The Reception and Thanksgiving

The communion of the faithful and what surrounds it. This file treats the communion of the clergy in the sanctuary and of the faithful from the spoon, the preparation that the Church asks of communicants (fasting, prayer, and confession), the thanksgiving after Communion, the gathering of the commemorative particles into the chalice, and the distribution of the antidoron and the dismissal that close the Liturgy.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The Communion of the Clergy and the Faithful

The clergy commune first, within the sanctuary and at the holy table — the priest receiving the Body of Christ into his hand and then drinking of the Blood from the chalice, in the older manner in which the two are received separately by the ordained (Taft, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites [A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, vol. VI], Pont. Or. Inst., 2008). The reserved particles (NI and KA) are then placed into the chalice for the communion of the faithful, so that the people receive the Body and the Blood together, intermingled in the cup.

The Royal Doors are opened, and the deacon or priest brings the chalice to the people with the summons: “In the fear of God, and with faith and love, draw near” (Divine Liturgy; Hapgood, Service Book). The faithful approach with arms crossed over the breast, having prepared, and receive standing, from the spoon (Greek labis; Slavonic lzhitsa) — a portion of the Body moistened with the Blood placed directly into the mouth. Communion by spoon is the standard Byzantine practice; it developed in the Byzantine world during the first millennium as the general mode for the laity, replacing the earlier practice (still kept by the clergy, and in the Liturgy of St. James) of receiving the Body in the hand and drinking from the cup (Taft, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites, 2008; Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy, SVS Press, 1990, ch. 7). Before receiving, the communicant may say the pre-Communion prayer, “I believe, O Lord, and I confess that thou art truly the Christ… and I believe that this is truly thine own most pure Body, and that this is truly thine own precious Blood” (pre-Communion prayers; Hapgood, Service Book). After receiving, the communicant kisses the base of the chalice and withdraws to receive the zapivka (antidoron with warm wine-and-water) at a side table, to ensure that no particle of the Mysteries remains in the mouth (hub essay, Orthodoxy: The Divine Liturgy). During the communion of the faithful the choir sings the communion hymns, and often “Receive ye the Body of Christ, taste ye the fountain of immortality.”

Preparation for Communion

The Church asks a real preparation of those who approach the Mysteries, grounded in St. Paul’s warning that one must not eat and drink “unworthily,” lest he be “guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,” but must “examine himself” (1 Corinthians 11:27–29). Orthodox practice surrounds Communion with fasting (traditionally a total fast from food and drink from the previous midnight, together with the observance of the Church’s fasting days), prayer (the appointed pre-Communion canon and prayers), and, in the Russian tradition, confession before Communion (Ware, The Orthodox Church, Penguin, 1993, Part II; hub essay). The discipline of preparation, and especially the link between confession and Communion, varies across the Orthodox world and has been the subject of the modern discussion of Communion frequency: for much of the Synodal period Russian laity communed rarely, and the twentieth-century liturgical renewal — associated with St. John of Kronstadt earlier and with Fr. Alexander Schmemann and his students in the emigration — urged a return to frequent Communion as the norm (Schmemann, The Eucharist, SVS Press, 1988, ch. 1; hub essay). The Moscow Patriarchate’s 2015 document On the Participation of the Faithful in the Eucharist retains the connection between confession and Communion while allowing the spiritual father to bless frequent communicants to commune without confessing on each occasion; Greek practice does not generally require confession before each Communion (hub essay; On the Participation of the Faithful in the Eucharist, Moscow, 2015). Beneath the variations lies one principle: Communion is not a right claimed but a gift approached with fear, faith, love, and preparation (The Holy Mysteries: The Eucharist).

The Particles Gathered into the Chalice

After the faithful have communed, the priest returns the diskos and chalice to the holy table, and there brushes into the chalice all the commemorative particles — those of the Theotokos, the saints, the living, and the departed, set out at the proskomedia (the preparation of the gifts) — saying, “Wash away, O Lord, by thy holy Blood, the sins of all those here commemorated, through the prayers of thy saints” (Divine Liturgy; Hapgood, Service Book). Thus the whole Church that was assembled in figure on the diskos at the beginning is now immersed in the Blood of the Savior at the end — the commemoration begun at the preparation completed in the one sacrifice (Cabasilas, A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, trans. Hussey and McNulty, SPCK, 1960, ch. 10; see the symbolism of the prothesis).

Thanksgiving, Antidoron, and Dismissal

The priest blesses the people — “Save, O God, thy people, and bless thine inheritance” — and, elevating the chalice, exclaims “Always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages,” at which the choir sings the paschal-toned hymn of thanksgiving: “We have seen the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity, for he hath saved us” (Divine Liturgy). A Litany of Thanksgiving follows — “Let us give thanks unto the Lord… that we have been made partakers of thy heavenly and immortal Mysteries” — for the Eucharist ends as it began, in thanksgiving (Schmemann, The Eucharist, 1988, chs. 9, 14). The priest then goes to stand before the Royal Doors and reads the Prayer Behind the Ambon (opisthambōnos), the concluding public prayer of the Liturgy, asking God to bless his people and sanctify those who love the beauty of his house.

Finally the priest distributes the antidoron (Greek antidōron, “instead of the Gift”) — bread cut from the prosphora but not consecrated, given to all present, both those who communed and those who did not, as a blessing and a sign of the common table and the love-feast of the Church (Taft, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites, 2008; Wybrew, The Orthodox Liturgy, 1990, ch. 7). The antidoron is the ancient token by which even the non-communicant shares in the blessed bread of the assembly. The Liturgy closes with the Dismissal, which names Christ “our true God” and invokes the prayers of his most pure Mother, the apostles, the saint of the day, and all the saints, “for he is good and loveth mankind.” The people venerate the cross, and the Church, having been made the Body of Christ and having received the Body of Christ, is sent back into the world to live what it has received (Schmemann, For the Life of the World, SVS Press, 1973, ch. 2; see what the Divine Liturgy is).

References

Taft, Robert F. A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Vol. VI, The Communion, Thanksgiving, and Concluding Rites. Orientalia Christiana Analecta 281. Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 2008. (The communion of clergy and faithful; the spoon; the thanksgiving and antidoron.)
Cabasilas, Nicholas. A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy. Trans. Hussey and McNulty. London: SPCK, 1960. (The particles gathered into the chalice; the communion of the faithful.)
Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988. (Communion, frequency, and thanksgiving.)
Schmemann, Alexander. For the Life of the World. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1973. (The dismissal and mission.)
Ware, Kallistos. The Orthodox Church. New ed. London: Penguin, 1993. (Preparation, fasting, and confession before Communion.)
Wybrew, Hugh. The Orthodox Liturgy. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1990. (The spoon and the antidoron.)
On the Participation of the Faithful in the Eucharist. Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow, 2015. (Confession and frequent Communion.)
Hapgood, Isabel Florence. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church. (The communion, thanksgiving, and dismissal texts.)
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 11:27–29.