Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/265

Rh baptized according to the ritual of the Greeks,—namely, in the third person, and some assert that they ought to be baptized anew,—the aforesaid, who have hitherto lived, and still live, under the Greek ritual, refuse to receive baptism again, as though they had been already rightly baptized. We therefore, who, in the pastoral office committed to us from above, though insufficiently deserving it, desire to bring every sheep entrusted to us to the true fold of Christ, that there may be one shepherd and one fold, and to the end that the holy Catholic Church may have no discordant or unsightly members at variance with the head, but all in harmony therewith; and taking into consideration that in the council held at Florence by our predecessor, Eugene the fourth of blessed memory, at which were present Greeks and Armenians agreeing with the Romish Church, it was decided that the form of this sacrament of baptism should be, "I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen": and also that by the words, "Let such a servant of Jesus Christ be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, or such an one is baptized by my hands in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost", a true baptism is performed: for the main source from which baptism derives its virtue, is the Holy Trinity—the instrument is the minister, and the exposition of the sacrament is effected by his ministry, in his invocation of the Holy Trinity; we, therefore, having maturely deliberated upon the subject with our brethren, declare by these presents, in virtue of the apostolical authority delivered to us and the other Roman pontiffs by our Lord Jesus Christ himself through Saint Peter (to whom and his successors was committed the dispensation of the ministry), that the repetition of such sacrament thus administered in the third person is not necessary. We declare that each and all of those who have been baptized in the third person of the Trinity, and wish to leave the Greek