for example, marriage as a sacrament, much law-breaking as sinful, occasionally the state as a divine instrument.

In addition, the church teaches sacred ordinances through which adherents make covenants with God, including baptism, confirmation, the sacrament ( holy communion ), endowment, and celestial marriage ( marriage blessings which extend beyond mortality ), which are of great significance to church members.

Marriage is not a sacrament of the Christian Science church, but the church's by-laws require a legal, religious ceremony for marriage: " If a Christian Scientist is to be married, the ceremony shall be performed by a clergyman who is legally authorized.

Nicene Fathers such as Augustine believed that marriage was a sacrament because it was a symbol used by Paul to express Christ's love of the Church.

The Catholic Church views that Christ himself established the sacrament of marriage at the wedding feast of Cana ; therefore, since it is a divine institution, neither the Church nor state can alter the basic meaning and structure of marriage.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, marriage is treated as a Sacred Mystery ( sacrament ), and as an ordination.

In the summer of 2001, the Coptic Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Alexandria agreed to mutually recognize baptisms performed in each other's churches, making re-baptisms unnecessary, and to recognize the sacrament of marriage as celebrated by the other.

In Buddhism, marriage is not a sacrament.

In the Church — the City of God — marriage is a sacrament and may not and cannot be dissolved as long as the spouses live: But a marriage once for all entered upon in the City of our God, where, even from the first union of the two, the man and the woman, marriage bears a certain sacramental character, can in no way be dissolved but by the death of one of them ..

For example, the Roman Catholic Church believes that marriage is a sacrament and a valid marriage between two baptized persons cannot be broken by any other means than death.

Soter is known for declaring that marriage was valid only as a sacrament blessed by a priest and he also formally inaugurated Easter as an annual festival in Rome.

Protestants rejected marriage as a sacrament, and viewed ministers as witnesses not executors of the wedding of the couple, binding themselves to one another via the speech acts of their vows.

The denomination does not celebrate the Christian sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion ; although its officers conduct marriages, it holds the traditional Protestant belief that marriage was not instituted by Christ and therefore is not a sacrament.

One author calls marriage " really the only sacrament " in the Unification Church.

He described marriage as a social contract rather than a sacrament, hence he permitted divorce, a modern idea that was considered too advanced for its time.

During the debate, Ashley spoke out strongly in favour of the Roos divorce bill, arguing that marriage was a civil contract, not a sacrament.

God made marriage an indissoluble contract, Christ made it a sacrament, the world today has made it a plaything of passion, an accompaniment of sex, a scrap of paper to be torn up at the whim of the participants.

Ayahuasca is used largely as a religious sacrament.

This is to emphasize that the sacrament is available, and recommended, to all those suffering from any serious illness, and to dispel the common misconception that it is exclusively for those at or very near the point of death.

Among some Protestant bodies, who do not consider it a sacrament, but instead as a practice suggested rather than commanded by Scripture, it is called anointing with oil.

In the Greek Church the sacrament is called Euchelaion ( Greek Εὐχέλαιον, from εὐχή, " prayer ", and ἔλαιον, " oil ").

The term " last rites " refers to administration to a dying person not only of this sacrament but also of Penance and Holy Communion, the last of which, when administered in such circumstances, is known as " Viaticum ", a word whose original meaning in Latin was " provision for the journey ".

Through the sacrament a gift of the Holy Spirit is given, that renews confidence and faith in God and strengthens against temptations to discouragement, despair and anguish at the thought of death and the struggle of death ; it prevents from losing Christian hope in God's justice, truth and salvation.

The duly blessed oil used in the sacrament is, as laid down in the Apostolic Constitution Sacram unctionem infirmorum, pressed from olives or from other plants.

If oil blessed by the bishop is not available, the priest administering the sacrament may bless the oil, but only within the framework of the celebration.

" If there is any doubt as to whether the sick person has reached the use of reason, or is dangerously ill, or is dead, this sacrament is to be administered ".

The sacrament can be administered within Mass, which is the preferred manner.

If the sick person wishes to receive the sacrament of penance, it is preferable that the priest make himself available for this during a previous visit ; but if the sick person must confess during the celebration of the sacrament of anointing, this confession replaces the penitential rite A passage of Scripture is read, and the priest may give a brief explanation of the reading, a short litany is said, and the priest lays his hands on the head of the sick person and then says a prayer of thanksgiving over the already blessed oil or, if necessary, blesses the oil himself.

The teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church on the Holy Mystery ( sacrament ) of Unction is similar to that of the Roman Catholic Church.

Anointing is considered to be a public rather than a private sacrament, and so as many of the faithful who are able are encouraged to attend.

Some Anglicans accept that anointing of the sick has a sacramental character and is therefore a channel of God's grace, seeing it as an " outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace " which is the definition of a sacrament.

From the early Middle Ages until after the Second Vatican Council the sacrament was administered, within the Latin Church, only when death was approaching and, in practice, bodily recovery was not ordinarily looked for, giving rise, as mentioned above to the name " Extreme Unction " ( i. e. final anointing ).

The bishop is the ordinary minister of the sacrament of confirmation in the Latin Rite Catholic Church, and in the Anglican and Old Catholic communion only a bishop may administer this sacrament.

Unlike the Catholic sacrament of Penance, the Consolamentum could be taken only once.

The word Eucharist may refer not only to the rite but also to the consecrated bread ( leavened or unleavened ) and wine ( or unfermented grape juice in some Protestant denominations, water in the LDS Church's sacrament ), used in the rite.

The Anglican Articles of Religion hold that only Baptism and the Lord's Supper are to be counted as sacraments of the gospel, and assert that other rites considered to be sacraments by such as the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches were not ordained by Christ and do not have the nature of a sacrament in the absence of any physical matter such as the water in Baptism and the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist.

Thus in 1992, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, while affirming that " the Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude ", but also stating that " God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments ", stated: " As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them.

Reception of the Eucharist in this form is the only sacrament essentially associated with dying.

In the Roman Ritual's Pastoral Care of the Sick: Rites of Anointing and Viaticum, Viaticum is the only sacrament dealt with in Part II: Pastoral Care of the Dying.

The only sacrament which may be celebrated only by a bishop is that of Ordination ( cheirotonia, " Laying-on of Hands "), or Holy Orders.

Moreover, he argued that the death and resurrection of Jesus was for the salvation of man, stating: " to achieve each resurrection of ours, the savior paid with his single life, and he pre-enacted and presented his one and only one by way of sacrament and by way of model.

:" denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue " and anyone who " saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation, let him be anathema.

Until the 20th century, only men had been eligible for ordination as elders or ministers of the word and sacrament.

Rather, original sin is the real and actual sin of Adam, passed on to his descendants ; rather than remaining until death ( or in the case of the damned, for all eternity ), it can be removed by the sacrament of baptism ( according to the new testament, baptism is only the first step in removing sin, sin is only removed once the individual is enveloped in the holy spirit ).