The Sacraments in the Orthodox Church

Frequently in both the Orthodox Church as well as in the Roman Catholic Church, the sacraments are numbered at seven. The sacraments are Baptism, Holy Communion, Unction (anointing with holy oil), Confession, Marriage, Burial (funeral), and Ordination (the rite of initiation into the priesthood.) The sacraments are essentially sacred rituals performed by the Church. While the Orthodox Church, certainly believes that these rites are indeed sacramental and sacred, the Orthodox Church has never officially numbered its sacraments at seven.
In fact, the Orthodox take a much broader view of the sacraments. Putting the number of sacraments at seven was something done by the Western Church. The Orthodox believe that everything in its essence and its most perfect natural state is sacred. Because God is the creator of the earth, everything which was created by God must be holy or sacred. For this reason, everything is sacramental.
For the Orthodox Christian, this understanding of the sacred nature of all of creation is fundamental and basic. It is also integral to man's relationship with the natural world. Because of the sacred nature of the world, created by God, man, as the crown of creation, has a sacred obligation to it. The natural environment and all that is in it, is not something to be taken advantage of and ripped apart for man's pleasure and convenience. It is something to be appreciated and given thanks for because of God's providence. Man is to respect the earth and everything in it. Man is to live in harmony with nature and use it to fulfill his basic needs, not his every wanton desire.
In man's misuse of the riches of the natural world, these riches lose their sacramental nature. When man pillages the environment and uses it at his whim, he becomes an abuser of God's creation and destroys its natural intent and no longer respects it as a part of God's sacramental creation. However, when man looks with thanks at the natural world and everything in it as being created by and belonging to God, he sees that everything on this earth has the potential to be a sacrament, a means of glorifying and giving thanks to God and a way of growing closer in unity to God, just as in those sacred rites celebrated in the Church.