John Anthony McGuckin

Источник

Chrismation

SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY

Chrismation is the second sacrament of the Orthodox Church, part of the initiation (baptismal) mysteries. Through Chris­mation one is anointed with specially consecrated oil of myrrh (Ex. 30.25) in order to receive the gift of the “Seal of the Holy Spirit.” In Orthodoxy Chrismation normally takes place immediately after the baptism of water. It is an organic part of the baptismal mystery and is performed as its fulfillment. Chrismation conforms the initiate to Christ, “the anointed one” and opens the door to deification, in Christ, by the transfiguring grace of the Holy Spirit, who is the Illuminator and Sanctifier. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in his baptismal catecheses of the 4th century, noted that by becoming partakers of Christ we are called “Christs,” since we receive the anti-type of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Thus, after being baptized with the sanctified waters, one receives this anti-type in the form of Chrismation, the same Holy Spirit with which the Savior was anointed in his earthly ministry by the Father. The sealing of the believer with Holy Chrism renders them into prophets, priests, and kings.

The ancients widely practiced two types of anointing: social anointing and symbolic anointing. The Scriptures present the first type of anointing as being performed primarily as a sign of hospitality. In addition it was performed for healing purposes and also for the preparation of the dead for burial. In the two evangelical stories of the anointing of Jesus, the first concerning Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7.38–50) and the other relating the sign Mary of Bethany gave (Jn. 12.3), we can see several of these strands coming together (also with allusions to the other type of anointing symbol). The sinful woman anoints Jesus when his host has neglected that honor, and he accepts it as a symbol of the redemption God brings through love. The anointing Mary offers (which carries overtones ofmessianic status) is rebuffed as a messianic symbol and accepted as a symbol of burial precisely because the evangelist knows that no human can ever anoint Jesus as the Messiah, rather it is a gift of the Father. For this reason, when the myrrh-bearing women come to anoint the Lord, they are unable to achieve their goal: in his resurrection the mysteries of glorification have already taken place.

The messianic anointing in the Scriptures was a sign of divine election and divine authority. It was restricted exclusively to high priests, kings, and prophets who were chosen by God to convey his will (Ex. 28.41; Num. 35.25; 1Sam. 16.13). The Scriptures gives us examples of Aaron, Saul, and David being anointed by the extraordinary com­mand of God. In fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies Jesus is manifested through both types of anointing. Moreover, Jesus promised to his disciples that he will “Ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, Who will be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth” (Jn. 14.16). And the Holy Spirit “Will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I have said to you” (Jn. 24.49). This promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples. After that great gift, the disciples bestowed it to the faithful through the mysteries.

In the early church two means of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on peoples of faith were practiced: the laying on of hands and anointing with oil. Thus, “They laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8.14–17). Later on, the consecrated oil, as a sacra­mental sign of the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, tended to replace the rite of baptis­mal laying on of hands, but the apostolic charism of passing on this initiation is reserved in the church in so far as only the senior bishop of each region can conse­crate the holy myron. In earliest times only bishops celebrated this sacrament, but eventually its administration also passed to priests, using the previously consecrated myron. In the 2nd century Valentinian Gnostics practiced Chrisma­tion as a sacrament, but they detached it from the liturgical matrix of water baptism and affirmed it to be superior, as the name Christ was derived from “chrism.” The ear­liest testimony of the sacramental use of Chrismation in the Orthodox Church comes from Tertullian at the beginning of the 3rd century. The Orthodox response to the early controversies was to insist on the close relation of the two parts of the initia­tion rite. If a convert to Orthodoxy is received after having received trinitarian baptism in another Christian communion, then Chrismation can be celebrated on its own (as a completion of the mystery of baptism), and if persons who have pub­licly apostatized from the Orthodox faith return, then they too receive Chrisma­tion alone as a sign of the healing of the original mystery of baptism; but other­wise it is always celebrated with water immersion as a single mystery of initiation. Later Christian history saw the controversy renewed when the Roman Catholic Church separated Chrismation from the liturgical cycle and placed it as “Confirmation” (after Holy Communion) to strengthen the adult in the Christian faith and make him or her a full member of the church. Orthodoxy rejected that approach since baptism and Chrismation have to be followed immediately by the reception of the Eucharist, as the baptized person is made by the mysteries a full member of Christ’s body by the mystical gift of the Holy Spirit – even from infancy. Protes­tantism, on the other hand, tended to reject Chrismation from the number of their sacraments for the reason that it appeared to them to diminish the self­sufficiency of water baptism. Orthodoxy points out that the original command was twofold: to baptize with “Water and the Holy Spirit.”

Fr. Alexander Schmemann attributed those controversies to the growing divorce that sprang up between the liturgical tradi­tions of the church and theological specu­lation. The scholastic approach took its starting point from definitions rather than from liturgical tradition. These definitions were tied to a particular understanding of grace and of the means of grace. They led theologians to an unavoidable dilemma: either baptismal grace makes a new gift unnecessary, or the grace received in Chrismation differs from the one received in baptism, and thus creates conditions for the detachment of Chrismation from baptism. The first position marks the Prot­estant approach, the second, the Roman Catholic. However, from the Orthodox perspective the entire dilemma is mis­guided. It arises out of a misreading of the sacramental formula which uses the gift of the Spirit, dorea in the singular, rather than the plural: the gifted graces, charis­mata. The dispensation of the particular gift of cleansing and reconciliation takes place during baptism. The uniqueness of the mystery of Chrismation arises out of the fact that it bestows on the believer the royal gift of the Holy Spirit himself. Chrismation thus takes the initiate beyond the fundamental redemption and reconcil­iation of baptism and opens the door to the mystery of deification, which is the life in Christ through the Spirit which is to develop from the time of initiation onwards into the glory of Christ’s heavenly commu­nion of saints. After baptism, then, the initiate stands in the church dressed in white robes and with bare feet. The gate­ways of the human senses are marked with chrism in the form of the cross: fore­head, eyes, nostrils, lips, ears, breast, hands back and front, and the feet. At each of the several anointings the priest says: “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

The ritual of preparation and consecra­tion of Holy Chrism is of extraordinary importance and is performed by patriarchs and other most senior hierarchs ofthe auto­cephalous churches. It starts during the fourth week of Great Lent with the prepa­ration of necessary components which may include as many as twenty ingredients. Among those ingredients are various oils, wine, fragrant herbs, and incense. The final compound, Chrism, is consecrated on the altar during the first day of Holy Week. In the Kremlin, near the Ouspensky church, one can still see the patriarchal building containing the great vats where the myron was mixed.

SEE ALSO: Baptism

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Cyril of Jerusalem, St. (2008) The Holy Sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation and Holy Communion: The Five Mystagogical Catechisms of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. Rollinsford, NH: Orthodox Research Institute.

Golubov, A. (1994) “The Seal of the Gift of the Holy Spirit,” Sourozh 55: 30–40.

McGuckin, J. A. (2008) The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine and Spiritual Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 285–8. Schmemann, A. (1964) For the Life of the World. New York: National Student Christian Federation.

Schmemann, A. (1974) Of Water and the Spirit. Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press.


Источник: The Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity / John Anthony McGuckin - Maldin : John Wiley; Sons Limited, 2012. - 862 p.

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