49 Fun Facts About Baptism

The word 'baptism' comes from a Greek word meaning what?

Dipping: in everyday Greek the same verb described cloth dunked in dye, and even ships sinking or men drowning.

The baptism of Jesus is described in which three Gospels?

Matthew, Mark and Luke narrate it, and in Matthew John at first refuses, saying he needs to be baptised by Jesus instead.

Which Native American's baptism is the subject of a large painting in the US Capitol Rotunda?

Pocahontas took the name Rebecca, and the Virginia Company later paid for her trip to England to promote the colony; she died at Gravesend before sailing home.

In the Gospel accounts, the Spirit descends on Jesus at his baptism in the form of which bird?

Dove: this scene is why Christian art has long shown the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

What did John the Baptist famously eat in the wilderness?

Locusts and wild honey: odd as it sounds, the Law of Moses lists the locust among the few insects Israelites were allowed to eat.

Which ruler ordered the beheading of John the Baptist?

Herod Antipas: the Gospels say John condemned his marriage, but the historian Josephus says Antipas feared John's influence might spark a rebellion.

What name does Josephus give the daughter of Herodias who danced for Herod?

Salome: the Gospels never name her, and some ancient copies of Mark even call the dancing girl Herodias, like her mother.

Which small sect reveres John the Baptist as its greatest prophet and practises frequent purifying baptism?

Mandaeans: after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, most of the community there fled the country.

The risen Jesus's order to 'make disciples of all nations, baptizing them' is known as what?

The Great Commission ends Matthew's Gospel, and in 1792 William Carey argued it was 'still binding' on Christians, then sailed for India the next year.

Baptism by sprinkling water on the head is called what?

Aspersion: churches used it mainly for the sick who could not leave their beds, and the bishop Cyprian ruled such baptisms valid.

Medieval theologians taught that babies who died unbaptised went to which place?

Limbo was never official Church doctrine, and in 2007 a Vatican commission found 'serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope' that such babies are saved.

Early Christians were usually baptised naked; what did they put on after leaving the water?

A white robe: new Christians wore it all through Easter week, which is how the next Sunday got its old Latin name, 'Sunday in white'.

Which Christian group has traditionally rejected all outward sacraments, water baptism included?

Quakers: George Fox and the early Friends saw the whole of life as sacramental, so they refused to set apart any one practice as more sacred than others.

Why did the Salvation Army's founders drop baptism and communion?

People trusted rituals instead of grace, the Booths believed, and the Army's commitment to total abstinence also ruled out communion wine.

The Anabaptists of the 16th century got their name because they insisted on what?

Re-baptising those baptised as infants earned them the scornful German label Wiedertäufer, 'rebaptizers', though they saw infant baptism as no baptism at all.

In which city did Conrad Grebel baptise George Blaurock on 21 January 1525, founding the Anabaptists?

Zurich: the city council soon decreed the severest penalties against the movement, and in 1527 Felix Manz, one of the group, was drowned.

Which three groups are direct descendants of the early Anabaptists?

Baptists also practise believer's baptism but have different roots; pouring rather than immersion remains the norm among the Amish.

In which city did John Smyth's exiled English congregation begin the Baptist tradition in 1609?

Amsterdam: Smyth's first Baptists poured water rather than immersing, and English Baptists only began insisting on full immersion from the 1640s.

Which 16th-century reformer regarded baptism and the Lord's Supper as merely symbolic?

Huldrych Zwingli fell out with Luther over communion at Marburg in 1529, and two years later he was killed in battle at Kappel.

In Eastern Christianity, the anointing that Western churches call confirmation happens when?

Immediately after baptism, as in the early Church; the West split the rites apart so that its bishops could still confirm each child personally.

The consecrated oil used to anoint the newly baptised in Catholic and Orthodox churches is called what?

Chrism: bishops now bless the year's supply at a special Mass in Holy Week, though it could once be blessed on any day of the year.

Who baptised the Ethiopian court official he found reading Isaiah in a chariot?

Philip: as soon as they came up out of the water, Acts says, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away and the official saw him no more.

Latter Day Saint proxy baptism for the dead is based on a verse in which New Testament book?

1 Corinthians: Latter-day Saints perform proxy baptisms only in temples, and teach that the dead may choose to accept or reject them.

An early church writer linked eight-sided baptisteries to which event?

The Resurrection: Jesus rose on the day after the seventh-day Sabbath, so some early Christian writers called Sunday the 'eighth day'.

Which Florentine lost the 1401 contest for the Baptistery doors but later built the cathedral's famous dome?

Filippo Brunelleschi devoted many years to studying the ancient monuments of Rome, some of them alongside his younger friend Donatello.

Which sculptor made the Florence Baptistery doors that Michelangelo called fit for 'the gates of Paradise'?

Lorenzo Ghiberti: the bronze workshop he built for the doors trained younger artists, among them Donatello and Paolo Uccello.

Which poet, baptised in the Florence Baptistery, hoped in vain to return there for a laurel crown?

Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence in 1302 and died still in exile, in Ravenna, in 1321.

The left-hand angel in Verrocchio's 'Baptism of Christ' is credited to which young pupil?

Leonardo da Vinci: Vasari tells that the pupil's angel was so skilful it upset the older Verrocchio, though the story may be only legend.

Piero della Francesca's 'Baptism of Christ' hangs in which museum?

National Gallery, London: the Sansepolcro religious house it was painted for was later shut down, and the Gallery bought the panel in 1861.

Which Roman emperor delayed baptism until his deathbed in 337 to wash away his reign's sins?

Constantine had hoped to be baptised in the River Jordan, but in the end an Arian bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedia, baptised him.

The author of the Confessions was baptised at the Easter Vigil of 387 in Milan by which bishop?

Ambrose baptised him together with his friend Alypius and his gifted teenage son Adeodatus, who died soon afterwards.

In which city was Clovis, king of the Franks, baptised around AD 500?

Reims: because Clovis was baptised there, its cathedral became the coronation church of later kings, anointed from the Holy Ampulla.

The mass baptism of the people of Kiev around 988 followed the conversion of which ruler?

Vladimir the Great was baptised at Chersonesus in Crimea as part of a deal to marry Anna, sister of Emperor Basil II, then had his people baptised in Kiev.

Who led the 597 mission from Rome that converted Æthelberht of Kent?

Augustine of Canterbury: the king's Frankish wife Bertha had married him on condition she could keep her faith, and already worshipped at an old church outside Canterbury.

Which fairy tale opens with fairies invited to a baby princess's christening as godmothers?

Sleeping Beauty: in Perrault's telling, the old fairy who cursed the baby had been left out because she hadn't left her tower in over fifty years.

The English word 'gossip' originally meant what?

A godparent: Old English godsibb meant a sponsor at baptism, then the women friends at a birth, and by the 1560s anyone fond of idle talk.

On Epiphany in Bulgaria and Greece, a priest throws what into the water for young men to race after?

A wooden cross: throwing it blesses the local waters, and the race to fetch it comes in the depths of January.

During Ethiopia's Timkat festival, priests carry each church's tabot, a replica of what?

The Ark of the Covenant: lay people rarely see it, so priests carry it wrapped in cloth, and only clergy may touch it.

Which language gave English the military sense of 'baptism of fire', a soldier's first battle?

French: English borrowed 'baptême du feu', a soldiers' twist on the Greek church phrase for John the Baptist's baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Who plays the baby in The Godfather's baptism scene?

Sofia Coppola, the director's infant daughter, played a baby boy, and in The Godfather Part III she returned as Michael's daughter Mary.

When a ship is 'christened', what is traditionally broken over the bow?

A bottle of champagne: to christen first meant to baptise and name a baby, which is why naming a new ship at its launch borrowed the word.

In Catholic teaching, who may perform an emergency baptism?

Only someone with the right intention: in an emergency, Catholic teaching accepts a baptism even by a non-Christian who intends what the Church intends.

Which Jewish ritual bath is used for immersion to restore ritual purity?

Mikveh: the rabbis required it to hold natural water from a spring or rain, so water simply pumped in won't do.

Which movement baptises with the words 'in the name of Jesus Christ', as in Acts 2:38?

Oneness Pentecostals: a preacher's teaching that the early church baptised in Jesus' name alone gave rise to their movement, which rejects the Trinity.

Which Frankish ruler's law for conquered Saxony made refusing baptism punishable by death?

Charlemagne: the Saxon leader Widukind held out against him until 785, when he surrendered and was baptised.

In Catholic teaching, martyrdom is counted as a saving 'baptism of' what?

Blood: it counts as baptism only by analogy, since the martyr never receives baptismal water yet may still gain eternal life.

Which US president was baptised while in office, shortly after his first inauguration?

Dwight D. Eisenhower: his mother had left the River Brethren for the Bible Students, forerunners of Jehovah's Witnesses, who met in the family home.

Where are most Jehovah's Witness baptisms performed?

At assemblies and conventions: every assembly includes a baptism, and Witnesses regard each baptised member as a minister.

In Pentecostalism, baptism with the Holy Spirit is identified with what?

Speaking in tongues: Pentecostals point to Acts 2, where the apostles, filled with the Holy Ghost, 'began to speak with other tongues' at Pentecost.