D
dzheremi
Guest
Just to provide another perspective, as it seems that most are talking about communion as it is viewed and handled in the Latin church only:
When I first visited the local Byzantine Catholic (Ruthenian) a few years ago, I called ahead of time to talk to the priest and ask him if there is anything I absolutely should not do, being a Latin and ignorant of Eastern praxis outside of what I had read and seen in videos (experience being something different than book learnin’, I just wanted to be safe). He told me that I was not to say “Amen” upon receiving the Holy Eucharist, and he also told me the proper way to receive from the spoon, as the Ruthenians practice intiction. He also requested that I arrive early, before the start of the liturgy proper, to present myself before the icon of Christ in confession. I followed his advice. When I actually got there and the liturgy began, it didn’t at all feel strange. Quite the opposite…the responses were in Old Church Slavonic, quite similar to Russian so I had no trouble following along (after the liturgy, people asked me if I was Ukrainian…I didn’t say it, but I thought to myself “wow, my Russian must be really bad…”
)
After the liturgy, the priest graciously sat and talked with me for a while and explained that he hadn’t assumed me to be unworthy of receiving, but wanted to impress upon me the way that communion is handled in the Ruthenian Church, and as he would not have communed any one of his regular communicants if they had not presented themselves for confession in some time, it was right that I be treated the same as any other. That had been the whole point of my phone call, after all (how to not stick out like a sore Roman thumb). It also gave me the chance to experience Eastern confession, which is quite a moving experience. I even described it afterward to my regular confessor (a Dominican), who was quite awed even by my surely inadequate description.
Anyway, the point is every church has its own norms. I suspect it would be much more difficult to fake your way into the communion line in a Byzantine Church like the one I visited, since the Eucharist is given to you by name (if I remember correctly, the priest says “Servant ____, receive the body of Christ”), you need to know the correct way to receive and the correct response (watching what others did before me, I silently crossed myself with the Byzantine cross), and chances are the priest may refuse you if you have not been to confession recently (unless you can make arrangements beforehand like I did, I guess).
When I first visited the local Byzantine Catholic (Ruthenian) a few years ago, I called ahead of time to talk to the priest and ask him if there is anything I absolutely should not do, being a Latin and ignorant of Eastern praxis outside of what I had read and seen in videos (experience being something different than book learnin’, I just wanted to be safe). He told me that I was not to say “Amen” upon receiving the Holy Eucharist, and he also told me the proper way to receive from the spoon, as the Ruthenians practice intiction. He also requested that I arrive early, before the start of the liturgy proper, to present myself before the icon of Christ in confession. I followed his advice. When I actually got there and the liturgy began, it didn’t at all feel strange. Quite the opposite…the responses were in Old Church Slavonic, quite similar to Russian so I had no trouble following along (after the liturgy, people asked me if I was Ukrainian…I didn’t say it, but I thought to myself “wow, my Russian must be really bad…”
)After the liturgy, the priest graciously sat and talked with me for a while and explained that he hadn’t assumed me to be unworthy of receiving, but wanted to impress upon me the way that communion is handled in the Ruthenian Church, and as he would not have communed any one of his regular communicants if they had not presented themselves for confession in some time, it was right that I be treated the same as any other. That had been the whole point of my phone call, after all (how to not stick out like a sore Roman thumb). It also gave me the chance to experience Eastern confession, which is quite a moving experience. I even described it afterward to my regular confessor (a Dominican), who was quite awed even by my surely inadequate description.
Anyway, the point is every church has its own norms. I suspect it would be much more difficult to fake your way into the communion line in a Byzantine Church like the one I visited, since the Eucharist is given to you by name (if I remember correctly, the priest says “Servant ____, receive the body of Christ”), you need to know the correct way to receive and the correct response (watching what others did before me, I silently crossed myself with the Byzantine cross), and chances are the priest may refuse you if you have not been to confession recently (unless you can make arrangements beforehand like I did, I guess).
).