So many difficulties and various opinions have arisen concerning the sacrament of Confirmation, that the Council of Trent (sess. vii.) contented itself with three short canons on the subject: defining (1) that it is truly and properly a sacrament; (2) that a bishop only is the ordinary minister thereof; and (3) anathematizing any one who says “that they who ascribe any virtue to the sacred chrism of Confirmation offer an outrage to the Holy Ghost.” Elsewhere (sess. vii., De Sacr. in Gen., can. 9) the Council also defined that a character was imprinted by the sacrament.

For the first four centuries the word “Confirmation” was not used to designate this sacrament. Various other terms and phrases, however, quite clearly refer to it; e.g. “imposition of hands,” “unction,” “chrism,” “sealing,” etc.