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The holy water font is a derivative of the cantharus, which has been used by Christians since the time of the early Church to perform ablutions before entering the church (while these are no longer normative in Western Christianity, canthari are found at the entrance of certain Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox churches).
In many Orthodox churches, a special kind of holy water, called "Theophany Water", is consecrated on the Feast of Theophany (Epiphany). The consecration (literally, "Great Blessing") is performed twice: the first time on the eve of the feast , in a baptismal font; the second, on the day of the feast, in a natural body of water.
Although Eastern Orthodox do not normally bless themselves with holy water upon entering a church like Catholics do, a quantity of holy water is typically kept in a font placed in the narthex (entrance) of the church, where it is available for anyone who would like to take some of it home with them. It is customary for Orthodox to drink holy ...
The Apostolic Constitutions, whose texts date to c. 400 AD, attribute the precept of using holy water to the Apostle Matthew.It is plausible that the earliest Christians may have used water for expiatory and purificatory purposes in a way analogous to its employment in Jewish Law ("And he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and he shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the ...
[2] [1] In the present-day, canthari are found in Eastern Christian and Oriental Christian churches, though in Western Christianity (especially in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican traditions) the cantharus gradually transformed into the holy water font. [1] [6]
Nipson anomēmata mē monan opsin (Ancient Greek: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν), meaning "Wash the sins, not only the face", [2] or "Wash my transgressions, not only my face", [3] is a Greek palindrome [fn 1] that is said to be first inscribed upon a holy water font outside the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: [4]