Holy Unction and Prayer for the Sick

What you'll notice

It's an evening in Holy Week. In front of the icon screen stands a small table with a bowl of wheat, a vessel of oil set in the wheat, seven candles around it, and a Gospel book. The service is long and full of reading: Epistle, Gospel, litany, prayer, and again, seven times over. Then everyone comes forward, and the priest dips a brush in the oil and anoints each person in the sign of the cross on the brow, the face, and the hands, and you go back to your place smelling faintly of olive oil.

Many parishes serve Holy Unction on Holy Wednesday (or another evening of Holy Week) and anoint all the Orthodox faithful present. The rest of the year it happens quietly, at a bedside or in a living room, for one sick person.

What it's called

Holy Unction, the anointing of the sick. Hapgood titles it "The Office of Holy Unction, Sung by Seven Priests Assembled in a Church, or in a House," and adds another name for it: "Prayer-Oil."¹

What's actually happening

The book's table is exact: a vessel of wheat, an empty lamp set on the wheat for the oil, seven wands wrapped in cotton stuck in the wheat around it, the Gospel book, and a taper for every priest.² Wine is mixed into the oil in some churches, after the remedy the Good Samaritan poured into the wounds of the man on the road.³

Then the readings, seven Epistles and seven Gospels. The first pair sets the course: Saint James calling the sick to send for the elders, and the Good Samaritan.⁴ The last is the call of Matthew the tax collector.

After each Gospel the priest prays and anoints the sick person with one of the seven wands on the brow, nostrils, cheeks, lips, breast, and both sides of the hands, praying, "O holy Father, Physician of souls and bodies... Heal thou, also, thy servant, N., from the ills of body and soul which do hinder him."⁵

At the end the priests open the Gospel book and lay it, writing down, on the sick person's head, all of them holding it. The senior priest doesn't put his own hand on the head. He prays, "I lay not my sinful hand upon the head of him who is come unto thee in iniquities... but thy strong and mighty hand, which is in this, thy Holy Gospels."⁶ The sick person bows and asks, "Bless me, holy Fathers. Pardon me, a sinner."⁷

Why it matters

"Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven" (James 5:14–15). That's the whole sacrament, and the Church does exactly what it says: elders, prayer, oil, healing, forgiveness.

It isn't reserved for the edge of death. Unction is healing in the middle of the road, for body, mind, and soul, and for sins, including the ones we've forgotten. Hapgood's notes say it may be repeated, and that "even the young need not fear to receive it, under the erroneous impression that, having received it, they cannot, thenceforth, eat meat or marry."⁸ Apparently someone needed to hear that.

The wheat on the table means something too: the seed that must die to live, "of healing and of life after the death of the body."⁹ It's the same grain you'll see at a memorial. And the oil goes all the way to the end. If someone has received Holy Unction, Hapgood's book has what remains of the oil poured over the body at burial.¹⁰

Where it came from

The apostles were already doing it: "they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them" (Mark 6:13).

The seven priests and seven readings, Hapgood's notes explain, echo the seven gifts of the Spirit, Elisha's prayers over the Shunammite's son, Elijah's prayers in the drought, and Naaman's seven dips in the Jordan; in case of need, one priest may serve it in the name of the whole assembly.¹¹

Who receives it has changed. In 1906 Hapgood's Russian notes say Unction "is performed only over sick persons," with a single exception: in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow, on Holy Thursday, the bishop anointed everyone who wished, reading Saint James broadly to include those who suffer "grief, despondency, and the like," since a well man "knows not the day and hour of his death."¹² The Holy Week service described at the start of this entry reads Saint James the same broad way. The rest of the year Unction is still what it was in James's letter: for the sick.

What you do

If you're Orthodox: when you or someone you love is seriously ill, call the priest and ask for Holy Unction; it can be served at home. Hapgood's rule is that the sick person prepares by repentance and confession, and receives Communion before or after.¹³ In Holy Week, come to the service even if you feel fine. You're less well than you think.

If you're visiting: the anointing is for Orthodox Christians, so stay in your place when the line forms.¹⁴ Do take a candle if one is offered; everyone present holds one through the Gospels as a sign of prayer for the sick.¹⁵

Go deeper

• Hapgood, Service Book, The Office of Holy Unction, pp. 333–360, with the explanations on pp. 607–609.
• James 5:13–16; Mark 6:7–13; Luke 10:25–37.
• "The Mysteries: A Field Guide to the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church," Simply Orthodox.
• Holy Week and Pascha; Memory Eternal.

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