> Figure 1.-- This portrait was taken by Schmidt Photography at St. Louis, Missouri. There is little information associated with the portrait. It looks like he is a Luthern boy and this is his Confirmation portrait. He has a triangular pin next to his coat pocket and a pen and an handkerchief in his pocket. He is identified as Paul Rene, age 10 years. That seems rather young for confirmation. He wears a Norfolk knickers suit. The portrait is undated, but we would guess was taken in the 1910s.

Confirmation is a rite, but not always a sacrament, in most Christian Churches. Confirmation is, however, a very complicated topic in a diverse country like the United States. That is because different churches take a very different approach to conformation. The various denominations both persue conformation at a different time in a child's life, view if differently, and attach varying importance to it. Thus America with laarge numbers of people of virtually every major faith, the celebration of confirmation is quite varied. he older more trafitional churches (Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Churches) tend to view it as a sacrament as well as one Protestant church. Most Anglicans view confirmation as a sacrament. Anglicans of course are the Protesant denomination cloest to the Catholics. The Eastern rites churches confer it on infants after baptism, but in the West it tends to be administered later in life. One source suggests that Catholics set confirmation at the age of discretion or about 7 years of age, but this is the age for first communion so we are a little confused. We note Frech boys at some private schools doing confirmation at about 13 years of age, bur in general we see far fewer Catholic boys doing confirmation than first communion. There are variations among countries and over time. Protestant churches tnd not to make cnfirmation a sacrament, with the excetion of the Anglicans. For Protestants confirmation i more of a statement by a maturing youth of his faith. Thus confirmation is ot only a religious event, but a kind of coming of age ceremony. The youth begins to be seen as a member of the community with more respnsibilities. This is somewhat similar to bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah in Judiaism. The importance of confirmation varies amog Protestant churches. It is most important with in the Anglican and Luthern denomimations. Catholics seem to attach more importance to first communion than confirmation while Protestants tend to give more importance to Confirmation. We note fewer confirmation than first communion. We assume that reflects the relative number of children involved.

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Created: 12:39 AM 1/14/2009
Last edited: 3:28 AM 8/19/2017