How did catechumens live in the ancient Church? How do they live today? Metropolitan Augoustinos (Kantiotis) of Florina (+2010) gives us the answers and instructs us in how the faithful can better assist the catechumens in their preparation to enter the Body of Christ and how catechumens can recognize what the catechumenate truly is and why the ancient Church has much to teach them today. 

We all are called to follow the Holy Fathers and be faithful to Christ Who manifests Himself in His Saints. 

00:09 Homily One: The Catechumens 

03:00 The Ancient Church focused on the quality of Christians, not quantity 

04:04 On how the Catechumens are to depart from the Liturgy at their appointed time 

06:45 Homily Two: For the Catechumens 

07:17 Again, quality not quantity 

08:33 What do the faithful pray for when they pray for the catechumens? 

12:55 Homily Three: Infant Baptism? 

13:33 Becoming a catechumen in the ancient Church 

15:26 Catechumens are to be given Christian names 

16:18 Preparing for baptism at Pascha and the bishop’s last words before baptism 

18:03 The ancient Church catechesis compared to today; infant baptism; “We seek a free and vibrant Church.” 

These homilies are found in “On the Divine Liturgy” vol. 1 and can be purchased here: http://ibmgs.org/chatechetic.html

Learn more about Met. Augoustinos here: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Augustinos_(... \

“The ancient Church held catechism to be of great importance. She was interested more in quality than in quantity. A few faithful, dedicated to Christ, were worth much more than hundreds and thousands of people called Christians who did not lead a Christian life. Just as it is impossible to keep an army in fighting condition with soldiers who were never properly trained, so too the living and free Church the Militant, which is conquering and triumphing, cannot exist if all those who want to be Christians are not first instructed in the sacred weapons of the Faith. Untrained Christians are worthless, and nothing noble and important can ever be expected from them. Because the ancient Church used to instruct Her members systematically before baptism, many heroes of the Faith, confessors and martyrs, came out of these ranks of catechumens.”  

“The catechumens were permitted to attend Church, to stand in a designated place, and attend a part of the Divine Liturgy, but not all of it. They stayed in Church, prayed with others, listened to the readings and preaching; and after the deacon said the Ektenes and other special petitions for the catechumens, he called them to leave the church. Only when they had all left would the Divine Liturgy continue. And because only the faithful attended it, it was called the Liturgy of the Faithful.”

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