The VEGAN sacred oil that will anoint Charles as King: Monarch breaks ... trends now
The memory of Her Late Majesty will, of course, be much in evidence on Coronation Day. Yet, the King is also keen to recognise his late father’s side of the family with an unexpected and original touch during one of the most hallowed moments of the entire ritual.
The sacred oil, with which he will be anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, will not be the traditional mix of unguents, spices and pungent animal parts, as was the case up to and including the last Coronation.
This time, it has been blended from olives which have been freshly picked alongside the grave of Prince Philip’s mother in Jerusalem. It is there that she is buried on the Mount of Olives. Essential herbs and flowers, including jasmine and orange blossom, have also been added.
Yesterday, the new oil was consecrated with great solemnity and ceremony by the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III – the most senior Christian figure in the Holy Land – alongside the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, The Most Reverend Hosam Naoum. It will now be flown (in secret) to London where the Archbishop of Canterbury is expected to bless it again ahead of the Coronation on May 6.
New recipe: The Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III, mixes the oils
The King is keen to recognise his late father’s side of the family with an unexpected and original touch
Although the new recipe breaks with a tradition going back at least as far as Charles I, the King is staying true to earlier precedent.
For the Palace has called the new oil ‘chrism’, though the world will know it better as one of the gifts of the Three Wise Men – myyrh. Its origins as an anointing oil go back to the Book of Exodus in the Bible.
Its spiritual credentials are, therefore, beyond reproach. It is the scent which will be different from last time.
The King has also swerved a confrontation with animal rights groups. The anointing oil used at previous coronations contained the glands of a civet cat, ambergris (the stomach lining of a sperm whale) and the secretions of a musk deer, in addition to more palatable ingredients such as rose, cinnamon and sesame. The new oil will include nothing from another living creature.
Before anyone attempts to brand this as the first vegetarian coronation in history, though, it should be noted that various robes and regalia will still include considerable quantities of ermine (which comes from the underbelly of a stoat).
The new oil arrangements are certainly exotic and spectacular; yesterday, the phial was paraded through the streets of Jersualem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the blessing. They have also proved very much less problematic than sourcing the oil for the last Coronation.
Solemn: Theophilos III with the silver urn of anointing oil at the Stone of Unction in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
In the countdown to June 1953, officials suddenly discovered that the official phial of holy oil had been smashed by a wartime bomb landing on the Deanery of Westminster Abbey. It also transpired that the royal apothecary who had made that previous batch (ahead of the Coronation of Edward VII) had long-since passed
