Receiving Holy Communion

Near the end of the Divine Liturgy, the Royal Doors open and the priest comes out holding the Chalice, calling the faithful to draw near with the fear of God and with faith. Before anyone approaches, the whole congregation prays aloud together the pre-Communion prayer: "I believe, O Lord, and I confess that Thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Who camest into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first." Then the communicants come forward one by one, arms crossed over the chest, and give their baptismal name; the priest places in the mouth, from a small spoon, a portion of the consecrated Bread together with the consecrated Wine — the Body and Blood of Christ received together. A cloth is held beneath and touched to the lips; in many places the communicant kisses the base of the Chalice before stepping away to take a piece of blessed bread (antidoron) and, in Slavic practice, a sip of wine and warm water (zapivka).

The manner of receiving has changed over the centuries; what is received has not. In the fourth century St. Cyril of Jerusalem taught the newly baptized to receive the Body in their open hands — "make your left hand a throne for the right" — and to drink from the Chalice directly, as the clergy still do at the altar. The common spoon became the general practice over the later Byzantine centuries, and it is how nearly all Orthodox laity receive today.

St. Paul's rule stands under all Orthodox practice: "let a man examine himself, and so let him eat" (1 Corinthians 11:28). Preparation traditionally has three strands. First, prayer: the pre-Communion prayers, and in many traditions the fuller canons and akathists appointed for the night before. Second, fasting: as a rule the communicant eats and drinks nothing from the night before until Communion (the-eucharistic-fast), though the exact discipline — and its adjustment for illness, pregnancy, young children, medication, or evening Liturgies — belongs to one's priest, not to a rulebook. Third, confession: some jurisdictions expect confession before every Communion, others expect it regularly but not each time; practice genuinely varies, and the parish priest's guidance is the operative rule.

How often to receive has varied across history too — from the early Church's every-Sunday Communion, through centuries when many laity communed only a few times a year, to the widespread modern return to frequent Communion. What has never varied is the seriousness: the Church would rather a person commune less often and truly prepared than casually and unexamined, for the same apostle warns that the gifts can be received unworthily (1 Corinthians 11:29).

The Chalice is for baptized and chrismated Orthodox Christians who have prepared as their priest directs — and that includes infants, who are communed from the day of their baptism. Orthodoxy has no "age of first Communion": the smallest baby at the Liturgy is a full communicant, carried to the Chalice before anyone else. Communion is never a private entitlement, though; it is life within the Church, received under pastoral care.

Guests and inquirers are welcome at everything else — the prayers, the singing, and in most parishes the antidoron at the end — but not the Chalice itself (more here). This is not a judgment on anyone's sincerity: in Orthodox understanding Communion is the seal of a faith and a life already shared, not a step on the way to it. The Church gives this gift the way St. Ignatius described it at the beginning of the second century — one bread, broken among those united in one faith, which is "the medicine of immortality."