anointing of the sick

anointing of the sick, in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, the ritual anointing of the seriously ill and the frail elderly. The sacrament is administered to give strength and comfort to the ill and to mystically unite their suffering with that of Christ during his Passion and death. It can be given to those who are afflicted with serious illness or injury, those who are awaiting surgery, the weakened elderly, or to ill children who are old enough to understand its significance.

A person can receive the sacrament as many times as needed throughout his or her life, and a person with a chronic illness might be anointed again if the disease worsens. Imminent death from external causes—such as the execution of a death sentence—does not render one apt for the sacrament. The rite can be performed in a home or a hospital by a priest, who prays over the person and anoints his or her head and hands with chrism (holy oil). The priest may also administer the sacrament of the Eucharist and can hear a confession if so desired. If a person is at the point of death, the priest also administers a special apostolic blessing in what is known as the last rites.

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It has long been recognized that serious illness saps the spiritual resources and physical strength of the sufferers so that they are not able to meet the crisis of mortal danger with all their powers. Anointing of the sick was widely practiced from apostolic times as a sacramental rite in association with the ceremony of the imposition of hands to convey a blessing or recovery from illness or with the last Communion to fortify the believer safely on his or her new career in the fuller life of the eternal world. Not until the 8th and 9th centuries, however, did extreme unction, another term for the final anointing of the sick, become one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church. The sacrament was long regarded as a last rite, usually postponed until death was imminent; that is, when the dying Christian was in extremis. In modern times a more lenient interpretation permitted anointing of the less seriously ill. Still, the sacrament is often administered to unconscious or heavily sedated patients even though the church urges that the sacrament be given, if possible, while the person is conscious.

In Eastern Christendom it has never been confined to those in extremis (near death), nor has the blessing of the oil by a bishop been required; the administration of the sacrament by seven, five, or three priests was for the recovery of health rather than being administered exclusively as a mortuary rite. In the Greek Orthodox Church the sacrament is sometimes administered to well persons to prevent illness.