My fiancee and I are hopefully getting married tomorrow. However, she told me that she talked to her Orthodox priest, and he will not baptize her. The archbishop supposedly intervened and told him not to. I don't know if any other Orthodox priest would baptise her - I've heard that the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) can be quite liberal.
The sheikh at the mosque wants her to write a letter stating her belief in Christianity and sign it in front of him. I've heard that the only requirements for being Ahl al-Kitab are belief in 1) God 2) A revealed Scripture and 3) a Prophet. But apparently that's not enough for him. Some churches just require you to believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour, and she believes that. If she signs the letter in front of the sheikh and believes what is in it, can we still get married, even though she's not formally baptized into a church?
The Shaykh at our mosque will not accept anything less than
for a Christian to qualify as Ahl-e-kitaab:
Belief in One God
Belief in Revealed Scripture
belief in Hazrat Eesa Alahi salam as messenger/prophet/Messiah and not a god
My understanding of this question "Ahl al-Kitab" is consistent with what I found on IslamonLine.net:
The word Ahl-Kitab, means the people of the Book. And the Book here means the divine scripture, such as the Twarat, Zabur and the Injil. Those who believe in these books are called Ahl-Kitab. These books no longer in their original condition, Tahreef, the change of words and meanings has occurred here. Some of this took place before the Qur’an and some of it after and it is still happening. In spite of all of this the Qur’an call them the Ahl-Kitab and Muslim jurist are almost agreed that they are the Christians and Jews. We do not agree with everything that they say about the Bible, with there interpretations and explanation, but we do see that there are many things in common, many more things than with the Buddhist, Hindus, Taoist or others
It seems to me that baptism is important to the (Greek?) Orthodox Church. Why did the priest refuse her baptism? If the priest refuses to baptize her, then it seems that he does not accept her conversion. According to some denominations, baptism is essential to one's salvation. However, according to other denominations baptism is just a public declaration of faith. My opinion is that what faith is in her heart and how she intends to live the rest of her life is more important than the baptism.
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