The Rite of the Seven Priests

The full Orthodox rite of Holy Unction is built on the number seven — ideally seven priests, seven Epistle and Gospel readings, seven prayers, and seven anointings — a structure of fullness and completeness rooted in the “elders” of James 5. This file treats the shape of the rite, the meaning of its sevenfold pattern, its administration to individuals and its accommodation to fewer priests, and the general unction of the whole congregation on the Wednesday of Holy Week.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Sevenfold Rite

The Orthodox service of Holy Unction (the Euchelaion) is, in its full form, one of the more elaborate of the mysteries, organized throughout around the number seven. Ideally it is celebrated by seven priests — the “elders” of James, taken in the fullest number — though it may be, and today usually is, served by fewer, or even by one priest in case of need (Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, SVS Press, 2009, on the structure of the rite and the seven priests; Ware, The Orthodox Church, Penguin, 1993, Part II). After an opening office of psalms, a canon, and troparia, the heart of the rite consists of seven sequences, each comprising a reading from the Epistles, a reading from the Gospel, a litany, a prayer, and an anointing of the sick person with the blessed oil. Seven different Epistle passages and seven Gospel passages — accounts of healing, of mercy, of the forgiveness of sins, including the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) and the anointing at James’s own text — are read in turn, and at the close of each the sick person is anointed with the sign of the cross on the forehead, the nostrils, the cheeks, the lips, the breast, and the hands (the seven readings and anointings of the Euchelaion; Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick).

The oil is blessed within the rite itself — poured, in many uses, into a vessel set in wheat, with lighted candles, and consecrated by a prayer invoking the Holy Spirit upon it, so that, as in every mystery, it is the Spirit and not the oil of itself that heals (Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, on the blessing of the oil; see Sacramental Theology, on the epiclesis). At the conclusion the presiding priest lays the open Gospel book, text downward, upon the head of the sick person — a gesture in which Christ Himself, the Word, is understood to lay His healing hand upon the sufferer — and a prayer of forgiveness is read (Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, on the concluding gesture with the Gospel).

The Meaning of the Seven

The number seven is not incidental but expressive. Seven is throughout Scripture the number of fullness and completion — the seven days of creation, the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah 11:2), the seven-times-seven of forgiveness (Matthew 18:22). The seven priests, seven prayers, and seven anointings signify the fullness and completeness of the Church’s prayer and of the healing sought: it is the whole Church, in the persons of her elders, that prays over the sick, and the entire person, in all his members and senses, that is anointed and healed (Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, on the symbolism of the seven; cf. the elders [plural] of James 5:14). The sevenfold repetition is not a redundancy but an intensification — the persevering, complete prayer of faith that James promises “shall save the sick.” The reduction to fewer priests in ordinary practice does not diminish the mystery, whose minister is finally Christ; but the ideal of seven preserves the vision of the whole community gathered in intercession around the suffering member of the Body.

Administration to the Faithful

Holy Unction may be administered to any of the faithful in serious illness of body or soul — in the home, the hospital, or the church — as often as need arises, and, as the companion file stresses, without any implication that death is near (see The Mystery of Anointing, on unction as the sacrament of the sick and not “last rites”). It is given only to the living and, in Orthodox discipline, only to Orthodox Christians in good standing, who ideally have first been reconciled through confession, so that the mystery of healing crowns the mystery of repentance (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II; see Confession and the Spiritual Father). The oil consecrated in the rite may be kept and used to anoint the sick person again, or applied to the members in continued illness.

The General Unction of Holy Week

Beyond its administration to the individual sick, the Orthodox Church has a beloved custom of celebrating general unction for the whole congregation once a year, most widely on the Wednesday evening of Holy Week (Great and Holy Wednesday), or at its Matins, though some traditions serve it on other days of Holy Week or the Nativity fast (the Holy Week general unction; Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, on the practice of general unction; Ware, The Orthodox Church, Part II). On this occasion the entire assembly — not only those presently ill — comes forward to be anointed, in acknowledgment that all are sick with the common sickness of sin and mortality and all stand in need of the healing mercy of Christ, and in preparation for the coming of Pascha and the reception of the Paschal communion.

The placing of the general unction in Holy Week is deeply fitting. It stands on the threshold of the Lord’s own Passion, when the Church accompanies Christ to His suffering and death; and it is on Holy Wednesday that the Gospel of the sinful woman who anointed the Lord’s feet with precious ointment is read (Matthew 26:6–13; the hymn “Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins” belongs to this day). The faithful, themselves anointed with the oil of healing and mercy, are joined to that woman’s act of loving repentance and to the Lord who received it, as they prepare to enter the mystery of His death and resurrection (Paul Meyendorff, The Anointing of the Sick, on the Holy Week setting; see The Twelve Great Feasts, on the paschal cycle). The general unction thus binds the mystery of healing to the paschal center of the whole Christian year: the sick are anointed on the way to the tomb and the empty tomb, that they may share in the resurrection which is the final and complete healing of soul and body.

See Also

References

  • Paul Meyendorff. The Anointing of the Sick. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2009.
  • Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993, Part II.
  • Scripture: James 5:14–15; Luke 10:25–37; Matthew 18:22, 26:6–13; Isaiah 11:2.