Infant Baptism and Churching
In brief
Orthodox Christians baptize infants — and, unlike most of the Western churches, give them Holy Communion from that day on. A baby cannot yet believe for itself, so the Church and its sponsors believe on its behalf and raise it into that faith. Around the fortieth day after birth, mother and child are brought to the church to be blessed and formally received back into its life, a custom called "churching."
Why the Church baptizes babies
Newcomers often assume baptism should wait until a person is old enough to choose it. The Orthodox Church has baptized infants from the earliest centuries for a simple reason: baptism is not a reward for a decision already made but a birth into new life, and no one earns their own birth. Christ took children in His arms and blessed them, and rebuked those who would keep them away — "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not" (Mark 10:14). The apostles baptized whole households (Acts 16:33), and the Church read its own practice in that word household: parents, servants, and children together.
This does not mean the child's own faith does not matter — it means the child is given time to grow into a faith it already belongs to. In Orthodox understanding, an infant is not baptized to wash away personal guilt it has not incurred, but to be united to Christ, clothed in Him, and freed from death's dominion. The faith in which it is baptized is the faith of the whole Church, carried for now by parents and godparents who answer the baptismal questions in the child's name and pledge to make that answer true.
Communing the newly baptized
In the Orthodox Church, baptism, chrismation (anointing with holy chrism), and first Communion are not spread across the years of childhood; they are given together. The moment a baby is baptized and chrismated, it is brought to the chalice and receives the Body and Blood of Christ, and it continues to commune at every Liturgy thereafter. The East never separated the three mysteries of initiation the way the medieval West came to, with confirmation and First Communion delayed to later childhood.
The reasoning is of a piece with infant baptism itself. If a child can be joined to Christ in the font, it can be fed by Him at the Holy Eucharist — the Church does not require a level of understanding before it will nourish its youngest members, any more than a mother waits for comprehension before she feeds her infant. Communion is medicine and food for the whole person, given to the baptized as a birthright rather than a graduation.
The fortieth day: churching mother and child
Orthodox tradition sets apart roughly forty days after a birth as a time of rest and recovery for the mother, echoing the Old Testament period of purification (Leviticus 12) and the forty days after which the Theotokos brought the infant Christ to the Temple — "when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord" (Luke 2:22). Around the fortieth day the mother returns to the church with her baby, and the priest reads prayers of blessing over them both, thanking God for a safe delivery and welcoming the mother back to the mysteries.
This rite is called churching. Its heart is the child's presentation: the priest takes the infant, and — following the image of Christ carried into the Temple — brings it before the icons and, for a boy, may carry it into the sanctuary, offering the new life back to God. Churching is not a substitute for baptism; a churched child is still baptized afterward, often soon after. It is the family's first act of raising the child in the faith — carrying a person too small to walk across the threshold of the Church that will now be its home. (Details and timing vary by local custom.)