Olga
15-03-2004, 08:40 AM
Dear Everyone
The other day I was asked by someone (a priest, no less) on whether I could find out if a certain name was suitable as a baptismal name. You may wonder "shouldn't the priest know himself?", but there is method in the madness. He knows that I have accumulated all sorts of useful stuff on Orthodoxy over the years, including lists of Orthodox names, both Western and "traditional", saint's lives, etc. much of it off the net (isn't modern technology wonderful?), whereas he has his traditional Slavonic resources. Russians apparently have a tradition that your baptismal name must be that of a recognised saint, which is more rigid than the Greek tradition, where names such as Christos, Panagiota, Stavros, etc derived from Christ, the Mother of God, or feasts, are also legitimate. His dilemma at the moment is that there is a young man in the parish who may be baptised in the near future, who is originally from Kazakhstan. His name is Ruslan, a common name from that part of the world. I understand that there has been an Orthodox presence in that country for centuries, as it has been in Georgia and other former Soviet republics, but I haven't been able to find any reference in my stuff to a saint by that name. Any answers, anyone? Much appreciated.
The other day I was asked by someone (a priest, no less) on whether I could find out if a certain name was suitable as a baptismal name. You may wonder "shouldn't the priest know himself?", but there is method in the madness. He knows that I have accumulated all sorts of useful stuff on Orthodoxy over the years, including lists of Orthodox names, both Western and "traditional", saint's lives, etc. much of it off the net (isn't modern technology wonderful?), whereas he has his traditional Slavonic resources. Russians apparently have a tradition that your baptismal name must be that of a recognised saint, which is more rigid than the Greek tradition, where names such as Christos, Panagiota, Stavros, etc derived from Christ, the Mother of God, or feasts, are also legitimate. His dilemma at the moment is that there is a young man in the parish who may be baptised in the near future, who is originally from Kazakhstan. His name is Ruslan, a common name from that part of the world. I understand that there has been an Orthodox presence in that country for centuries, as it has been in Georgia and other former Soviet republics, but I haven't been able to find any reference in my stuff to a saint by that name. Any answers, anyone? Much appreciated.