King to have ornate screen giving more privacy than predecessors at coronation

29 April 2023 , 01:17

823     0

The anointing screen which will be used in the coronation (Image: PA)

The King has commissioned an ornate screen that will give him more privacy than his predecessors during the most sacred part of the Coronation service, when he is anointed with holy oil.

He will be surrounded on three sides by the embroidered anointing screen, which has been created by a team of more than 150 people over the past few months to a Commonwealth-themed design, created by the iconographer Aidan Hart.

With the open side facing the High Altar, the King will be out of sight of the congregation inside Westminster Abbey for his private moment with God, in a way that his mother and grandfather were not at their coronations. They were both anointed beneath a canopy that left them visible to all around them.

The coronation will take place on May 6 (PA)

Nick Gutfreund, who led the project to build the screen, said: “The screen is there to actually provide privacy to the most sacred part of the ceremony. And previously it was a canopy over the top, which actually didn’t provide real privacy. It was more figurative. Now this three-side screen provides absolute privacy during the process.”

In 1953 the television cameras did not show the Queen’s anointing, but this time there had been speculation that King Charles might opt for a transparent canopy and allow the television cameras to see the moment he is sanctified.

Kate Middleton swears by £19.99 rosehip oil that helps 'reduce wrinkles & scars'

Preparations are being made for the Coronation of King Charles III

However, there is no canopy and aides said they had no idea where the idea had come from that he was ever considering one.

The anointing takes place before the investiture and crowning of the King.

The Dean of Westminster will pour consecrated oil from the gold ampulla into the Coronation spoon. The Archbishop of Canterbury will then anoint the monarch on the hands, breast and head.

The three-part screen is expected to provide the King with privacy during the anointment

At the King’s request, Hart, a member of the Greek Orthodox Church who has created liturgical art and church and cathedral interiors for the Pope, Anglicans and his own faith, used a stained-glass window in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace as the model for the front of the screen.

It depicts a tree with 56 leaves representing the nations of the Commonwealth, with the trunk as the association of mainly former British Empire countries and the King’s cypher at its base representing the sovereign as a servant of their 2.5 billion people.

“It’s about the Commonwealth, how the countries work together, and how the King is in fact at the centre of that, and bringing together everybody” Mr Gutfreund said.

Sophie Goodall