: the Spirit was poured out as a sign to Peter that the Gentiles were to be received, but Peter immediately ordered that they be baptized in water (Acts 10:47-48). The Spirit's movement was the summons; the water was the completion. The two are not in competition; they are sequential.
  • Ascetic Movement: The theological divide here touches the passion of self-reliance: the Protestant instinct to secure one's own salvation through a sovereign interior act (the faith decision) independent of external means. This keeps control with the individual. The Orthodox understanding of baptism as regeneration through water and Spirit means you were given your new birth — you did not generate it. This calls for compunction (κατάνυξις): the broken recognition that you cannot save yourself, that you were carried to the font, that your regeneration was an act done to you before you understood it. This is freeing, not diminishing.
  • Orthodox Practice Connection: The full rite of initiation: Baptism (triple immersion) → Chrismation (anointing with Holy Chrism, the seal of the Spirit) → First Eucharist — even for infants. The body of the newly baptized is anointed on forehead, eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, chest, hands, and feet. Every sense of the body is consecrated. This is not coincidence; it is the anti-Gnostic logic of the Incarnation applied to the initiation of the new member.

Topic 5: Canon of Scripture and Tradition (Introduced, Unresolved)

Argument

The debate pivots to the canon when the Orthodox debater asks: "How do you know what the Word of God is?"

Prot: The recognition of infallibility (i.e., recognizing which books are Scripture) does not require the possession of infallibility (i.e., the Church doesn't need to be infallible to have recognized the right books).

Orth's move: If the Church's recognition of the canon was not infallible, then you cannot be certain the canon is correct. And — critically — the only reason you know Matthew wrote Matthew's Gospel is tradition. The Gospel itself is anonymous; the attribution to Matthew the Apostle comes from Papias (c. 60-130 AD) and the consistent testimony of the Church. If you distrust tradition when it comes to sacramental theology and ecclesiology, why do you trust it when it comes to canonical attribution?

Prot's response: Concedes the point on Matthew's authorship. Does not answer it. Attempts to change the subject.

The "tu quoque" exchange: The Protestant attempts a tu quoque (you-too fallacy), asking about "recognition of infallibility" and then invoking Acts 17:11 (the Bereans searched the Scriptures). The Orthodox debater correctly identifies this as deflection and calls it out.

• Research Thread: The canon debate is the deepest and most decisive issue. The Protestant arguments on Eucharist and Baptism all ultimately rest on the claim that Scripture alone, interpreted by the individual, is the final authority. But:

  • The table of contents of the Bible is not in the Bible
  • Apostolic authorship (required for canonicity) is determined by tradition
  • The Old Testament canon dispute (Protestant vs. Catholic/Orthodox Deuterocanon) hinges entirely on which tradition you accept
  • See existing note: debate_eucharist_masoretic_three_tier and faith_alone_invented_1522

• Orthodox Theological Lens:

  • The Father's Reading: St. Athanasius's 39th Festal Letter (367 AD) is the first document listing exactly the 27 books of the New Testament as we have them — a full generation before any council ratified the canon. Athanasius was not inventing the canon; he was synthesizing what the Church's phronema (mind, φρόνημα) had been recognizing in practice for decades. The canon is a product of the Church's living Tradition, not a pre-existent deposit the Church merely discovered. The Church does not derive her authority from the canon; the canon derives its authority from the Church that wrote it, preserved it, and recognized it.
  • Ascetic Movement: The Sola Scriptura dispute ultimately addresses the passion of autonomy — the desire to be one's own authority, answerable to a text one can read and interpret alone, rather than submitted to a living community with its creeds, councils, and sacraments. Nepsis (watchfulness of the heart) includes watching for this self-referential circle in one's own theological reasoning.
  • Orthodox Practice Connection: The Divine Liturgy includes an Epistle reading and a Gospel reading at every service. The Scriptures are not private texts; they are liturgical texts, read aloud in the assembly, chanted, bowed to when the Gospel book is carried in procession. The Church's authority and the Scripture's authority are not competing — the Scripture is the written deposit of the Church's apostolic proclamation.

Referenced Bible Verses Summary

Key Concept Highlights

• Primary Concepts:

  • Real Presence — Christ truly present (body, blood, soul, divinity) in the Eucharist; not a symbol, not merely spiritually present in the way God is everywhere
  • Baptismal Regeneration — water baptism is the normative means by which the Holy Spirit regenerates the believer; exceptions exist but do not define the rule
  • Normative Means of Grace — the sacraments are the ordinary channels through which God conveys grace; God is not limited to them but has ordained them
  • Eucharistia (εὐχαριστία) — thanksgiving; the Greek word from which "Eucharist" derives; appears in Hebrews 13:15 in a Eucharistic context
  • Gnostic hermeneutic — the Protestant interpretive pattern of privileging "spirit" over "body" in sacramental texts; Orthodoxy argues this is theologically incoherent given the Incarnation and bodily Resurrection

• Historical Insights:

  • Augustine's position on John 6 is disputed in this debate; research thread: does Augustine support Real Presence? (Short answer: yes in his anti-Manichaean and anti-Donatist writings; the "symbolic" Augustine is a later Protestant reconstruction)
  • The Reformation introduced symbolic presence (Zwingli) and consubstantiation (Luther) in the 16th century; before this, Real Presence was universal
  • The 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius (367 AD) is the earliest complete NT canon list
  • Papias (~100 AD) is the earliest witness to Matthean authorship

• Theological Principles:

  • The Incarnation is the anti-Gnostic foundation: if God united himself to matter in Christ, matter can bear divine grace
  • Sacraments as means not ends: the sacraments work not because of their material components alone but because Christ is active in and through them
  • Lex orandi, lex credendi — the Eucharistic liturgy is the Church's theology in action; the argument from universal apostolic practice (all apostolic churches have the Eucharistic liturgy) is itself a theological argument

• Practical Applications:

  • Prepare for the Eucharist as for an encounter with the living Christ: read the pre-communion prayers, fast, make confession
  • Know the Hebrews 13 passage and its structure — it is one of the strongest sacramental texts in the NT and is rarely used by Orthodox debaters
  • The canon question ("where is the list of books in the Bible?") is worth developing; it is the fastest way to open the Tradition question

Orthodox Synthesis

Orthodox Reading of This Debate:

This debate calls you to examine whether you have yet internalized the logic of the Incarnation all the way down. The Protestant positions in this video are coherent if you assume, even unconsciously, that "spiritual" means "not physical" — that the more immaterial a religious act, the closer it is to God. But the Orthodox faith confesses that the second Person of the Trinity became a body, ate meals, was touched, bled, and rose with a body that could be touched and fed on bread. The Eucharist is not the awkward physical remnant of a spiritual religion — it is the continuation of the Incarnation. Every argument in this debate ultimately turns on whether you believe that. You are being formed right now, as a catechumen, into a people who believe that God meets you in water, oil, bread, and wine — not despite the physical but through it. The three debate topics (Real Presence, Baptism, Canon) are not separate questions; they are the same question asked three ways: does the Church's visible, physical, historical life mediate the grace of God, or is it a human addition layered over an invisible interior religion?

Ascetic posture: Go to the Divine Liturgy not as a ritual obligation but as the act Paul describes in Hebrews 13 — drawing near to the altar from which the Jews of the temple had no right to eat — and receive it as the medicine of immortality Ignatius of Antioch called it.

Research Threads

These are the high-value areas this debate opens for further study:

1. John 6 patristic commentary — Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on John, Book 4. Also Chrysostom's Homilies on John, Homily 46-47.
2. Augustine and Real Presence — Was Augustine a symbolist? Research: Confessions 7.10, Tractates on John 26-27, Against Faustus the Manichaean. The debate here is Protestant vs. Orthodox readings of Augustine.
3. Hebrews 13 and the Eucharist — Chrysostom's Homilies on Hebrews, Homily 33. Also look up Protestant commentaries that acknowledge eucharistia in v.15.
4. Baptismal Regeneration patristics — Cyprian's letters, Justin Martyr First Apology ch. 61, Tertullian On Baptism, Cyril of Jerusalem Mystagogical Catecheses.
5. Titus 3:5 (loutron palingenesias) — lexical study of loutron (laver/washing) and palingenesia (regeneration/new birth); see BDAG.
6. The canon question — F.F. Bruce The Canon of Scripture; David Bercot A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs; Bruce Metzger The Canon of the New Testament.
7. Gnosticism and sacramental theology — Irenaeus Against Heresies Book IV-V; also Alexander Schmemann For the Life of the World ch. 1 ("The World as Sacrament").
8. Acts 10 (Cornelius) — Does Peter's immediate command to baptize (v.47-48) undercut the Protestant use of Cornelius as evidence against Baptismal Regeneration?

Related Topics

• concept_divine_liturgy_and_sacraments — Real Presence and the Holy Mysteries; lex orandi, lex credendi
• comparison_sola_scriptura_orthodox_critique — Tradition, canon, apostolicity
• debate_eucharist_masoretic_three_tier — related debate analysis on same terrain
• faith_alone_invented_1522 — Luther's sola fide addition; historical-canonical argument
• ch4_mysteries_of_initiation — Orthodox book chapter on Baptism and Chrismation