We use oil in baptism because it strengthens you for spiritual battle and seals the Holy Spirit upon you. There are actually two different oils used at two different moments in the service.
Before you go into the water, the priest anoints you with the Oil of Catechumens. This is plain olive oil that’s been blessed. Think of it like a wrestler getting oiled before a match. Ancient athletes rubbed themselves with oil so opponents couldn’t get a grip on them. That’s the idea here. The priest anoints your forehead, chest, ears, hands, and feet while praying that God will drive away every evil spirit and strengthen you for the fight ahead. Because that’s what the Christian life is, a fight. Not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities that don’t want you belonging to Christ.
Then comes the baptism itself. You’re immersed three times in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You die with Christ and rise with Him.
But we’re not done with oil yet.
Right after you come up from the water, still dripping wet, the priest anoints you again. This time it’s with Holy Chrism, a completely different oil. Holy Chrism is olive oil mixed with wine and about forty aromatic spices. It’s consecrated once a year by the Patriarch on Holy Thursday. This isn’t something your parish priest whips up in the kitchen. The whole Church makes it together.
This second anointing is called Chrismation. The priest makes the sign of the cross with the Chrism on your forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, chest, hands, and feet. Each time he says, “The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is when you receive the Holy Spirit. Not as some vague spiritual feeling, but as an actual seal, a mark, a claim staked on your soul. You belong to Christ now. You’re chrismated, anointed, just like Christ Himself was anointed with the Spirit at His baptism in the Jordan.
The word “Christ” means “anointed one.” When you’re chrismated, you become a little anointed one. You share in His anointing.
This isn’t something we made up in the Middle Ages. It goes back to the apostles. In Acts, people got baptized and then the apostles laid hands on them so they’d receive the Holy Spirit. We still do the same thing, but the laying on of hands became an anointing with oil. Same mystery, same Spirit. St. Paul writes about being “sealed” with the Spirit in Second Corinthians. That’s what’s happening when the priest anoints you with Chrism.
Oil shows up all through Scripture as a sign of the Holy Spirit. Kings got anointed with oil. So did priests and prophets. The oil set them apart for God’s service and gave them power to do what God called them to do. David was anointed king as a boy, and the Spirit came upon him from that day forward. When you’re chrismated, you’re being set apart too. You’re joining the royal priesthood Peter talks about. You’re becoming a prophet, priest, and king in Christ’s kingdom.
There’s something else. Olive oil was precious in the ancient world. It gave light in lamps. It healed wounds. It made food taste better. It preserved things from rotting. All of that points to what the Holy Spirit does in us. He lights us up from the inside. He heals our brokenness. He makes life taste like it’s supposed to. He keeps us from spiritual decay.
I’ve watched dozens of baptisms at St. Michael’s over the years. The oil part always strikes people. If you come from a Baptist background like many folks around Beaumont, you’re used to baptism being just water. Maybe the pastor puts his hand on your head, but that’s it. So when you see the priest pouring oil into the baptismal font, blessing another vessel of oil, anointing the person multiple times, it seems like a lot. But it’s not extra. It’s the fullness of what baptism has always been. Water and Spirit. Washing and anointing. Death and resurrection and the gift of new life.
You can’t separate baptism from chrismation in Orthodoxy. They’re one mystery with two parts, like inhaling and exhaling. The water cleanses you and drowns the old you. The oil seals the new you and fills you with the Spirit. That’s why we do them together, why even babies receive both on the same day. You don’t wait until you’re twelve or confirmed by a bishop years later. You get the whole thing at once because you need the whole thing at once.
When you come to your baptism at St. Michael’s, you’ll smell the Chrism before you see it. It’s fragrant, almost overwhelming. That smell will stay on your skin for days. You’ll catch hints of it on your pillow at night. Some people say it smells like heaven must smell. I don’t know about that, but I know it smells like you’ve been marked, claimed, sealed. Like you’ve been somewhere holy and it stuck to you.
That’s what the oil is for. To make you slippery to the devil’s grip and fragrant with the Holy Spirit’s presence. To strengthen you and seal you. To make you Christ’s own.
