The Shepherd, June 2007

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§ 143.  The Mysterion of Unction.  Unction is a mysterion (sacrament)  during which, through being anointed seven times with sanctified oil, a sick man (and sometimes one who is physically healthy) receives the grace of God to heal his physical and spiritual infirmities.  The mysterion also has the purpose of strengthening the faith of the patient and of those around him, his relatives and acquaintances, through which the healing grace of the Holy Spirit is called upon.  Unction is linked to the mysterion of repentance, and the accompanying absolution of sins. 

For the celebration of the mysterion of Unction a table is set up.  On it are placed the Holy Cross with the Gospel Book, and a bowl full of wheat, in which are placed seven candles (as an image of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit) and seven brushes or cotton buds for the anointing.  In the centre of the bowl of wheat, a smaller vessel is placed with wine and oil.  The wheat is put there as a sign of comfort for the patient.  In putting the wheat within sight of the sick man, the Church is, as it were, saying, just as this wheat appears to be dried up and yet is the beginning of life and could in its own time grow, so your body, which is now dried up with sickness, is a beginning for that life, which, if God wills, might flourish here on earth or for that which, after the universal Judgment, will flourish in the Resurrection. The oil is mixed with wine, because the Good Samaritan healed the Jewish man who had been beaten by thieves with wine and oil (Luke 10:34).

The order of the service is as follows.  After the introductory prayers, a canon is chanted which in moving poetic form expresses the pleas of the sick man and his friends for his recovery.  In a litany, supplications are added for the sanctification of the oil, and that the sick might be healed by the power of the Holy Spirit.  In the seven appointed Apostle and Gospel readings (seven of each), it speaks of miraculous cures wrought at the hands of the Saviour and His Apostles, and equally about the power of faith in the Lord and the power of love for one’s neighbour.  After the Gospels, the sick are anointed with the sanctified oil, mixed as we said above with wine, on various parts of their bodies.  At the anointing the priest says the prayer:  “O Holy Father, Physician of souls and bodies, Who didst send Thine Only-Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who healeth every infirmity and delivereth from death:  Heal Thou, also, Thy servant, N, from the ills of soul and body which do hinder him, and quicken him by the grace of Thy Christ, through the prayers of our All-holy Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and …”  and then we name a list of other appropriate saints, particulalrly the Unmercenary Healers.  After the seventh anointing, the open Gospel Book is held over the head of the patient (text downwards), and a prayer of absolution is read over him.  In this way, through the mysterion of Unction, the sick man is granted the forgiveness of sins, and, if it is pleasing unto God, healing of his infirities.

The number seven is of great significance in this mysterion.  The service is properly celebrated by seven priests, although if circumstances do not permit this it may be celebrated by one priest without any diminuation in its efficacy.  Seven Gospel readings and seven Apostle lections are read as are appointed in the order.  There are also seven prayers in which we supplicate for the absolution of the sins of the patient and for the healing of his sickness.  There are seven brushes or buds for the anointing of the sick, and they are anointed seven times.  Because a number of clergymen participate in the mysterion of Unction it is also called Soborobanie in Russian.  This word is impossible to translate exactly - it derives from the word, sobor, which means a council, synod or convocation, and implies that it is a concelebrated service.

… to be continued in the next issue with “The Mysterion of the Priesthood”

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