Benediction
Benediction/Anathema was a Priest only staff rewarded for completing a challenging quest started by the Eye of Divinity, which was a drop out of Majordomo Executus' chest in the Molten Core. It was more than just a staff, it was a status symbol for Priests in Vanilla. You were not a real raiding Priest until you had your Benediction.
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Widespread Use
Take a look at any first kill screenshot from BWL all the way through early Naxxramas and you will see an army of Benedictions. Priests were often the most sought after healer for most of Vanilla raiding, especially for the Horde which lacked Paladins. A normal CSM progression raid in Vanilla would typically have 5-8 Priests on any given night, and all of them used the Benediction for a majority of classic WoW.
The power of the item lay in a few reasons. First and foremost it looked awesome. Back when having any spell effects on an item at all was exciting, the Benediction really stood out with its bright gold color and sparkling effect that would trail the weapon when you ran.
Secondly, it was a staff. The importance of it being a staff was that it was one less item that you needed to obtain. If you were to get an Aurastone Hammer or the Sorcerous Dagger you would also need to get an offhand item to accompany them. Which is harder than you think when there's only one caster offhand in MC (and it was rare), one off of Onyxia (and it sucked), and one out of BWL and it was a quest reward for defeating Nef (and only one person could get it at a time). Also, none of these offhands were designed for a healer, they were all damage based which worked for healing, it just didn't give as much of it. In addition to rarity of offhands, it was just another item you had to spend DKP on and wait to drop. A staff was just one item and Benediction was unique to Priests so there was that much less competition for it, not to say that there weren't some crazy bidding wars for the first couple of Eye of Divinity's.
The Benediction was also higher iLvl than everything else in MC short of Rag loot, whom had no weapons for casters. In addition to being a nice iLvl it was also itemized well. It had a nice allotment of Int, Stam, and Spirit and an absurdly high amount of +healing when compared to other weapons available to a raiding priest. A few Priests picked up the AQ Augur staff from the Regalia, but even that was barely an upgrade in terms of +healing and regen and was a massive downgrade in aesthetics back when transmog was not an option.
Source
To acquire the Benediction the Priest would first need to obtain the Eye of Divinity out of Domo's chest in MC. It was a 50% chance to drop (either it or the Leaf for Hunters so obtaining it was really just a matter of time instead of people that waited months to see an Azuresong Mageblade.
Once the Priest had their Eye of Divinity, they next needed the Eye of Shadow. The Eye of Shadow was an extremely rare drop from demons in the southern part of Winterspring. The nice thing about the Eye of Shadow was that it was not BoP, so the Priest could farm for it on a different character/class (Holy/Disc Priests were not exactly the kings of farming) or even just buy one off of the AH.
The third piece needed from the staff came from completing a quest in Eastern Plaguelands. With the Eye of Divinity equipped the Priest could see a ghostly NPC. This NPC started the event in which many NPCs would be fleeing from Stratholme injured and dying. The Priest needed to save 50 peasants before 15 died. For an undergeared priest this quest could be very challenging. Requiring the use of friendly health bars, quick disease dispels, and mana management (read consumables). Many lesser priests had other people complete the quest for them.
After all three pieces were gathered, the Priest used the Splinter of Nordrassil which would combine all 3 into the Benediction.
Anathema
Benediction also had an "On use:" to transform into Anathema. Anathema was a Shadow Priest weapon that still had the same cool and unique look, but was black instead of gold. The weapon would have been extremely useful if it weren't for a few things. First, originally when you transformed the item it lost the enchantment you had placed on it. If you had the +healing enchant you were throwing away a multi-hundred gold enchant. Second, most raiding priests just weren't shadow, and with no option for dual talent spec there was just no reason to switch to the shadow weapon. Ell loved his Anathema though, what with his tri-spec and all.
Legacy
With the 4.0 Cata pre-patch the old world of Azeroth (Kalimdor and EK) were remade. A side effect of this was that the area in which the quest for the Splinter of Nordrassil was in was changed/removed. This meant that the quest could no longer be completed. Because of this the Eye of Divinity was removed from Domo's cache in MC. Any Priest who had not already obtained their Benediction by the end of Wrath was now SOL. The Benediction became a very popular transmog target for priests after the system was introduced in late Cata. Even with the new Artifact Weapons in Legion, some still prefer the classic look of Benediction over the new fancier staves.
