By Menios Papadimitriou
“Let your foreheads be anointed, so that your minds become wise. Let your hands be graced so that they perform good works. And let your mouths be filled with sweet words, that utter no evil about anyone or anything,” Archbishop Elpidophoros of America said as he invited the congregation of St. Barbara in Orange, CT to receive the Sacrament of Holy Unction on Wednesday, April 20, 2022.
Anointing, together with washing, is a recurrent motif of Holy and Great Week. The unnamed woman whom the nun Kassia praises washes and anoints the feet of Christ, and likewise, does Mary, the sister of Lazarus and Martha, preparing his body for death. The courageous women who stood by Christ at the cross’ foot—while the disciples fled in fear of religious and civil authorities—cared for Christ’s dead body by washing it and anointing it, ensuring its dignified entombment.
On Holy Wednesday evening there are two services held in the Orthodox Church that both hearken back to these motifs. One is the humble Niptir Matins service, and the other is the sacrament of Holy Unction. Rarely seen in the United States, the Niptir Service is proper to Holy Wednesday evening and is the Matins service of Holy Thursday morning’s liturgy. A striking feature of the Niptir is an enactment of Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet. While the other, the sacrament of Holy Unction, can be prayed on any day of the year and is not actually a Holy Week service, strictly speaking, it has become part of the week’s liturgical cycle as a matter of custom. Unction, of course, is a ritual anointing.
The twin motifs of washing and anointing suffuse the hymns and scriptures of the week and draw our attention to the preparation of Christ’s body for death and burial. But the season is not about death—it is about the salvation of life.
Unction is a sacrament of healing, and salvation and healing are very much the same. “In fact, the Greek verb that is normally translated as ‘to save,’ can also mean to ‘save from death,’ or to heal,” the Archbishop explained. “The Holy Oil we receive tonight is for all the needs of our bodies and souls. We receive the Oil for forgiveness because healing and salvation are very much the same.
The spiritual healing that comes from receiving Unction tonight is for eternity because the body – even when sick and made well again – will one day suffer the fate of every living thing. But the soul is eternal. That is why the healing we experience may not manifest in our flesh. But it always does so in our souls; if we will but receive it.”
The washing and anointing encountered in the Orthodox Christian tradition during Holy and Great Week lead to the myrrh-bearing women, whom we accompany to the Lord’s empty tomb. Seeking the dead body of Christ to wash and anoint, they instead encountered a resplendent heavenly messenger who asked them “why?”—why they mingled their ointment with tears; why they searched for the living among the dead—orienting the faithful Orthodox toward the Paschal mystery and inviting them to join in its proclamation—that out of the death of the crucified Eros comes light that is never overtaken by darkness.
Source: Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
