Today in the NRO Corner, there was a passing reference to an incident from Bill Clinton’s Presidency. While visiting South Africa, he and his wife received communion at a Roman Catholic church. His action stirred up a controversy, somewhat lost among the many Clinton controversies, particularly after Cardinal John O’Connor denounced it in a Palm Sunday sermon as “legally and doctrinally wrong”, adding “Some undoubtedly believe that if one has enough prestige or money, anything goes.”
Most of the ensuing press commentary was unfavorable to His Eminence. His stance was lambasted as lacking in Christian love for one’s neighbor. The priest who administered the sacrament defended himself by saying, “I had no time to go and ask permission when he stood up. And that you wanted me to embarrass the president, but a president who is here to pray with
Like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox Church limits the reception of the Eucharist to baptized and chrismated members of the Church. Save in a few extreme circumstances,
These rules are frequently a sore point with members of other Christian denominations, who attribute them to intolerance. The truth, however, is the contrary: Their motive is charity toward those who are not of our Faith.
To understand why, one must consider what the Orthodox (and the Romans, too) believe about the Eucharist. The sacrament is central to the drama of salvation; in it we are united with the Body of Christ, which is present in the Bread and Wine that we consume, and with our fellow believers. As Bishop Kallistos Ware puts it in his classic text, The Orthodox Church,
The Eucharist, by uniting the members of the Church to Christ, at the same time unites them to one another: “We, who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). The Eucharist creates the unity of the Church. The Church (as Ignatius saw) is a Eucharistic society, a sacramental organism which exists — and exists in its fullness — wherever the Eucharist is celebrated. It is no coincidence that the term “Body of Christ” should mean both the Church and the sacrament; and that the phrase communio sanctorum in the Apostles’ Creed should mean both “the communion of the holy people” (communion of saints) and “the communion of the holy things” (communion in the sacraments).
These effects do not result from anything that the communicants feel or do; they are acts performed by God. Moreover, they are not necessarily safe or comfortable acts. In the prayer before communion, the worshiper supplicates, “May the communion of Thy Holy Mysteries be neither to my judgment, nor to my condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of soul and body.” The implication is that the Eucharist wrongly received, without proper preparation, a proper state of mind and full union of intention with the Church, can lead to condemnation rather than salvation. The sacrament is a mystical supper, not a come-and-get-it potluck.
Those who are outside the Church are in no position to receive this mystery. It cannot unite them to the Eucharistic Society of the Church; because they do not accept the Orthodox Faith, they do not even desire that unity. A fortiori, it cannot unite them with Christ, for that union takes place only in the context of the “sacramental organism”. Therefore, receiving the Bread and Wine in an Orthodox liturgy can do non-Orthodox no good and may do them harm.
On a lower, but still important plane, “open communion” is false in another way: It implies that the theological differences among Christian denominations are of no real consequence. Many people would like for that to be the case, but different groups hold divergent doctrines, not all of which can be true. Do we wish to say that we don’t care what statements about God are true or false? That is what we imply when we misuse the sacraments to create a pretense of union without unity in faith.
What about the other side of the nave? If the Church has reasons not to offer the sacrament to non-Orthodox, do they have reasons to acquiesce in that prohibition?
A non-Orthodox Christian who seeks to receive Orthodox communion proclaims by his action that he disbelieves the Orthodox doctrines concerning the Eucharist. He does not understand the Church to be a “sacramental organism”, does not see any connection between union with Christ and union of the faithful, and does not fear judgment or condemnation if he eats and drinks the Body and Blood of Christ without being duly prepared. He evidently views the sacrament as either mere symbolism, to which human emotion rather than divine grace gives meaning, or a magical rite that extorts Grace from God.
While everyone is free to disagree with the Orthodox Church, it is impolite, to put it mildly, to display one’s disagreement by going up to the celebrant at the most solemn moment of the liturgy and shouting your disagreement in his face. And that is exactly what a non-Orthodox does when he deceives a priest into giving him communion.
I hope that non-Orthodox who are tempted to go forward for communion at Orthodox liturgies (or non-Roman Catholics at Catholic masses) will ponder in their hearts why they wish to engage in such rudeness to their hosts (pun intended).
Note: For the benefit of non-Orthodox readers who may find themselves at an Orthodox liturgy, let me mention that, at the end of the service, the priest distributes bread, called antidoron, to those present. Non-Orthodox may partake of antidoron and are encouraged to do so. It is not a sacrament but a gesture of fellowship. In fact, it plays the irenic, ecumenical role that some people seem to wish to assign to the Eucharist.
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