We baptize by immersion because baptism is a death and a resurrection. You can’t really bury someone by sprinkling dirt on them.
When St. Paul writes to the Romans, he’s clear about what’s happening in baptism: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” That’s Romans 6:3-4, and it’s the heart of why we do what we do. Baptism isn’t just getting wet. It’s dying with Christ, being buried with Him, and rising to new life.
The immersion has to be complete because the symbolism demands it. You go down into the water, that’s death to your old life of sin. You’re held under for a moment, that’s burial. You come up gasping, that’s resurrection. Sprinkling water on someone’s head just doesn’t carry that weight. It can’t. The sign matters because it shows us what’s really happening in the Mystery.
Three Times, Not Once
We don’t just dunk you once. We immerse you three times, once in the name of the Father, once in the name of the Son, once in the name of the Holy Spirit. Christ commanded His disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” and we take that seriously. Each immersion corresponds to one Person of the Trinity. It’s Trinitarian through and through.
This isn’t something we invented in the Middle Ages or borrowed from some other tradition. Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, described this exact practice around AD 215 in a document called the Apostolic Tradition. The priest would ask, “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” The candidate would answer, “I believe,” and down into the water for the first immersion. Then the same for the Son. Then for the Holy Spirit. Three questions, three professions of faith, three immersions. That’s how the early Church did it, East and West.
Christ Himself was baptized by immersion in the Jordan River. If the sinless Son of God went down into the water, we can too. There’s something else happening there in the Jordan, though. When Christ enters the water, He’s blessing it, sanctifying it, making it capable of becoming the water of new birth for the rest of us. Every baptism echoes that moment when the heavens opened and the Father spoke and the Spirit descended like a dove.
What Happens in the Water
I’ve seen grown men cry when their babies come up out of that font. They get it, even if they can’t put words to it. Something has happened. The child who went into the water isn’t the same one who came out. We believe that. We’re not doing a symbolic reenactment or a nice ceremony to welcome someone into the church community. We’re drowning the old man and raising a new creation.
In Southeast Texas, we understand water. We know what the Gulf can do during hurricane season. We know what it means when the refinery guys talk about a vessel being “flooded.” Water destroys and water cleanses. It kills and it gives life. That’s why it’s the perfect element for baptism. You can’t be sort of drowned. You can’t be partially buried. You’re either under or you’re not.
The Orthodox Church has always required immersion for baptism. Even in emergency situations, when a layperson has to baptize someone who’s dying, the requirement is still immersion if it’s physically possible. We don’t treat this as a small thing or a matter of preference. The form matters because the form reveals the meaning.
Some people ask if we’d accept a baptism done by sprinkling in another church. That’s a complicated question with different answers depending on the situation, but here’s the principle: we believe immersion is what Christ commanded and what the Apostles practiced. When someone comes to Orthodoxy from a tradition that sprinkled, we often baptize them by immersion, not because their previous experience meant nothing, but because we want to give them the fullness of what baptism is meant to be.
If you’re preparing for baptism at St. Michael, you’ll be immersed three times. The priest will hold you (or your child) and lower you completely under the water. It happens fast, but it’s thorough. You’ll come up dripping and gasping and new. Then immediately, right there, still wet, you’ll be chrismated and receive Holy Communion for the first time. That’s how we enter the Church: drowning and rising, sealed with the Spirit, fed with Christ’s Body and Blood. All at once, nothing held back.
The water’s usually warm, by the way. We’re not trying to make it harder than it needs to be.
