Be your head anointed with holy oil, as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. (Earlier this year, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III, and the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, The Most Reverend Hosam Naoum, consecrated the holy oil in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.) The oil will be poured into the Coronation Spoon before the anointing.ĭuring the anointing, the Archbishop will say: "Be your hands anointed with holy oil. Then, the Archbishop of Canterbury will anoint King Charles with holy oil on the palms of his hands, his chest, and his head. He is seated in King Edward's chair (also called the Coronation chair), with the Stone of Scone beneath him, and the choir will sing the anthem "Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet," referencing Solomon's coronation. Although the monarch is no longer considered divine in the same way, the ceremony of Coronation also confirms the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England."įor the anointing, also known as the Act of Consecration, King Charles is covered with a canopy, traditionally held by four Knights of the Garter. Until the seventeenth century the sovereign was considered to be appointed directly by God and this was confirmed by the ceremony of anointing. Per the Royal Collection Trust, "Anointing was one of the medieval holy sacraments and it emphasised the spiritual status of the sovereign. This isn't as true in 2023 King Charles is no longer considered appointed by God. As an act of consecration and setting aside, the anointing of kings was in many ways comparable to the ordination of high priests." It was also the moment at which God adopted the monarch as his son and at which God’s spirit descended on him. "This is particularly true of the central sacred act in the coronation service, the anointing of the new monarch with holy oil, which is directly based on the anointing of the earliest Israelite kings as described in the first book of Samuel and the first Book of Kings."īradley later writes, "The act of anointing, which was usually carried out by a priest, signified the setting apart of the king and signalled his divine election. "Much of the ceremonial and ritual that still surrounds the British monarchy is based on practices described in the Old Testament," Ian Bradley writes in God Save the King: The Sacred Nature of the Monarchy. It's based on the anointing of King Solomon in the Bible. The anointing is the most sacred and solemn moment in the entire ceremony, and is meant to be private. Though King Charles's coronation is televised, there's one moment that will be kept off camera: the anointing.
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