It’s Time to Retire Intinction: An Open Letter to the Bishops of The Episcopal Church

N.b. A few responses to questions raised by this piece have been added by the author at the end. 

“Our Savior Christ, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood as a sign and pledge of his love, for the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of his death, and for a spiritual sharing in his risen life.”  Exhortation, p. 316

Dear Fathers and Mothers in God,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I write to you as the Chief Pastors of our church in a spirit of friendship and priestly collegiality.

There are many residual effects in our churches from the COVID-19 pandemic. The limitations and our constantly changing understanding of how the virus spread posed a number of substantive questions about foundational theological matters, including the role of the priesthood in the sacraments; the very nature of the Eucharist, including the proper means by which the Sacrament is consecrated; the nature of the parish church as the gathered body of Christ in a particular locale; the benefits and limits of online church.

My purpose in writing is to encourage you, now that we are on the other side of this pandemic and of changes to liturgical practice that have become widespread, to provide clear guidance and direction to our churches about intinction as a method of receiving Holy Communion. The major period of transition after Pentecost into Ordinary Time provides an opportunity to offer direction about needed changes to practice in our Eucharistic celebrations.

Science

I begin with this assumption: During the COVID-19 pandemic we were urged to “follow the science.” The science is clear:

• the use of the common cup poses a negligible risk, and
• the practice of self-intinction is the least sanitary method by which one can receive the Sacrament.

In the wake of the SARS outbreak, places like the Diocese of Toronto engaged with the scientific community in research that produced the following:

Intinction, long thought to be a practice which reduces the risk of contagion, may actually increase such risk. Hands (children’s and adults) are at least as likely to be a source of contagion (often more so) as lips. Dipping the wafer into the wine may contaminate the wine with pathogens clinging to fingers, thus spreading contagion to others. Intinction offers no additional protection to the communicant.

In the studies done about the potential danger of passing bacteria using the common cup, the conclusions were clear:

“Researchers have performed experiments, through which volunteers were asked to drink sacramental wine that contained 14.5% of alcohol from a common silver communion cup or chalice. Remarkably, the number of pathogens located in the rim of the chalice was found considerably low. The authors concluded that the risk of the transmission of the infection through a common communion cup is negligible. Furthermore, rotation of the chalice was ineffective in reducing bacterial colonization. Wiping the rim of the chalice with a cloth reduced bacterial counts by 90%.” (“Holy Communion and Infection Transmission: A Literature Review,” made available by the National Institutes of Health).

The conclusion? “The common communion cup may theoretically serve as a vehicle of transmitting infection, but the potential risk of transmission is very small. Currently, available data do not provide any support for the suggestion that the practice of sharing a common communion cup can contribute to the spread of COVID-19 because SARS-CoV-2 transmission from a patient with COVID-19 or asymptomatic carrier to other people has not been reported” (“COVID-19 and Holy Communion,” made available by the National Institutes of Health).

What follows are several weighty reasons why I would suggest that intinction only be used as a method of administration to the sick:

1. The clear teaching of the Book of Common Prayer is the normal method for receiving Holy Communion is to eat the consecrated Bread and to drink the consecrated Wine, and that there must be a weighty reason for any other practice.
2. This practice is premised on the Scriptural witness about the manner of administering and receiving Holy Communion: that Jesus directed his disciples and followers to take bread and eat it and to take wine and drink it. The ecclesial/rubrical direction to eat and to drink is premised directly on a historical, dominical injunction.
3. Intinction as the normal method for administering the Sacrament in a parish “overthroweth the nature of the Sacrament” (but I overspeak). Besides the priest who presides (and bishops who are concelebrating), the widespread witness historically is that the Eucharistic rite culminates in the faithful coming forward and being given the sacrament by another person. Intinction leans in the direction of the faithful taking the sacrament rather than receiving it and in a method in tension with the Scriptural witness to the practice of our Lord.
4. Science: Self-intinction is the least sanitary method by which one can receive Holy Communion. If we wish to follow the science, the facts are incontrovertible:
   • If safety is the principal concern, the safest method is to receive bread only from someone whose hands have been sanitized.
   • Intinction provides no additional protection from germs than a common cup. If the person dipping the bread in the wine touches the wine at all, intinction is necessarily more likely to transmit bacteria and pathogens than a common cup. This is because of the high likelihood of bacteria, particularly from fecal matter, under the fingernails has an exponentially higher likelihood of passing dangerous bacteria.

Some bishops, such as John Harvey Taylor of Los Angeles, have already issued helpful directives to this end, including the discouragement of intinction. Parish priests would benefit greatly from clear teaching about this from their bishops, and it may also be a matter that the House of Bishops wishes to take up as a body.

Here are some suggestions about norms that could be used when crafting diocesan policy:

1. The normal method for receiving Holy Communion is to eat the consecrated Bread and to drink the consecrated Wine.
2. The main exception to this practice would be to intinct the consecrated Bread into the consecrated Wine to make its consumption easier for the sick and infirm, or possibly for very young children.
3. A request for permission to deviate from this practice should be made in writing to the bishop and approval in writing is required before the practice can be commenced, in accordance with the more general rubric on pp. 407-08, BCP.
4. The options provided by the bishop for those who remain concerned about the spread of infectious diseases through participation in the Sacrament of the Body of Blood of Christ are as follows:
   1. First, encourage reception in one kind.
   2. If, for sufficient reason, the bishop approves the simultaneous reception of both elements of the Sacrament, the following norms should be observed:
      1. The Sacrament may only be administered by intinction by those authorized to do so: self-intinction is never permitted.
      2. In light of the specific directions on BCP page 408 about the administration of Communion, the act of intinction and its ministration should be undertaken by the celebrant or a priest, as the prayer book reserves the administration of the Bread to the clergy. The best method for this is for the priest to slide the consecrated Bread down the far side of the bowl of the chalice just until it touches the Wine. Then, taking it out of the Wine, tap it once against the inside of the rim to remove any drips, and then immediately place it on the tongue of the communicant. This also requires instruction that for those who wish to receive this way, they must not only open their mouth but extend their tongue over their lower teeth, so that the minister need not place any fingers inside the mouth of the communicant.

• When administering the consecrated Bread and Wine simultaneously, the following words should be used: “The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ keep you in everlasting life” or “The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which were given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy Heart by faith, with thanksgiving” (see the directions of the 1943 General Convention, page 236). Administering the Bread and Wine simultaneously with the words, “The Blood of Christ …”

5. Finally, the clergy should be encouraged to teach the faithful not only about the theology of the Holy Eucharist, but also about practice. As you visit your parishes, I would guess that it is very clear when a parish has received such careful and loving teaching. How are they to hear without a teacher?

The author of one of the scientific studies concludes with an interesting note:

“Appropriate assessment of the Holy Eucharist needs to be extended beyond a partial scientific analysis. Science seems to stand in opposition with the concept of Holy Communion. The greatest ‘medicine of the soul and the body’ cannot be explained with human reasoning and pure logical criteria. Furthermore, a balance between scientific views and respect for the spiritual needs of the believers is required” (“COVID-19 and Holy Communion”).

I could not agree more. As stewards of the Divine Mysteries, we know that God has entrusted us with the source and summit of the life of each Christian and of the Church herself. We should be prudent; but we should not forget that Mysteries with which God has entrusted us is nothing less than Christ himself.

Conclusion

I believe that we need your leadership and direction about this part of our common life. Most Episcopal churches celebrate the Holy Eucharist as the principal act of worship on the Lord’s Day. Practice that is both fitting and rubrical is a matter of deep importance and I hope that this letter can be one small step in that direction.

To Christ our Lord who loves us, and washed us in his own blood, and made us a kingdom of priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory in the Church evermore. Through him let us offer continually the sacrifice of praise, which is our bounden duty and service, and, with faith in him, come boldly before the throne of grace. (The Exhortation, BCP p. 317)

Your brother in Christ,

The Rev. Matthew S.C. Olver, Ph.D.
Executive Director and Publisher
The Living Church Foundation

——

A Response to Some Questions Raised by the Letter

I’ve been grateful for the many (many!) responses and comments I’ve received to my letter encouraging us to retire intinction as a normative means of administering and receiving the Eucharist. A few questions seemed to require a brief response, to here goes.

There are a few foundational principals that should guide how we think about this.

First, the scriptural witness is clear. Jesus instituted the Eucharist within the context of a meal. The command is to eat and drink, not simply consume. While it is more than a ritual meal, the Eucharist is not less a ritual meal. It is quite clear that the widespread practice of eating first the bread and then drinking the consecrated wine was the extremely widespread practice across Christendom through the patristic period and into the early medieval. The exceptions to this were in extreme cases: infants, those too ill to receive except the bread be moistened. None of this is disputed.

The scriptural witness, dominical institution, and widespread catholic practice all agree. Thus, the onus is on Christians who diverge from this practice to provide a compelling reason for the divergence. The argument that, “Well, other Christians are doing X” is not enough.

Second, it is true that the Byzantines and much of the East began to administer the sacrament combined: the bread soaked in the wine and administered with a spoon. But this is not what Episcopalians are doing. Instead, communicants are taking a flat host and dipping it into a chalice of wine and consuming it. The closest biblical witness to this is Judas. As the Council of Braga in 6785 puts it, “We do not read that Christ gave intincted bread to anyone except to that disciple alone whom, by the intincted morsel, he showed to be the master’s betrayer.” Now, it is unfair to rest much on this, even as it became a trope in Western polemics against the east about this practice. Williams of Champeaux (d.1121) thought this was rather silly and called it ex frivola causa.

But more seriously, major figures such as St. Leo the Great and St. Gelasius I both called intinction a sacrilegia simiulatio; Pope Urban II (1088-99) presided over the Synod of Clermont, which decreed: “Let no one communicate from the altar unless one receives the body separately and the blood in the same way, except in case of necessity and out of caution.” Pope Paschall II (1099-1118) in a letter to the Abbot of Cluny writes: “Therefore in receiving the body and blood of the Lord … let the dominical tradition be preserved, and no human and novel custom depart from that which Christ the Master both ordered and did. For we know both the bread by itself and the wine by itself were handed down by the very Lord. This custom we teach and command to be always kept thus in the holy Church, except for infants and those very ill, who are unable to consume the bread.”

The question is clear: Outside of necessity and caution, on what grounds would we wish to argue for a regular deviation from this practice?

I am very compelled by the approach of the late, great Robert Taft, S.J., the great scholar of eastern liturgy and I have made significant use of this article “Communion Via Intinction”, Studia Liturgica 26 (1996) 225-36). He argues that BOTH the East and the West diverged from the scriptural and catholic practice: the East through the administration of both on a spoon and the West through the refusal to administer the chalice to the laity. Neither practice is a full response to the Lord’s command to “eat” and “drink.” As Taft writes: “This was of course the dominical tradition, but there were also symbolic reasons: no one but a nominalist could by any stretch of the imagination call communion by intinction ‘eating and drinking.’”

As a priest, I fully recognize that changing practice around something like the Eucharist is a big deal and fraught in many ways. I have not intention to minimize that reality.

My point, however, is this:

• The scriptural witness to our Lord’s command is to eat and drink.
• Christians did this for hundreds of years.
• The rubrics of all the editions of the Book of Common Prayer are in 100% agreement with this and make clear directions to administer bread and then the wine.
• The additional rubric in 1979 that allows for this only with permission of the bishop only emphasizes how normative this should be.

Episcopalians did not change their practice because they wanted to be like Eastern Orthodox Christians. We did not change our practice because we developed some new theology about the Eucharist that this ritual change intends to express.

From best I can tell, people changed the practice because they thought it safe and more sanitary. It is absolutely clear that self-intinction is way less safe than a common cup.

So, outside of the fact that pastorally it is difficult to return to the rubrical practice, why would we continue with self-intinction as a normative practice?

Matthew S.C. Olver

The Rev. Matthew S.C. Olver, Ph.D., is the Executive Director and Publisher of the Living Church Foundation, Senior Lecturer in Liturgics at Nashotah House Theological Seminary, and a scholar of early Christian liturgy.