ON THE CONSECRATION OF A KING

Archbishop of Canterbury, ++ Justin Welby, Crowning King Charles III

Edited by Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West)

The Ancient Church of the West rejoices in the Consecration and Coronation of King Charles III of the United Kingdom and 14 Commonwealth Realms. May God give him long life, health, wisdom and the desire to rule his Kingdom in such a way that the True and Orthodox Gospel of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is glorified and propagated all around the world, leading to a revival of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church throughout the Commonwealth and the United Kingdom. 

THE REASON FOR THE HISTORICAL PRACTICE OF CONSECRATION 

The historical reason for the Consecration of Kings is clearly set forth in the Old Testament, where God Himself selected the person of the king through the mediation of His holy prophets, and then sanctified and set apart the king to do His will through anointing them with holy oil. The ritual, so central to the Jewish Kingship and the Davidic Covenant, also prefigured the role of Christ as the “Messiah,” the “anointed one,” who would come to be both King and Priest forever, reigning as “Emanuel - God with Us!” This practice was adopted by the Ancient Church in order to manifest the continued role of the Church within the State, imparting holiness, morality, values and truth to the fallen and secular world. It was also used in order to remind the ruler that his power ultimately came from God, and that his legitimacy depended upon upholding God’s sacred Covenant with His People through protecting the sacred institution of the Church and its Sacraments. 

The historical union between Church and State in England was so close that crimes against the Church's laws were seen as crimes against the king, and were duly punished by him. As St. Isidore of Seville wrote, it was the duty of the king "through the terror of discipline" to accomplish what the priest was unable to do "through the preaching of doctrine.” “For a Christian king is Christ's deputy among Christian people;” as King Ethelred's laws put it. Both the king and the archbishop were "the Lord's Anointed - the archbishop so that he might minister the sacraments, and the king so that, as St. Bede wrote, "he might by conquering all our enemies bring us to the immortal Kingdom.” Regicide was the greatest of crimes; for, as Abbot Aelfric wrote, "no man may make himself a king, for the people have the option to choose him for king who is agreeable to them; but after that he has been hallowed as king, he has power over the people, and they may not shake his yoke from their necks.” And so, wrote Archbishop Wulfstan of York, "through what shall peace and support come to God's servants and to God's poor, save through Christ, and through a Christian king?"

In fact, the Orthodox ideal of a true symphony between Church and State was perhaps more passionately believed in - and, at times, more closely attained - among the English barbarians of the Orthodox West than among the more worldly-wise Byzantines themselves.

Thus in Northumbria in the eighth century we see the almost ideal harmony between the brothers King Edbert and Archbishop Egbert, of whom Alcuin writes:

“So then Northumbria was prosperous, When king and pontiff ruled in harmony, One in the church and one in government; One wore the pall the Pope conferred on him, And one the crown his fathers wore of old. One brave and forceful, one devout and kind, They kept their power in brotherly accord, Each happy in the other's sure support. 

Again, on the very eve of the Great Schism, and in Rome itself, Peter Damian wrote: “The heads of the world shall live in union of perfect charity, and shall prevent all discord among their lower members.”

And…

“These institutions, which are two for men, but one for God, shall be enflamed by the divine mysteries; the two persons who represent them shall be so closely united by the grace of mutual charity, that it will be possible to find the king in the Roman pontiff, and the Roman pontiff in the king..."

Only a few years later, however, the ideal was not simply distorted, but completely destroyed by the Roman pontiff Gregory VII as he anathematized the kings of England and Germany and ordered their populations to rise up against their sovereigns, absolving them of their oaths of allegiance. Rome rose up against her own inheritance and her own defenders, her own inestimable legacy of law and order; the essentially Roman teaching on obedience to secular authority, which was expounded in the epistles of the Roman Apostles Peter and Paul, was destroyed by the Pope of Rome himself, who thereby became the first ideologically motivated revolutionary in European history and the direct ancestor, as Tyutchev, Kireyevsky and Dostoyevsky were to point out, of the Russian socialist revolutionaries. Using forgeries such as The Donation of Constantine, Gregory argued that both secular and ecclesiastical power, the so-called "two swords of Peter" " had been given to him, so that the power of the kings was merely delegated to them by the Pope, and could be taken back by the Pope at will, which meant that a king was no higher essentially than the most ordinary layman in spite of his anointing to the kingdom. Thus Gregory wrote: "Greater power is conceded to an exorcist when he is made a spiritual emperor than could be given to any layman for secular domination." "Who would not know that kings and dukes took their origin from those who, ignorant of God, through pride, rapine, perfidy, murders and, finally, almost any kind of crime, at the instigation of the Devil, the prince of this world, sought with blind desire and unbearable presumption to dominate their equals, namely other men?" "Who would doubt that the priest of Christ are considered the fathers and masters of kings, princes and of all the faithful? The only truly anointed ones, therefore, were the priests - or rather, the Roman Pontiff, who supposedly had the charismas of both ecclesiastical and political government (I Corinthians 12.28).

A Byzantine Coronation of Constantine the 14th of Constantinople

THE ENGLISH PRAYER FOR THE CONSECRATION OF KINGS

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit +++

Be your hands anointed with holy oil.

Be your breast anointed with holy oil.

Be your head anointed with holy oil,

as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed.

And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so may you be anointed, blessed, and consecrated King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern; in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

who by his Father was anointed with the Oil of gladness above his fellows,

by his holy Anointing pour down upon your Head and Heart the blessing of the Holy Spirit,

and prosper the works of your Hands:

that by the assistance of his heavenly grace

you may govern and preserve

the People committed to your charge

in wealth, peace, and godliness;

and after a long and glorious course

of ruling a temporal kingdom

wisely, justly, and religiously,

you may at last be made partaker of an eternal kingdom, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Portions of Text Taken from the Official Church of England’s Published Rite of Coronation and Vladimir Moss’ “On the Consecration of the English Monarch”)