conferring this Sacrament till all hope of the sick man's recovery is over. The accusation is false; one of the objects for which we anoint the sick, distinctly expressed in our prayers at the time, is that "the prayer of faith may save the sick man and the Lord may raise him up." They require seven priests to administer the Euchelaion,[1] and again reproach us that we have only one, in spite of the plural in St. James's Epistle: "Let him call in the priests of the Church" (verse 14). The matter is olive oil, with which they often mix wine[2] (in memory of the Good Samaritan); it is not blessed by the bishop, but by the priests just before it is used. They have a long form invoking our Lady, the holy "moneyless physicians" SS. Cosmas and Damian, and other Saints; they anoint the forehead, chin, cheeks, hands, nostrils, and breast with a brush, and each priest present does the same. Their service is, as usual, very long; it lasts two or three hours. And they anoint not only the very sick, but people quite slightly unwell, and regularly on certain days of the year every one, even people who are in quite good health, as a preparation for Holy Communion.[3] A Sacramental connected with this Sacrament is the anointing of persons with oil taken from a lamp that burns before some holy picture. In doing so the priest, by some strange confusion, sometimes uses the form of Confirmation: "The seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost."[4] The holy chrism ((
Greek characters)) used for Confirmation and other consecrations is, as we have seen (p. 284), a subject of very angry dispute. The Œcumenical Patriarch thinks that he alone should bless it for the whole Orthodox world. Its composition is enormously complicated, and certain chemists of Constantinople are officially appointed to prepare it. Besides olive oil and balsam, fifty-five other substances are put into it, among which are red wine, orange and rose-water, mastic,
- ↑ A less number, or even one will do in case of necessity.
- ↑ In Russia always.
- ↑ In Russia only the Metropolitans of Moscow and Novgorod do this on Maundy Thursday. But priests in their faculties are expressly forbidden to administer the Euchelaion to people who are not sick. See E. d'Or, ii. pp. 193-203: L'extrême-onction chez les Grecs. The rite in the Euch. 260-288.
- ↑ E. d'Or. ii. p. 202, note 4.
