Baptism and martyrdom were efforts to cleanse and redeem oneself from earthly, mortal evil. Martyrdom also was a very important form of Christian sacrifice. Due to the magnitude of this topic we have devoted an entire portion of our site to the topic of martyrdom . According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online baptism is a sacrament of admission to the Christian Church. The candidate may be wholly or partly immersed in water, the water may be poured over the head, or a few drops may be sprinkled or placed on the head.
Baptism is preformed to expiate the sins of a human through a ritual cleansing of the soul.
Baptism has been imagined as a sacrificial death to sin and symbolic rebirth as a member of the Christian church. The Sacrifice of Communion Probably the best known of the Christian sacrifices today is sacrifice of communion. The spaces in which Jesus' sacrificial death is symbolically re-enacted are sites of immense spiritual power. Altars were imagined as sacrificial places from very early times, and it became common to place martyrs' relics either under or in them. The historical development of the Eucharist as a sacrificial meal that symbolically re-creates Christ's sacrificial death at every occasion, everywhere in the world, provided a way for sacrifice to become a central part of Christian worship.