The reason for the anointing was not sickness, but so the person did not appear to other people to be fasting,
The reason for this is because of the potential health impact of fasting. Now there are only a few total fasts during the Great Lent, and no one is allowed to fast where their fasting would cause a health issue (my confessor stopped me from fasting after I was diagnosed with some ailments of the digestive tract which have the effect of frequently leaving me unable to eat or digest properly), and during the Lent most of the fast is a restriction from eating certain kinds of food, such as meat and dairy products. However, there is a desire in the Orthodox Church that everyone be as healthy as possible going into Holy Week, where there are some total fasts, and furthermore if anyone is ill, which is not uncommon during the spring, the blessing of this sacrament, which is used in addition to, and not instead of, proper medical care, can be significant.
I would also note that the Orthodox Church venerates a large number of saints known as unmercenary healers (the Roman Catholics venerate many unmercenary healers as well). Essentially, if one trains as a doctor, and then provides medical care free of charge to people who otherwise could not afford it, or afford the medical care commensurate with what they would require, this is a very good and reliable way to be glorified.
One such saint was made known to St. Anthony the Great, while laboring in the desert as a hermit, and as the founder of modern monasticism (although he was not the first Christian hermit - indeed, while in the desert he was led to the mysterious St. Paul the Hermit, who was kept alive through the pure grace of God, as he lived at an oasis and the birds would bring him bits of bread and other food they had obtained in a nearby settlement, and when he reposed, St. Anthony saw lions digging a grave for him, which it is completely possible for a large cat to do, but in practice, they will only do this if commanded by God - someone truly infused with the Holy Spirit which Pentecostals seek will typically develop a uniquely close relationship with the animals and will usually be a hermit with a background as an Orthodox monk - one recent example is St. Seraphim of Sarov, who was visited in his hermitage not just by pilgrims, but also by bears and other animals.
St. Seraphim, before becoming a hermit, and being largely unable to walk, was the hieromonk (monastic priest) assigned to the convent in Sarov, which still exists today and has a number of nuns, but which unfortunately is very difficult to visit, especially for people born outside of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as the expelled seminarian Jugashvilli, more commonly known by his Russian nom de guerre Stalin (which means steel, Lenin having meant iron and being the nom de guerre of the leader of the atheist communists, Vladimir ilyich Ulyanov) with his usual cruelty, decided to obstruct pilgrimages to the holy site by making the city the first of the
atomgrads, a closed city that was the center of the Soviet nuclear industry, roughly analogous to Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US.
At any rate, returning to the subject of unmercenary healers, St. Anthony was informed that he had an equal in the city (presumably Alexandria), a physician who gave all he earned aside from his simple living expenses to the poor, and sang the hymn known in the West as the Sanctus, which in Greek, the language likely spoken by the doctor, is as follows:
Ἅγιος, ἅγιος, ἅγιος Κύριος Σαβαώθ·
πλήρης ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ τῆς δόξης σου,
ὡσαννὰ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις.
Εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυρίου.
Ὡσαννὰ ὁ ἐν τοῖς ὑψίστοις.
Most Protestant hymnals have this hymn “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy Glory…” and it is normal for this song to be sung during Holy Communion. I would assume/hope this is the case in Baptist churches, as i have very seldom seen any church which has the Eucharist/Communion or the Lord’s Supper as low church Baptists tend to call it refer to it celebrate the service without that hymn.
At any rate, you might suspect that I had just serenaded you with unproved hagiography, but this is not the case - much of what I have told you, for example, St. Anthony’s status as a monk and his meeting of St. Paul the hermit, who was fed by birds and buried by lions, comes from the Life of Anthony, which was written by St. Athanasius, who is rather important to Christianity, probably the single most important Christian leader since the apostles, since it was St. Athanasius who:
- Prosecuted Arius at the Council of Nicaea, ensuring that the council understood the nature of the Arian heresy, and resulting in all but a handful of bishops who left the council early voting unanimously to anathematize Arius and Arianism and adopt the Nicene Creed, in defense of the Apostolic, Scriptural doctrines of the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity.
- Endured extreme persecution for the above, when one of the few eastern bishops not in attendance at the council, Eusebius of Nicomedia, falsely accused St. Athanasius of murder, resulting in him being briefly exiled to Trier, in Germany, by the Roman government, until his supporters in the Church of Alexandria found the layman he was alleged to have killed alive and well (there was also no coherent motive for St. Athanasius to kill the man - the man had been ill, presumably mentally as well as physically, and had been celebrating the Eucharist with his family despite not being a presbyter; what had actually happened was St. Athanasius met the man, explained to him he could not do that, and instead arranged for a presbyter to provide pastoral care for the man and his household; this is scarcely a situation where one would even be tempted to engage in homicide.
- Endured further persecution after Eusebius of Nicomedia corrupted the son and heir of St. Constantine, Constantius, persuading Constantius of the truth of Arianism, and thus causing the start of a systematic persecution of Christians by the Roman government which lasted for about 20 years in its fullest extent, and it was not for another 40 years, with the death of Emperor Valens and the enthronement of St. Theodosius, that the empire would have a Christian emperor, and during that time, Arians spread their false religion to the Visigoths and other Gothic tribes, who would later persecute and kill large numbers of Christians and sack Rome itself. Most of the Visigoths who settled in North Africa were converted to Islam, which is probably why one will find Berber tribesmen with blonde hair and blue eyes - somehow, Christianity disappeared from this region, I would suspect as a result of violence, as it is known that the Oriental Orthodox Church of Numidia was killed off (likewise the Church of Caucasian Albania, in what is now Azerbaijan, was killed off, although recently it has been revived with some fanfare, probably as a PR move by the Azeris who do not want to risk sanctions for the genocidal war they have waged against Armenia, and thus are trying to present themselves as tolerant and supportive of Christianity, even as they work to eradicate all traces of Armenian culture, such as thousand year old cross carvings known as khachkars, from the areas they have conquered.
- After a long exile, St. Athanasius was returned to Alexandria and the Arian bishop George was deposed. There was much rejoicing upon his return
- When St. Athanasius reposed, St. Gregory the Theologian wrote a panygeric in which he declared the name Athanasius had become synonymous with virtue.
- St. Athanasius, in addition to writing the Life of Anthony, also wrote On The Incarnation, which is regarded as one of the most important works of Patristic literature and theological scholarship, and which explains in great detail the scriptural, apostolic doctrine of the Incarnation - that our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ is God incarnate. The only begotten Son and Word of God put on our humanity, being named Jesus (Joshua in Hebrew and Yehshua in Aramaic, meaning “Jah Saves”) in order to facilitate our salvation, by glorifying us; he is also known as Emanuel, meaning “God with us.”
- Furthermore, St. Athanasius also was the first to publish, in his 39th Pashcal encycilcal, the 27 book New Testament canon that all Christians use.
Based on his work at Nicaea, his contributions to the Creed, the importance of On The Incarnation to the development of Christian theological scholarship, and his definition of the first New Testament canon to be universally accepted by all churches, the same canon in use to this date, I consider that this adds a level of credibility to the Life of St. Anthony that makes the work impossible to ignore.
Of course, most Protestants ignore it anyway, but I regard this as a grave inconsistency. They accept the scriptural canon produced by St. Athanasius, along with the doctrine of the Trinity, yet reject another writing by the same man because the Life of Anthony is technically hagiographical (which is not to say that it is inaccurate - the idea that all hagiography is inherently wrong is a logical fallacy) and could be interpreted in such a way as to contradict the principle of sola fide (albeit not necessarily, since St. James wrote “faith without works is dead”, and most Protestants regard works as evidence of a living faith, and that is clearly the case with St. Anthony the Great, who had a very lively and devout faith.
Fortunately some Protestants, particularly Anglicans, have come to recognize the beauty and authenticity of this story, and still others have recognized that if this story is inaccurate, there is no reason to trust the 27 book canon. One might as well reject those books designated by Martin Luther as “antilegomenna.” However, doing so would undermine the various works of systematic theology constructed using the full 27 book canon by erudite Protestant divines of immense intellectual ability, most famously the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth, but there are numerous other works of systematic theology and of dogmatic theology. Interestingly, as far as I am aware, Orthodoxy has never bothered to produce a work of systematic theology comparable to the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas or the Institutes of John Calvin or the Church Dogmatics of Karl Barth - rather, we prefer works of dogmatic theology which are simpler and easier to understand. I am not convinced that systematic theology is actually necessary, and will be posting a thread about this, probably in Traditional Theology in order to ensure a certain level of quality in the responses.
At any rate
@David Lamb - God bless you, and I do hope you might find it in you at some point to visit an Orthodox parish in the weeks and months ahead, as we typically have numerous weekday services not to mention All Night Vigils and Vespers (the former is a typically two and a half hour service that combines Vespers, Compline, Matins and Prime into one service that contains most of the propers about an upcoming feast, although I would note that service does not usually include any preaching - homilies are heard during the Divine Liturgy in parishes, although most monasteries do not have a homily during their divine liturgy, since instead the monks listen to the reading of important books during lunch and dinner in the
trapeza (refectory).
