I believe practice varies, dependiong on which particular orthodox church or diocese the Catholic is joining, and on the views of the priest who receives them. There isn’t a universal view throughout orthodoxy on the status and valdity of non-orthodox baptisms, or of Catholic baptism in particular.
As a result, a Catholic joining an Orthodox church might find himself
being baptised and chrismated, or
being chrismated (anointed with chrism, in the way that immediately follows an Orthodox baptism), or
being accepted upon making a profession of Orthodox faith/renunciation of errors; or
being received “by aggregation”, i.e. simply being accepted as a fuly-initiated member of the church
There will be preparation beforehand, but I think it’s usually one-to-one, between the candidate and the priest, with the priest deciding when the candidate is adequately committed and prepared.
While an already-baptized (validly with the use of the Trinitarian formula and water) Christian doesn’t get baptized again when they join the Roman Catholic Church, they still go through RCIA process. And it is here where there is a lot of flexibility. The preparation is supposed to account for a person’s background. A faithfully practicing Anglican or Lutheran may only have a prep period of a few months. A bible-thumping fundamentalist who keeps questioning and has trouble accepting Catholic traditions might take longer. A baptized Protestant who was never taken to religious instruction as a child and never really practiced their Christian faith may take two years.
So, those already baptized will have less sacraments to catch up on, but their Christian formation depends on where they’re starting from.
This Protestant has found the First Communion thing in Catholicism to be interesting. Little girls put on those adorable white dresses and a big fuss is made, sort of like a quinceanera, but for younger ones. Do adults or boys who were baptized as infants ever go through something like this, or is it for girls only?
It’s not a bad thing, so much as it’s an impossible thing.
Roman Catholic teaching holds that some sacraments – specifically, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders – can only be received once, as they leave an indelible mark on the soul of the recipient. So if someone has been baptized in another Trinitarian faith, he cannot be baptized again; it would be a meaningless gesture. In fact, canon law provides that if there is doubt about whether baptism has been received once, it may be given conditionally (“If you are not yet baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”)
The adult RCIA process does not differ all that much between non-baptized and baptized participants. You’d be saving a bit of time, but not all that much.
The adorable white dress part? Only little girls. Boys usually wear suits for their First Communion. You just don’t hear as much about it because the boys are generally not as excited about their suits as the girls are about their dresses. The big (or small) party ,etc? Both boys and girls have those. It depends on the family (some have huge parties at catering halls and some have the grandparents over for lunch) more than gender.
Here for boys it’s usually a V-neck jumper+white shirt+slacks (what The Bros wore), sailor suits (less common nowadays) or admiral suits. The ones in admiral suits always give me an urge to pin to their chest every medal, pin and brooch I can find. The white dresses and suits aren’t universal, but the “getting new clothes and having a celebration” seems to be.
I know you are not actually planning on doing it, but I couldn’t think of a succinct way to indicate that. “Hypothetical OP” isn’t accurate, and “the hypothetical person described in the OP” seemed too long and sounded weird.
And I don’t think it would be dishonest. Unlike Catholicism, most Protestant churches don’t give a crap if you plan on joining their particular denomination. For them, it is the baptism and salvation that is important, not what church you wind up going to. In fact, for many churches, baptism and membership are two completely different concepts. I know they were at my church.
It’s done with ill intent, to be able to skip a part of the process which the Catholics deem necessary. The Protestants might not care, but the Catholics would.
Minor nitpick: You may receive Holy Orders at most three times, once for each order of the clergy to which you are called. Deacons are ordained but once; priests are ordained as deacons and then as priests; and bishops as both the lower orders before being consecrated bishop. But your point about “only one time” and “indelible chaacter” remains valid, which was I think your key point.
Note that the vast majority of non-Catholic confirmations and ordinations are not deemed valid in Catholic theology.
Final point: I think it’s valid Catholic theology (it is Anglican as well) that Baptism constitutes the full and complete rite of admission into the Church and conveyance of salvific grace accompanying that inclusion; the rites of First Comunion (and First Recojciliation) and Confirmation are not “Baptism Mark II” upgrades but rather admission of the youthful Christians into additional aspects of the faith as they come of years to understand the rites. Correct?
Frankly, if you ran a properly set-up survey poll (across generations, denominations, theologies, and fervency), I believe the results would tend quite the opposite of what you say – at least as regards baptism, though getting people converted to followers of Jesus takes precedence over getting their butts in the local church’s pews, to be sure. But I think this tends towards IMHO territory, unless someone can chase down factual (ideally statistical) data tp confirm or contradict one or the other of us.
Catholic Baptism does make one officially a member of the Roman Catholic Church (non-Catholic Baptism makes one part of the Mystical Body of Christ, but not in full communion with the RCC). An adult in RCIA officially becomes a member of the RCC through acceptance into the Order of Catechumens (at which point they are given the canonical right to Christian Burial if they should die before baptism).
Confirmation really is Baptism Mk II. It is the customary post-bathing (i.e., post-baptismal) ritual of smearing perfumed oil on oneself after a bath. So, go down to the river to be baptized/washed, and then come out and get anointed. So, how did this become spiritualized into a sacrament? After all, Jesus never anointed anyone, nor did he command anyone to anoint anyone (except the sick).
It is because Jesus is the Anointed One, which in Hebrew is ‘Messiah’ and in Greek, ‘Christ.’ (Oil in Hebrew is Mesach and in Greek, Chrism.) Christians (“anointed ones”) believe Jesus fulfills the Messianic prophecies. And so, if one is anointed after a baptism, the symbolism is right there and quite rich: The baptized share in the life of the Anointed One, the Christ.
So, how did the post-baptismal anointing become a separate sacrament? Because the anointing with oil became attached to a different Christian tradition: the laying on of hands which imparts the Holy Spirit. But that giving of the spirit was limited to the chief elder. And so, only the chief elder of the community, ‘the Overseer’ which in Greek is ‘Bishop,’ was allowed to anoint the recently baptized. And when the communities in a town grew so large that the bishop couldn’t get to all the baptisms, then the anointing/laying-of-hands was relegated to a later time.
Over the centuries, the reason for this split in ritual was lost to history and was only recently recovered in the last century. Which is odd considering that the Eastern Rite Catholics and the Orthodox never separated the baptism from the anointing. Infants are baptized and anointed at the same ceremony by the priest. Then a drop of the Precious Blood is put on their lips so that they also receive their First Holy Communion.
But for the Latin Rite RCCs, the three sacraments are still separated for the cradle Catholics. The lack of Confirmation has little consequence except for things like being a godparent. (The non-Confirmed RCCs can get married in the Church).
Anointing with oil is done as part of the Baptism as well, though.
What I was taught is that Confirmation was a sort of “Baptism II” inasmuch as it was the, well, confirmation by an adult, conscious person of the compromise his parents had undertaken for him as an infant. At the same time, we were taught that this was a pretty recent view; my own parents got confirmed at the ripe old ages of 3 and 7, which aren’t anywhere near adulthood.