TAINA SF. MASLU – ASPECTE INTERCONFESIONALE
THE SACRAMENT OF THE HOLY UNCTION – INTER-CONFESSIONAL ASPECTS

Summary/Abstract: The Sacrament of the Holy Unction – Inter-Confessional Aspects. Our Savior makes the Holy Apostles, and through them, the Church, partakers in His mission of healing. The main purpose of the Church is our healing, our re-entering in communion with God. The Holy Unction - administered since the apostolic age, as Scripture attests – is a continuation of the wonderful healings of Christ. The healing of infirmities through Holy Unction differs from a simple medical action, because this is an integration in the body of the Church. The Church, as a community, helps the sick, the suffering, and reinstates them in the body of Christ. For a long time, the Roman Catholic Church administered the Sacrament of the Holy Unction only to patients who were dying. For this reason, Catholics called it extrema unctio or sacramentum exeuntium, but the Holy Unction is not intended for death, but for life and purity. In the Age of Scholasticism, Holy Unction started to have the function of forgiving sins. Likewise, its function of healing the body began to be neglected, even completely excluded. The Protestants of al kind reject this sacrament. Unfortunately, the Protestant theologians give very little importance to the Holy Unction, which was not discussed during the inter-confessional dialogue. Even in the contemporary Protestant Theology, we cannot find any rapprochement of the meaning which this sacrament has in the sacramental Churches.

• Details
• Contents