I don’t follow the Kardashians at all –- but you’d have to be on Mars not to notice all the photos out there about Kim Kardashian’s trip to Armenia for the baptism of her three youngest children. I wasn’t aware she was particularly devout.

But she has named her kids Saint, Chicago and Psalm. All were baptized at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat. There are Armenian churches in this country (such as this one in Evanston, Ill.), so I’m not sure why she felt the need to fly back to the old country, other than to bring attention to the Armenian genocide (by the Turks) a century ago.

This being the Kardashians, much of it was on camera and the mother’s Instagram post of being “baptized along with my babies” the event got 5 million likes. Even though she’d previously had an older daughter, North West, previously baptized in Jerusalem, was Kardashian herself ever baptized? And by whom? No one seems to know.

Here’s what CBN said:

Socialite and business mogul Kim Kardashian West visited her family's homeland of Armenia to get baptized with her children at what scholars say is one of the oldest churches in the world.
"So blessed to have been baptized along with my babies at Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia's main cathedral which is sometimes referred to as the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church. This church was built in 303 AD," West wrote in an Instagram post.
West is pictured lighting candles in the cathedral, an orthodox tradition that symbolizes Jesus being the light of the world.

I’m curious if the Kardashians had to jump through hoops to get their kids baptized like most people have to do. This article notes that most believers have to apply months ahead of time, have their baptisms approved by a religious council and other requirements.

Byzantine details: How are the Orthodox Christian churches organized, and why?

DAVID ASKS:

Most of us in the U.S. are aware of Orthodox Christians but don’t really understand their organization. Can you expand on their split around the world?

THE RELIGION GUY ANSWERS:

Our previous Q and A about Islam’s founding Sunni-Shi’a split mentioned divisions within Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy, which means “correct teaching,” sees itself as preserving Christianity’s earliest and most authentic form. This faith is in the spotlight what with (1) history’s first meeting between a Catholic pope and a patriarch of Russia’s massive Orthodox church, and (2) the June 16-27 “Holy and Great Council” of all bishops in Crete, potentially (if it is held) Eastern Orthodoxy’s most consequential event in more than 12 centuries.

Writing online Feb. 10, sociologist Peter Berger (a Lutheran) said through recent centuries this faith has existed mostly in three contexts: as a state religion, as a “persecuted or barely tolerated” church under Islamic or Communist rule or in the diaspora outside its heartland (e.g. in the United States) where separate and competing churches under foreign hierarchies generate “ethnic cacophony.”

The ancient churches of Eastern Orthodoxy -- Orthodoxy dates its birth at Pentecost -- are organized into three branches that stem from the 5th Century debate on how to define the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ.

Caution: This gets technical.