ABSTRACT
The division of the Christians in Africa into three competing communions, each with its own college of bishops, involved conflict over the efficacy of the rituals performed in other churches. Initially, the conflict focused on the ritual of penance: the laxists questioned the efficacy and necessity of the Catholic ritual of reconciliation; the Catholics restricted the intercessory power of the martyrs on which the laxists relied. The rigorists claimed that only Christ could forgive the sin of apostasy and concluded that the Catholic and laxist eucharistic fellowships had both been polluted by the participation of the lapsed. Catholics rejected the eucharistic celebrations of laxists and rigorists as violations of the unity of Christ’s church. Each denied the efficacy of the others’ eucharistic celebration as a pure sacrifice sanctifying the community and qualifying its members for entrance into the kingdom of Christ. The competing churches were soon questioning the efficacy of the primary ritual of purification and forgiveness, baptism. The laxist practice remains unknown but the rigorists rebaptized converts from the Catholic communion. The Catholic bishops debated the necessity of rebaptizing a convert who had originally been baptized in a competing communion.
