Sacrament (redirected from Blessed Sacrament)

sacrament [Lat.,=something holy], an outward sign of something sacred. In Christianity, a sacrament is commonly defined as having been instituted by Jesus and consisting of a visible sign of invisible grace. Christianity is divided as to the number and operation of sacraments. The traditional view held by Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and certain Anglicans counts the sacraments as seven—Eucharist, baptism, confirmation, penance, anointing of the sick, matrimony (see marriage), and holy orders (see orders, holy). These are held to produce grace in the soul of the recipient by the very performance of the sacramental act (ex opere operato); the recipient need only have the right intention. Most Protestant denominations recognize two sacraments—baptism and communion, or the Lord's Supper. Protestants hold generally that it is the faith of the participant, itself a gift of God, rather than the power of the sacramental act that produces grace. A conventional division of the seven sacraments sets apart the "sacraments of the dead," i.e., baptism and penance, because they are for souls in a state of sin; the rest, "sacraments of the living," are conferred on souls in a state of grace.

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sacrament

Religious action or symbol in which spiritual power is believed to be transmitted through material elements or the performance of ritual. The concept is ancient; prehistoric people believed that they could advantageously influence events in the natural world, such as weather patterns, through the performance of ritual. The word sacramentum was used in Roman law and later became an oath of allegiance soldiers swore in a sacred place. The sacrament is primarily associated with Christianity, and Christian theologians as early as St. Augustine focused on the proper definition of sacrament. Among Christians, sacraments are said to derive from practices instituted by Jesus, such as baptism, the washing of the feet, and the casting out of demons. There are seven sacraments of Roman Catholicism, as codified by St. Thomas Aquinas and promulgated by the Council of Trent: baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, ordination, and matrimony. The Eastern Orthodox church generally accepts seven sacraments, even though no council accepted by the Orthodox church ever defined the number of sacraments. In most Protestant churches, however, only baptism and the Lord's Supper are recognized as sacraments, as the understanding of sacrament differs from that of the Roman Catholic church. See also samskara.

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sacrament

1. an outward sign combined with a prescribed form of words and regarded as conferring some specific grace upon those who receive it. The Protestant sacraments are baptism and the Lord's Supper. In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches they are baptism, penance, confirmation, the Eucharist, holy orders, matrimony, and the anointing of the sick (formerly extreme unction)

2. the Eucharist

3. the consecrated elements of the Eucharist, esp the bread

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Sacrament 

in Christianity, a magical religious rite; according to church teachings, a sacrament gives a person a supernatural miracle-working power (“divine grace”).

The origins of the sacraments go back to the pre-Christian mysteries. The sacraments were gradually introduced with the establishment and strengthening of the Christian church organization. The first sacraments mentioned in Christian literature were baptism and the Eucharist (end of the first to the second century, Epistles of the Apostles, Acts of the Apostles).

In the 13th century (definitively at the Council of Florence of 1438–45), the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches adopted seven sacraments: (1) baptism, which is administered to a person as a sign of acceptance into the church and to cleanse the person of alleged sins (in the Orthodox tradition it is administered by immersing an infant in water, in the Catholic tradition by pouring water, and in the Protestant tradition by sprinkling water); (2) confirmation (Roman Catholic) or anointing (Eastern Orthodox), by which a person is “sanctified” by being anointed with an aromatic mixture (chrism); (3) Eucharist, by which, according to Christian teachings, believers receive the body and blood of Christ and in so doing free themselves of sins (in the Orthodox Church both laymen and clergy partake of bread and wine, and in Catholicism the clergy take bread and wine and laymen, as a rule, only partake of the bread); (4) penance (confession), the disclosing of one’s sins to a priest and receiving absolution (“remission of sins”) in the name of Christ; (5) matrimony (in the Catholic Church this cannot be dissolved); (6) extreme unction, or anointing of the sick, which is administered to a sick person (according to Orthodox teaching it cures illnesses, and in Catholicism it is a blessing over a dying person); and (7) holy orders, which is administered by a bishop, admits a person into the priesthood (the sacrament formed with the rise of a clergy).

The sacraments can be administered, as a rule, only by a member of the clergy who acts, according to church teachings, as an intermediary between god and people. Thus, the church teachings about the sacraments served to lay the foundation for the necessary existence of ministers of worship and the church.

The sacraments underwent some changes in the Protestant teachings of the Reformation period. Lutherans recognize only the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist (Luther originally recognized the sacrament of penance as well), and the Anglican Church recognizes baptism, the Eucharist, and matrimony. Baptists and members of the Reform Church retained the rites of baptism and the Eucharist, but they see them as symbolic acts rather than as sacraments. In the papal encyclical Mysterium fidei (1966), Pope Paul VI made a stricter observance of the sacraments mandatory, especially the sacrament of the Eucharist. (At the same time, some relaxation in respect to the form of observance was allowed.) In modern Protestantism there is a tendency to emphasize the meaning of the sacraments as a means of strengthening religious faith.

REFERENCES

Ranovich, A. Proiskhozhdenie khristianskikh tainstv. Moscow-Leningrad, 1931.
Emeliakh, L. I. Proiskhozhdenie khristianskikh tainstv. Moscow, 1956.

B. IA. RAMM