In the sacrament of
Chrismation we receive "the
Seal of the Gift
of the Holy Spirit" (See Romans 08:01,
1 Corinthians 06:22, Corinthians 01:21-22). If baptism is our personal participation in Easter --
the death and resurrection of Christ, then chrismation is our personal
participation in Pentecost -- the coming of the Holy Spirit upon us.
Chrismation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is performed in the Orthodox
Church by anointing all parts of the person's body with the special oil
called holy chrism. This oil, also called
myrrh [miron] is prepared by the bishops of
the Church on Holy Thursday. It is used in chrismation to show that the
gift of the Spirit was originally given to men through the apostles of
Christ, whose formal successors in the world are the bishops of the
Church (see Acts 8:14; 19:1-7).
The sacrament of chrismation, also called
confirmation, is always done in the Orthodox Church together with
baptism. Just as Easter has no meaning for the world without Pentecost,
so baptism has no meaning for the Christian without chrismation. In this
understanding and practice, the Orthodox Church differs from the Roman
Catholic and Protestant churches where the two sacraments are often
separated and given other interpretations than those found in
traditional Orthodoxy.
In chrismation a person is given the "power from on high" (Acts
1-2), the gift of the Spirit of God, in order to live the new
life received in baptism. He is anointed, just as Christ the Messiah is
the Anointed One of God. He becomes-as the fathers of the Church dared
to put it -- a "christ" together with Jesus. Thus, through chrismation
we become a "christ," a son of God, a person upon whom the Holy Spirit
dwells, a person in whom the Holy Spirit lives and acts -- as long as we
want him and cooperate with his powerful and holy inspiration. Thus, it
is only after our chrismation that the baptismal procession is made and
that we hear the epistle and the gospel of our salvation and
illumination in Christ.
After the baptism and chrismation the person newly-received into God's
family is tonsured. The tonsure, which is the
cutting of hair from the head in the sign of the cross, is the sign that
the person completely offers himself to God -- hair being the symbol of
strength (Jud 16:17). Thus, until the
fifteenth century the clergy of the Orthodox Church -- the "professional
Christians," so to speak -- wore the tonsure all their lives to show
that their strength was in God.
The Rite of Churching
Together with being baptized and chrismated, the new-born child is also
"churched." The rite of churching imitates the
offering of male children to the temple according to the law of the Old
Testament, particularly the offering of Christ on the fortieth day after
his birth (Luke 02:22). Because of this fact,
baptism in the Orthodox tradition came to be prescribed for. the
fortieth day or thereabouts. In the New Testament Church both male and
female children are formally presented to God in the Church with special
prayers at this time.
Also at this time, once more in imitation of Old Testament practice, the
mother of the new-born child is also "churched." Here we have the
specific example of the purification ritual of Jesus' mother Mary (Luke
02:22). In the Orthodox tradition the churching of the mother is
her re-entry into the assembly of God's people after her participation
with God in the holy act of birth and after her separation from the
Liturgy during her confinement. Thus, the mother is blessed to enter
once more into communion with the mystery of Christ's Body and Blood in
the Divine Liturgy of the Church from which she has been necessarily
absent.
The new mother should be churched before the baptism of her infant so
that she can be present at the sacramental entrance of her child into
the Kingdom of Christ. The official service book indicates that this
should be done.
It is also the Orthodox tradition that the mysteries of baptism and
chrismation, called officially "holy illumination," are fulfilled in the
immediate reception by the "newly-enlightened" of Holy Communion in the eucharistic liturgy of the Church. This is the case with infants as well
as adults.
The Epistle of Baptism-Chrismation
Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were
buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might
walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know
that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body
might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
For
he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ
being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has
dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all,
but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider
yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Romans 06:03-11
The Gospel of
Baptism-Chrismation
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to
the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him
they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to
them, "All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the
age."
Matthew 28:16-20
