Sacraments
The seven rites of the historic Catholic and Orthodox traditions — and how the Reformation traditions understand each. Descriptive, ecumenically literate, sourced from primary witnesses and confessional documents.
The Seven
7
Eucharist
Holy Communion
The meal Christ gave his Church on the night before he died. Bread, wine, and his words: 'this is my body, this is my blood.' Every historic Christian tradition celebrates it. They disagree, sometimes profoundly, about what it is.
Baptism
Holy Baptism
Water and the triune name. The rite by which a person enters the Christian Church. The unbroken Christian practice from Pentecost to the present — though the traditions disagree about who properly receives it and what exactly it accomplishes.
Confirmation
Chrismation
The seal of the Holy Spirit. Anointing with chrism and the laying on of hands. In the East it follows infant baptism immediately; in the Latin West it became a separate rite for those already baptized; the Reformed traditions reframed it as a profession of faith.
Reconciliation
The Sacrament of Penance
Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Confession of sin and absolution — from the Didache through the Lateran requirement to private auricular confession, Luther's retention, and the Reformed reframing as mutual confession.
Anointing of the Sick
Holy Unction
Is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church. The apostolic instruction of James 5:14, the medieval narrowing into extreme unction, and Vatican II's recovery of anointing for all the seriously ill — alongside the Orthodox euchelaion and Reformation alternatives.
Holy Orders
Ordination
Bishop, priest, deacon — the threefold ministry visible by the time of Ignatius of Antioch. Catholic and Orthodox apostolic succession, Anglican retention, Lutheran modification, Reformed presbyterial ordination, and Baptist congregational call.
Matrimony
Holy Matrimony
What God has joined together, let no one separate. A creation ordinance that the Catholic and Orthodox traditions count among the seven sacraments and Protestant traditions honor as a covenant — the union of man and woman as a sign of Christ and his Church.