www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Holy Unction on Great Wednesday

I was interested in what formula (i.e. words) the priest uses when he anoints the individual faithful during the celebration of the Holy Mystery of Unction on Great Wednesday.

(the shorter formula for the individual anointings after the priest prays the longer anointing prayer "Holy Father, Physician of our souls and bodies..." once over all the people.)

I'm also interested in knowing how many anointings are customarily given (forehead? face? palms of hands? other?) during this particular service. I believe the practice varies.

Many thanks!
(would be interested in hearing from some of the good Fathers on this one, but all replies are welcome!)

Anyone?

I must confess that I find it a bit surprising (with all the liturgical minutiae that flies around on this forum in various places) that I've yet to receive a single reply to my post.

Father Archimandrite Serge?

Our priest does forehead, nose, ears and wrists IIRC.

I think the formula is:

Heal your servant, N., from all physical and spiritual illness by means of this anointing.

And I think forehead and hands are the most commonly anointed.

This is unfamiliar to me. The general unction service during Holy Week is actually an exception to the regular practice of this particular sacrament (which, btw, in Russian practice is only served by the bishop with priests concelebrating - thus it is not a "regular" part of Holy Week, but only done when the bishop visits during Lent or at the Cathedral on Holy Wednesday). In practice a person only ever receives this sacrament once in his lifetime for each illness. In practice this sacrament is usually only given when all other resources have been used. Should a person then recover from his illness as a result of the sacrament of unction, the "leftover" oil is saved and it is buried in his coffin with him when he does does die.
Thus to receive the sacrament of unction over and over again for the same ailment is not the usual practice of the Church. But practices differ. Your mileage may vary.

Alexandr

Is this service in conjunction with 7 Epistles, 7 Gospels, and 7 Annointings (preferably by 7 priests)?

Alexandr

Mit Ti,

In the Greek Orthodox Church it is:

Priest: O Holy Father, Physician of souls and bodies, Who sent your only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ to heal every infirmity and deliver from death, heal also these Your servants from the ailments of their body and soul, end endow them with life by the Grace of Your Christ, through the intercessions of our All-Holy Lady Theotokos, and ever-Virgin Mary; the power of the precious and Life-Giving Cross; the protection of the honored Bodiless Powers in Heaven; the supplications of the honored, glotious Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist; the Holy Glorious and All-laudable Apostles; the Holy glorious and victorious Martyrs; our Saintly and God-bearing Fathers; the Holy unmercenaries and Healers, Cosmos and Damien, Cyrus and John, Samson and Diomedes, Mokias and Aniketos, Panteleimon and Hermolaos, Thelelaios and Tryphon; of our Holy and righteous ancestors Joachim and Anna, and of all the Saints.

For You our God, are the source of healing, and to You we ascribe glory; to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the Ages of Ages. Amen.

I wish you a blessed Pascha.

Searching

P.S. When the priest anoints someone he says:

O Holy Father, Physician of our souls and bodies, have mercy, forgive and save Your servant ________ (name)

This is said for each person being anointed.

The Mystery of Holy Oil is commonly served on the evening of Great Wednesday in Greek parish usage, and has been spreading beyond the Greek sphere, especially in the diaspora. No one seems to have done an adequate study of how this practice arose, but it is also found in Kyiv at the Monastery of the Caves, and is used in some other places throughout the Slav world. One finds that it gets a good response from the faithful.

Ideally, one does want to have seven priests, with the reading of seven Epistles and seven Gospels (and seven particular prayers). Holy Week being what it is, I've only actually experienced the service with seven priests once, in Athens several years ago - the presence of seven of us made us quietly happy.

The senior priest will usually offer the prayer to be said over the faithful while the other priests hold out the open Gospel Book (pages down, in contrast to the practice when the Gospel is being read). Practice at the actual anointing varies considerably. If a Bishop is serving, the faithful naturally like him to anoint them. If there is no present, and there are many faithful, each priest will position himself strategically so that the faithful can come to one or another priest for the anointing. What I've usually seen is that one priest blesses each individual with the open Gospel Book, and another priest does the anointing. I strongly suspect that the words the priest uses during the actual anointing are variable, but since they are not pronounced loudly it's hard to tell. In any case, by that time the full prayer of anointing has been pronounced over the entire congregation.

Also in Athens, one finds that the sanctified Oil is kept for a while in the Church; people who must come late for one reason or another will ask a priest to anoint them. The remaining oil is given out in small bottles and kept as a blessing throughout the year.

In most cases, this is probably the only time that the service is done in full, and fully chanted. In a backwash from the persecution, I find that people from the former USSR are strangely hesitant to ask the priest to come to their homes for any service, even though I exhort them to call me for such purposes - in the Soviet Union it was effectively forbidden for the priest to go to the sick, either in the home or in the hospital, and the habit seems to have been lost. In Greece, on the other hand, people will quite frequently ask the priest to come and serve a Paraclisis or a water-blessing or whatever.

Hope this helps.

Fr. Serge

MANY thanks for the replies to my inquiry.
A blessed Great Week, Pascha and Bright Week to all !

It's 7 Epistles, 7 Gospels and the anointing at the end. The anointing for us is forehead, chin, palms. I couldn't remember the exact order in my last post. The Gospel book is held over the head of all those going up for anointing. The prayer is pretty much what searching said.

Here in Columbia, we had two celebrations of the full Unction Service: one at 4:30 and one at 7; the first round of annointing ended about 6:30 and the second service began on time, so it was quite a feat for those chanting!

Regarding the annointing: at the end, one of the priests (we were blessed to have two priests for both services) read the full prayer of annointing once over the whole congregation, and a shortened version as each person was annointed. Everyone was kneeling during this prayer, and the Gospel was held over the heads of the congregation by one of the priests.

If you really want to experience Unction, the Romanian style of serving Unction is the way to go: during each of the 7 Gospels, the priests place their stoles over members of the congregation and during each prayer, priests go through the congregation and annoint everyone on the forehead; at the very end, everyone is annointed again on the forehead and hands.

Dave

Glory to Jesus Christ!
We did have 4 priests.
4 Gospels were read.
What a marvelous way to proceed to the end of Holy Week.
Deacon El

We had one priest...read all 7 Gospels, prayers, etc. Wow. I wonder if he got tired at the end, but he didn't seem to.

(That's Greek Orthodox Church)

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

We had 4 priests...7 epistles...7 gospels and the annointing was on the forhead and palms..