Riva San Vitale

Recognition of Baptism by the Swiss Churches, 2014

Riva San Vitale Baptisterium Apsis
© Adrian Michael

In signing the European “Charta Oecumenica” in 2005, the members of the Swiss Council of Churches SCC committed themselves to the mutual recognition of baptism. The three national Churches – Roman Catholic, Old Catholic, and Protestant – had already made this commitment in 1973. Forty-one years later, on 21 April 2014, six member churches of SCC (Roman Catholic, Reformed, Methodist, Old Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran) signed the “Riva San Vitale Declaration on Mutual Recognition of Baptism”. The signing ceremony took place in the oldest Christian building in Switzerland, the church of Riva San Vitale. They were joined in June 2021 by a seventh signatory, the New Apostolic Church.