Chapter 14

CONFIRMATION: UNCTION WITH CHRISM

The Holy Catholic and Apostolic (Eastern) Church teaches that unction with chrism is a sacred act, instituted by Jesus Christ, by which (or, in which sacrament) the newly baptized believer receives the gifts of the Holy Ghost for growth and strength in spiritual life. She has the words of the Holy Scriptures testifying to the act, by which she proves that in the early days of Christianity this mystery (or sacrament) was administered by exactly the same external symbolic forms as the church uses today. “Now when the Apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. (For as yet He was fallen upon none of them; only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. (Acts 8:14–17) And so, very soon after the ascension of Jesus Christ, the Apostles performed the sacred rite, consisting in prayer and the laying on of hands, with the purpose of administering the gift of the Holy Ghost to the newly baptized.” (See Acts 19:1–7 and Heb. 6:2)

As the laying on of hands is united with different rites, and followed by different gifts in the other sacraments, which we see in the practice of the Church to-day, so we see the very same in the same Church of the days of the Apostles, and which is proved by the infallible documents the Church produced—the Bible, which is received by many who do not recognize the Church!

The administering of the gifts of the Holy Ghost to the believer was from the first connected with the rite of anointing with chrism. Therefore, the very communication of the Holy Ghost is referred to by the Holy Scriptures as the unction. “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. (1 John 2:20) But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you.” (See also 2 Cor. 1:21–22)

The transmission of the Holy Ghost might be termed the unction in a figurative sense only from the visible sign of this communication, which consisted in administering an (1) external anointing, the (2) laying on of hands, and (3) prayer.

The Holy Catholic and Apostolic (Eastern) Church retained these three essential parts of the mystery or sacrament, and ordered that the baptized be anointed on the forehead, breast, eyes, ears, mouth, hands and feet, in order that the whole man be sanctified after his spiritual birth (in baptism). For this unction she uses a composition of the purest olive oil and aromatics, consecrated only by bishops, and called holy chrism. The priests are empowered to administer this sacrament; and furthermore, the Church teaches that this mystery is, so to speak, supplementary to baptism; that it fixes on us the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost, and, therefore, as baptism itself, it cannot be repeated.

The Roman Church has retained this anointing of the different parts of the body at baptism by the priest. But she distinguishes this from another unction administered at a later time by the bishop to full-grown persons, and called confirmation; nevertheless, she has not decided that confirmation, administered by a priest, is not valid. Many of her theologians maintain that a priest may administer confirmation when authorized by a bishop; and unction with chrism by the uniat priests, performed immediately after baptism, is considered valid at Rome.

There have been instances in the United States, especially in missionary or thinly settled dioceses, in which a Latin priest—the administrator or apostolic-vicar administered confirmation. Certain Roman theologians consider the anointing with chrism as the exterior sign of this sacrament; others, the imposition of hands; while yet some consider it to be in the one and in the other indifferently.

Till the thirteenth century, unction with chrism was in universal practice throughout the Western Church; but from this time the administering of this mystery (sacrament) gradually began to be performed by the bishops. When the modern Pontifex Maximus of ancient Rome is willing to be nothing more than the Archbishop of the Roman Christian Church, then the priests of the Western schism once more will exercise their power in full, with all the privileges of their holy office; and common practice and common prayer will gradually lead to common sympathy, which in due time will draw all to love—the seal of the oneness of the Church of Christ! Notwithstanding the fact that confirmation later on became an episcopal function in the West, the priests still continued to anoint with chrism the newly baptized, at the same time reading the prayer appointed to be read in the sacrament of unction with chrism, according to the ancient Latin rituals. And so the West involuntarily proves that the practice of uniting the mystery of unction with chrism (confirmation) with baptism, and administered by the priest, as is still done in the East, is continued from the days of the Apostles.

We see, furthermore, that the sacrament of confirmation in the Latin schism is repeated; firstly, administered ignorantly by the priest in the unction with chrism at baptism, and, secondly, later on, by the bishop in the imposition of hands, notwithstanding the doctrine, even of the Roman Church, that the sacrament of confirmation may not be repeated.

The Anglican Church followed in the footsteps of Rome with regard to confirmation, except that she has allowed herself more liberty. She does not practice the unction. The Protestant sects retained no trace whatever, in their several teachings, of confirmation, or unction with chrism.