Number of Sacraments.

Byzantine theology ignores the Western distinction between “sacraments” and “sacramentals” and has never formally committed itself to any strict limitation of the number of sacraments. In the patristic period, there was no technical term to designate “sacraments” as a specific category of church acts: the term mysterion was used primarily in the wider and general sense of “mystery of salvation”² and only in a subsidiary manner to designate the particular actions which bestowed salvation. In this second sense, it was used concurrently with such terms as “rites” or “sanctifications.”³ Theodore the Studite in the ninth century gives a list of six sacraments: the holy “illumination” (baptism), the “synaxis” (Eucharist), the holy chrism, ordination, monastic tonsure, and the service of burial.⁴ The doctrine of the “seven sacraments” appears for the first time — very characteristically — in the Profession of Faith required from Emperor Michael Paleologus by Pope Clement Clement IV in 1267.5 The Profession had been prepared, of course, by Latin theologians.

The obviously Western origin of this strict numbering of the sacraments did not prevent it from being widely accepted among Eastern Christians after the thirteenth century, even among those who fiercely rejected union with Rome. It seemed that this acceptance resulted not so much from the influence of Latin theology as from the peculiarly Medieval and Byzantine fascination with symbolic numbers: the number seven, in particular, evoked an association with the seven gifts of the Spirit in Isaiah 11:2-4. But among Byzantine authors who accept the “seven sacraments,” we find different competing lists. The monk Job (thirteenth century), author of a dissertation on the sacraments, includes monastic tonsure in the list as has done Theodore the Studite but combines as one sacrament penance and the anointing of the sick.⁶ Symeon of Thessalonica (fifteenth century) also admits the sacramental character of the monastic tonsure but classifies it together with penance⁷ considering the anointing as a separate sacrament. Meanwhile, Joasaph, Metropolitan of Ephesus, a contemporary of Symeon’s, declares: “I believe that the sacraments of the Church are not seven but more,” and he gives a list of ten which includes the consecration of a church, the funeral service, and the monastic tonsure.⁸

Obviously, the Byzantine Church never committed itself formally to any specific list; many authors accept the standard series of seven sacraments — baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, holy orders, matrimony, penance, and the anointing of the sick — while others give a longer list; and still, others emphasize the exclusive and prominent importance of baptism and the Eucharist, the basic Christian initiation into “new life.” Thus, Gregory Palamas proclaims that “in these two [sacraments] our whole salvation is rooted since the entire economy of the God-man is recapitulated in them.”⁹ And Nicholas Cabasilas composes his famous book on The Life in Christ as a commentary on baptism, chrismation, and the Eucharist.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 609