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Question 517

Good afternoon pater. I'm not sure how to put this but here goes. When we take our holy communion why is it that we have to use the spoon that everyone uses? I asked my mum about it and she said that no one has ever got sick because of it... (not sure how you can know that). Don't you think it might be time to change the way we do this. If I'm truthful I have to say I try as much as possible not to touch the spoon. 

 

Answer to Question 517

How would you suggest we change the way we give Holy Communion? Last year we had a debate on this subject and it was suggested that we could use plastic spoons, but what do we do with these plastic items when we have finished? Do we throw them in the bin as though they are nothing? If they came into contact with the Body and Blood of Christ, they still have traces of his Blood on them. Do we then show such disrespect to Christ’s Blood by throwing him into the rubbish bin? From the beginning the church administered the Holy Gifts separately, people would first receive the body of Christ in the palm of their hands and then they were given the Blood from the chalice. At times people abused this and would take the Body home with them to commune on another day or for some other reason. To put a stop to this abuse of the Holy Gifts the Church decided to add the Body into the chalice and administered both together with the use of a spoon. For centuries this was and is the accepted form for receiving Holy Communion in the Orthodox Church and the question of whether it was unhygienic never arose. It is only now in our age and specifically with the Aids virus that people have questioned if they could become contaminated with the virus. 

 

Theologically, the Orthodox Church cannot accept that the Sacrament would be a source of illness, since it teaches that it is a “medicine of immortality.” But also, not one single case of the transmission of any illness has been reported as coming from participation in the Sacrament. There is also scientific evidence that saliva inhibits the transmission of all kinds of microbes, including the AIDS virus. This scientific evidence is rather old and dated to 1988. Let’s just hope it is still valid. Nevertheless we should not fear to have Holy Communion. It is the very Body and Blood of our Lord which cannot be contaminated. It should also be reassuring that we priests are called to give communion to the terminally ill including those who suffer from AIDS, thus we are exposed to this virus on the frontline so to speak, yet no Orthodox Priest has caught AIDS or any other illness in this way.

 

You say you try not to touch the spoon. The only way to do this is to try to take the body with your teeth and most accidents with spilling the holy gifts are caused in this way. There is another way which is practiced in the monastery of of St. John the Baptist in Essex. The person opens his/her mouth and the priest drops the gifts onto the tongue of the recipient and then removes the spoon without it coming into contact with the persons mouth or lips. This would be an excellent way for people to receive holy Communion and would do away with the fear of coming into contact with germs, but it would mean re-educating our people on how to receive holy communion and for all the Churches to follow suit.