Family Life, Name Days, and Godparents

What you'll notice

At the end of Liturgy, a mother and father come forward holding a baby a few weeks old. The priest says some prayers over them, takes the baby in his arms, and walks it to the front of the church as if introducing someone important. Which he is.

At coffee hour, there's a cake with a name on it, and people are saying "Chronia polla!" ("many years") or "S dnem angela!" ("happy Angel's Day") to a woman who isn't having a birthday. A middle-aged man is introduced as somebody's godfather, and the somebody is forty. A Serbian family has brought a round loaf stamped with a cross and a bowl of sweet wheat to be blessed.

What it's called

A name day is the feast of the saint you're named for. In Russian it's the "Day of the Angel," a name Hapgood's 1906 Service Book uses too.¹ The fortieth-day blessing of mother and child is churching; many American parishes just call it the forty-day blessing.

A godparent is a nonos or nona in Greek (godfather or godmother), and in the service books an anadochos (sponsor). Serbs say kum. The Serbian family feast is the slava (the day of the family's patron saint).

What's actually happening

The first forty days

The Church has prayers for a baby before it has a name. On the first day, the priest prays for the mother and child, and for "all the house wherein the child hath been born, and those who have touched her, and all those who are here present."² On the eighth day the child is named: the priest signs the baby's forehead, lips and breast and prays that "the cross of thine Only-begotten Son may be graven in his (her) heart."³

On the fortieth day comes the churching. Hapgood's order has the mother standing at the church door with the child. The priest prays for her by name, asking God to "wash away her bodily uncleanness, and the stains of her soul, in the fulfilling of the forty days. Make her worthy of the communion of thy holy Body and of thy Blood."⁴ Then he prays for the child, remembering that Christ himself was brought to the Temple "on the fortieth day, as an infant."⁵ He takes the baby and carries it in stages, at the door, in the middle of the church, before the sanctuary doors, saying each time, "The servant of God, N., is churched." In Hapgood's rubric a boy is carried into the sanctuary and a girl to the Holy Door, while the priest says the Song of Simeon. Then he hands the child to the godparent.⁶ If the child isn't baptized yet, the churching waits until after the baptism.⁷

That's the book. Practice runs wider. Many parishes hold the blessing on the Sunday nearest the fortieth day, at the end of the Liturgy, with both parents there. The prayers' language of uncleanness comes from Leviticus 12 and the Presentation in Luke 2, and parishes and priests handle it differently today. Women in the Church has more on that question.

Godparents for life

At an infant's baptism the godparent answers for the child and says the Creed in the child's place. Hapgood's notes, describing Russian practice, require one sponsor of the child's sex and expect the sponsor to be Orthodox.⁸ The job doesn't end at the font. The Rudder's notes quote a medieval bishop who says that if sponsors understood they were promising to teach the child to make those vows on its own, they'd think twice before agreeing to stand. The Church takes the bond seriously enough that the Council in Trullo, in 692, forbade a godfather to marry his godchild's widowed mother, because "the spiritual relationship is greater than fleshly affinity."⁹

So godparents keep showing up: at name days, at first confessions, at weddings, at funerals. Good ones pray for their godchildren by name every day. Baptism and Chrismation covers the role at the font.

Name days

Orthodox Christians are named for saints at baptism, and the saint's feast becomes your day. In Greek, Russian, Serbian and Romanian homes your name day often outranks your birthday. Converts choose a patron when they're received; if you already have a Christian name, that's the best place to start.

Serbian families also keep a slava: the feast of the family's patron saint, handed down through the father's line, with a slava bread and a dish of sweetened wheat blessed by the priest at church or at home.

The family's year

The household runs on the Church's calendar. The fasts set the menu (Fasting). Christmas and Pascha are the two hinges (The Church Year). After Theophany the priest comes to bless the house (Blessings). Forgiveness Sunday sends families into Lent asking each other's pardon.¹⁰ The memorial Saturdays bring the family's dead back into the room (Memory Eternal). Hapgood even prints a service for children beginning their schooling.¹¹

Why it matters

The family is where the faith is caught before it's taught. The Church doesn't wait for a child to understand anything before it prays over him, names him, carries him to the altar and communes him, any more than his parents wait for him to understand love before they feed him. And it never lets a family go it alone. The godparent is a second set of hands, the saints are the family's older relatives, and the parish is the extended family that brings the cake.

Where it came from

The forty days come from the Law of Moses (Leviticus 12) and from Mary and Joseph bringing the infant Jesus to the Temple when "the days of her purification" were complete (Luke 2:22). The naming on the eighth day echoes his own naming (Luke 2:21). Trullo's canon shows that sponsors were an established institution by 692. Hapgood's 1906 calendar lists the imperial family's name days among Russia's state feasts.¹² This guide can't tell you when the first name-day cake was blessed.

What you do

If you're Orthodox: arrange the forty-day blessing with the parish before the baby arrives. Keep your name day: go to Liturgy if there's one, and, if you've prepared, receive Communion. Learn your saint's life well enough to tell it. If you're a godparent, pray for your godchild daily and show up; if you have godparents, call them.

If you're visiting: if someone tells you it's their name day, "Chronia polla!" works for Greeks and "S dnem angela!" for Russians; "Happy name day" works for everyone. If you're invited to a slava, go hungry.

Go deeper

• Hapgood, Service Book, pp. 267–271, the prayers for a newborn, the naming, and the churching.
• Luke 2:21–40.
• Mary and the Saints, on why the saints feel like family.
• Baptism and Chrismation and Blessings.

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