Can we take communion at home?

[Terry]

Can we give ourselves communion at home or only in a church by a priest? What is the right way to do it? How often should we have communion? what should we use for communion? What benefits do we gain from taking communion?

Thanks in advance,

Terry

[Father David Moser]

Holy Communion is a sacrament and so must be administered by a priest. There is no "do it yourself" communion. Usually Communion is given in the context of the Divine Liturgy - a service which by its very design brings us out of our worldly lives and step by step into the very presence of God where He gives to us Himself. Even the Liturgy cannot be done by a priest alone, but there must always be at least one other there since it is a *public* work - not a private one.

It is possible to receive Holy Communion from the reserved sacrament (bread and wine that has been previously sanctified and which is kept in the tabernacle on the altar) when one is too ill to come to the Church or in some other dire circumstance. For this, the priest will come and there is a brief set of prayers to be said and then he will give the Most Holy Body and Most Precious Blood to the sick person. But again, this is only in cases of extreme need.

You seem to be asking some very basic questions that should have been covered in your catechesis before your baptism.

Fr David Moser

[Kris]

How often should we have communion? what should we use for communion? What benefits do we gain from taking communion?


Dear Terry,

How often one receives Holy Communion is something that must be discussed with ones Spiritual Father. St. Basil the Great recommended that we receive the Holy Mysteries twice every week, but given that society is so different today, and that there is not the same piety and asceticism, many priests would not recommend this.

Essentially, this is something that varies with person to person.

The benefits we gain from partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ is that we are united to Him and that we are nourished and sustained by Him. The gracious Lord said: "“Verily, verily, I say to you, unless ye should eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye are not having life in yourselves. The one who partaketh of My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up in the last day. For My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. The one who eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me, and I in him. Even as the living Father sent Me forth, and I live because of the Father, also the one who eateth Me, even he shall live because of Me. This One is the bread, the One having come down out of the heavens – not as your fathers ate the manna, and died. The one who eateth this bread shall live forever.” (John 6:35-38).

So here one can quite clearly see the benefits received from partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ; namely, eternal life.

Christ also said: "I am the vine, the true one, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me which beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every branch which beareth fruit, He pruneth it, in order that it may bear more fruit. Already ye are clean by reason of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. Even as a branch is not able to bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can ye, unless ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. The one who abideth in Me, and I in him, this one beareth much fruit; for apart from Me ye are not able to do anything. Unless one abide in Me, he is cast out as the branch and is withered – and they gather them together and cast them into the fire – and is burned." (John 15:1-6).

Just as the branches of a tree gain the nourishment from the vine, which draws up water by its roots, so we gain nourishment from the true Vine when we partake in the Holy Mysteries.

If we do not partake of these Holy Gifts we will wither, and will be gathered together and thrown into the fire.

In XC,
Kris

[Warren Bensinger]

Fr. Moser:
Or anyone that can help.
I had a discussion with a Nazareen man today and he ask why we needed a Priest to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? I told him that the Holy Spirit does it and the Priest says the prayers. He ask why any "Christian" couldn't do it? I said I'll get back to you on that.
What is the official answer?
Thanks.
w.
t.s.

[Andreas Moran]

Following on from Fr David's post: St Theophan the Recluse celebrated the Divine Liturgy in his reclusion but he had with him his kellinik, Evlampy. After all, there has to be someone to whom to say, 'Peace unto you.'

[Andreas Moran]

It's probably worth adding why we have to receive Holy Communion regularly. The Holy Fathers (and I'm thinking particularly of St Theophan) say that since we are constrained by our body and surrounded by external activities and relationships where our duties oblige us to pay attention to various things, our attention is divided and the spiritual effect of Holy Communion is weakened and becomes concealed.

[Father David Moser]

.. he ask why we needed a Priest to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? I told him that the Holy Spirit does it and the Priest says the prayers. He ask why any "Christian" couldn't do it?

Well the easy answer is: Because this is what God told us to do - it is, as St Paul says, "the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle" (2Thess 2:15)

As I mentioned earlier, the liturgy and the receiving of Holy Communion is not an individual act - it is an act of the community and there are those who are appointed to various tasks within the community (Again St Paul Eph 4:11ff). It is the task of the priest to administer the sacraments - he has been given this duty by God through the Church.

There is also the issue of good order in the Church which has been given to us by the Holy Spirit and maintained throughout the life of the Church and which is preserved for us in the Tradition of the Church. This is not an act of an individual's selfwill, but an act in which the whole community joins. God expects us to act within the order that He has given to us (1Cor 14:40)

Now all this I have said is nice, but it won't necessarily make much sense to a Nazarene, since they tend to reject the whole idea of sacraments and especially of a designated clergy. They come from a pentecostalist type tradition which sees all kind of order and tradition as "from man" and so not consistent with the Holy Spirit. But we can still give them the truth - its up to them whether or not to accept it.

Fr David Moser

[Herman Blaydoe]

Fr. Moser:
Or anyone that can help.
I had a discussion with a Nazareen man today and he ask why we needed a Priest to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? I told him that the Holy Spirit does it and the Priest says the prayers. He ask why any "Christian" couldn't do it? I said I'll get back to you on that.
What is the official answer?
Thanks.
w.
t.s.
Deleted, Fr. beat me to it.

[Alex Haig]

Fr. Moser:
Or anyone that can help.
I had a discussion with a Nazareen man today and he ask why we needed a Priest to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ? I told him that the Holy Spirit does it and the Priest says the prayers. He ask why any "Christian" couldn't do it? I said I'll get back to you on that.
What is the official answer?
Thanks.
w.
t.s.

I remember hearing a story of a monk who knew the entire Litugy by heart and when her was making the bread for the communion he said the entire Liturgy. The Abbot of that monastery, when he was serving the Liturgy, perceived the Holy Spirit coming down on the bread to make it the Body of Christ, this time he didn't percieve it. At that point, he went away to the side and was in distress but an Angel came to him and explained that the Bread had already become the Body of Christ because of the monk.

The point of this story is that anyone could change the bread to be the Body of Christ but we have a Priesthood to make sure of it. While it is dangerous to partake of the Holy Mysteries unworthily, it is also dangerous to partake of them if you are unsure what they are.

With love in Christ

Alex

[Owen Jones]

What is the official answer?
Thanks.
w.
t.s.

Well, to begin with, the holy priesthood is Biblical. It's just one of those places that Protestants don't underline.

But I think in a deeper sense, Orthodox theology says that no one is damned alone and no one is saved alone. The eucharist is not a personal, individual event, but rather an event in the life of the Church, of which we are mystical members. The priest therefore is a type for Christ, for the Church, the people, history, nature, all of which comes together in the eucharists.

Then there is the practical matter of discipline and order within a hierarchy. A hierarchy does not imply that I am somehow a lower sort of being than a priest. That seems to be the troubling thing for protestants, who are still fighting a 500 year old battle against the Latin Church, which arguably had a pharisaic understanding of holy orders. But an argument against phariseeism is not an argument against everything, as Jesus forcefully pointed out.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

What is the official answer?
Thanks.
w.
t.s.

Well, to begin with, the holy priesthood is Biblical. It's just one of those places that Protestants don't underline.

But I think in a deeper sense, Orthodox theology says that no one is damned alone and no one is saved alone. The eucharist is not a personal, individual event, but rather an event in the life of the Church, of which we are mystical members. The priest therefore is a type for Christ, for the Church, the people, history, nature, all of which comes together in the eucharists.

Then there is the practical matter of discipline and order within a hierarchy. A hierarchy does not imply that I am somehow a lower sort of being than a priest. That seems to be the troubling thing for protestants, who are still fighting a 500 year old battle against the Latin Church, which arguably had a pharisaic understanding of holy orders. But an argument against phariseeism is not an argument against everything, as Jesus forcefully pointed out.


The priesthood of the Church, as Owen says, is in the image of Christ's priesthood and offering for His people before the Father. Christ's offering is a fulfillment of the Old Testament priesthood but also a sign of the new sort of priesthood which is found within the Church.

Already in the Epistle to the Hebrews we see evidence of how the Church perceives the priesthood of Christ in this way. In Chapter 9 for example we see first a description of the Temple & of its holy items. The author then rapidly focuses on the High Place explaining that the High priest could only enter within this place once a year and then only with blood. Indeed these are the links with Christ for immediately the description moves on to how in token of the fact that Christ offers His own blood He offers Himself but once to His Father. Thus at this early time we already see how the Church perceived a priestly action of Christ that both fulfilled and went beyond the Old Testament priesthood.

Chiefly however it is through the Eucharist that the priestly action comes to be fulfilled within the Church. When Christ in the Upper Room is surrounded by His Disciples He says, "do this in remembrance of Me." It is striking that from the earliest times there is no evidence that the Church interpreted these words only in a broad commemorative sense. Rather there was a rapid transition to the elder/episkopos signifying Christ within the believing community who partook of the Body & Blood of Christ. We also shouldn't forget that from early times this eldership was accomplished with a laying on of hands.

Still however as with the development of the Church itself in relation to Judaic worship there is something quite astounding in the development of the priesthood within the Church. Ultimately I don't think it possible to explain without taking into account the working of the Holy Spirit within the Holy Church in those times.

In terms of the original question, "can we take communion at home?" for many centuries the faithful were able to bring the communion from church & partake of it at home at a later time. This only stopped after many centuries in order to prevent any abuses of the sacrament.

But what is noticeable here is that even when partaking at home- in other words giving the greatest opportunity possible for the idea of a royal priesthood of the people as it were- what was partaken of was always what had been previously consecrated. This shows then that the Eucharist was always seen within the context of the Church & through a priestly action.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Can we give ourselves communion at home?

No.

INXC, Matthew

[Xenia Rose]

As everyone else said above, the Eucharist is a sacrement and only a Priest (or Bishop) can give you the Eucharist.

Here is what I do on those times when I can't go to the DL. I read the Divine Liturgy from my prayer book. It has notations of how to do this as a "Reader Service". Then when I finish it, I take a teaspoon of holy water.

Now, holy water is not the same as receiving the Eucharist. But it is blessed and is part of our traditions. Each year at Theophany, I get a small bottle of Holy Water which I use when I am sick (after I say my prayers of course) or if I just feel I need something more then the prayers (for example, I am really sad or hurting.)

I only mention this as many have explained that receiving the Eucharist at home is not possible, and I thought it might be helpful to have an opinion about what you might do if you can't attend the DL.