Something almost universally taken for granted in American Orthodoxy is the inherent good of frequent communion. This wasn’t commonly practiced for many centuries. Yiayia might complain, but with the monastic resurgence in the 1800s and the “neo-patristic” revival in the 1900s, almost everyone assumes that more is better. You get Jesus in His actuality in the Eucharist with all the health and salvation that comes with it, so why would you not receive as frequently as possible? It’s the central, most definitive act of the Church. It’s in the Eucharist that we become deified.
I’m not saying that’s wrong. But I’ve really been rethinking it in recent months.
Part of the argument of St. Makarios of Corinth is that people will constantly be reconciling with each other. They just took communion two days ago and will again in five, and so they will always be freely offering apologies.
Obviously that doesn’t happen. We go to communion every week with broken relationships that we convince ourselves don’t really matter. Often these are the very people we are in the communion line with or even the priest himself.
I have been Orthodox for over a decade. What has never once happened, in all these years, is someone coming to me at the beginning of Lent and saying, “Hey, I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” We have our Forgiveness Vespers ritual, where we get in a circle and hug people we barely know, but no one has ever come to me with something specific and apologized at the beginning of Lent. I would imagine it hasn’t happened to most of you either.
Thus we have lost the sense that Lent is about repentance. We repeat the Prayer of St. Ephraim and do our prostrations, but we don’t mean it. We continue in our self-righteousness and broken relationships and receive communion every week anyway.
But what used to happen is that people only received communion a few times a year, maybe only on Pascha. During the year they have the normal conflicts they have with people. But by the time Lent comes around, they have had a few months to cool down. They can look back soberly and see where they were wrong, or maybe they just no longer care about the issue as much. Then they have some two months to go to everyone they are at odds with and apologize.
What St. Makarios said is a wonderful idea in the world of ideals, and I’m not really criticizing him. Maybe that works in a select few monasteries with six people isolated on a mountain. But obviously his vision failed at the parish level. We live in a world of broken hearts and abandoned relationships, especially in America. Even with the best of intentions, three days isn’t enough time to calm down and soberly reflect so that we can actually live in right relations with everyone around us.
Another issue is that we treat communion casually. We all confess that it’s truly the Body and Blood of our Lord, but effectively it becomes the sacramental water fountain. If we only took communion once a year, it would have that much more importance to us. It would be the culmination of the entire year, and we would feel the total sacredness of the day. You would feel the anticipation for weeks, and especially the few days before you would make sure you don’t commit any sin.
In contrast to that, my understanding as a new convert was that the only real requirement for going to communion was skipping breakfast, and it was really a matter of whether you wanted to eat that morning or not. So yes, I received communion more frequently, but I was also very casual and dismissive of it. I would skip communion for a reason as petty as hunger. Probably everyone reading this has been guilty at some time of having taken a casual approach to communion, with broken relationships that we should have done more to repair.
Frequent communion also cheapens the rest of the liturgy. We suffer and daydream through an hour of liturgy so that we can get to the part we really came for, as though we have to pay an entrance fee. We’re told that the purpose of liturgy is the Eucharist itself, which is true, but the effect is that often we view the rest of the liturgy as just a prologue that doesn’t really matter. That people are still filing into the church after the Creed shows how little we value the liturgy as a complete whole.
Tucker Carlson recently said, “The most liberating thing in the world is to admit that you were wrong.” And that’s why we have confession, which is a sacrament in itself. There are only and exactly seven sacraments, despite what your convert priest may have told you. There’s a reason for that limitation. Out of all the blessings and rituals that the Church performs for our benefit, only seven are categorized as mysteries (synonymous with sacraments in Orthodox theology). Confession is one of the few rituals of the Church with that special quality to it that makes it a sacrament, in a way that isn’t true for monastic tonsure or house blessings. It exists as a self-contained sacrament, and has its own good that it does. This was the universal tradition of the Church until 20th century academic theology.
But frequent communion turns confession into a chore or an admission requirement. You have to go to confession with some regularity in order to go to communion. Often ROCOR priests and monasteries want you to go every single week. And so the two become closely linked.
But the effect is that you aren’t going to confession to look for healing. You’re not seeking the catharsis of vocalizing your sins and having the priest announce forgiveness. Instead, you’re just doing the rote requirement necessary to receive your portion of the Eucharist, as though it’s really more for the priest’s benefit than yours.
Especially in the Russian-tradition churches, you have this practice where you hurriedly whisper your sins to the priest before liturgy while the hours are being read. In one church I attended it would happen in the communion line itself. I’m not saying that that’s categorically wrong and should never be done, but it can easily rob you of the psychological benefit of vocalizing your failures. It’s an assembly line model of what is probably the most intimate sacrament. You’re never more vulnerable than when you are telling another human the worst things about yourself and trusting him to not share that with others, and maybe it’s not appropriate to rush people through that in such a formal, detached way.
In conclusion, I’m not saying that we should do away with frequent communion altogether. But maybe we should roll it back a little and not teach that it’s an absolute essential for all people, in all seasons of life, and that the liturgy is a waste of time without it.
Interesting article. It was worth reading because it caused me to think again about how I enter the communion mystery. Glad you wrote this article.
Very thought provoking post. Thank you. I must admit to laughing at all the knee jerk responses, that I knew would be coming when I read the article. Thanks again.
Maybe y’all should read Made For Union by Dokos instead of this article. Teachings from St Nikodemos on this subject.
Just curious – what in this article do you think contradicts the teaching of Nikodemos?
So, I actually referenced St Makarios of Corinth directly. It’s not like I’m avoiding the Kollyvades Fathers.
St Nikodemos was a very righteous man. We owe him a great debt of gratitude for his editing and publishing. But his teachings hurt the Church. And unfortunately his good teachings are intimately mixed with his bad teachings so that you cannot easily separate them out.
Sometimes saints are wrong. Sometimes their books hurt instead of help. St Augustine, Pope St Gregory, St Joseph of Volokalamsk, St Nikodemos — all very godly men whose lives we should imitate but whose teachings we have to be very discerning with.
Augustine,
Yep, too frequent taking of communion, obligatory scheduled confessions, and the shortcomings of priests and laity can all add up to the very frustrations you lay out. Like you, I have experienced similar misgivings and creeping angst you were honest enough to share.
Allow me to share what has sustained me as a convert from Protestantism since 2006.
All of the precious sacraments are susceptible to becoming degraded into a meaningless formality, by both clergy and laity alike.
The same goes for rote or mandatory confession by insincere parishioners who never change.
In as much as parishes are not monasteries, clergy are not abbots and laity are not monks or nuns.
What sustains me:
I take communion with a sincere hear only and not under compulsion, to guard against falling into meaningless formality.
Pray for fellow parishioners and/or clergy who continue to offend me as an act of working out of my own salvation.
Remind myself that the Church is a hospital of soul-sick sinners of every sordid assortment, infected with every kind of mental and physical infirmity that plagues me too.
As such, I need to remind myself that my little parish is not a monument of saints but a bootcamp for saints-in-the-making.
Finally:
Everything you are dealing with bootcamp is part and parcel of working out your salvation.
Hang in there.
What a disappointing departure from the typical writing on this blog. It contains a lot of either projection or self-righteous judgment of millions of people, assuming things like “you aren’t going to confession for healing.”
Eyes on your own plate. Talk to your priest about YOU.
I must respectfully disagree with the main thrust and idea of this article. However a reading of the article reveals the issues that are a factor in how the mystery/sacrament of Holy Communion becomes almost desacralised, almost. How the sacrament can be taken for granted. Now all these factors are true, where there is no attention to the whole of the Divine Liturgy as communion with the heavenly Church in praising God, it follows that such lack of attention is most likely to also be reflected in how one views Holy Communion. It, however doesn’t follow that frequency of taking Holy Communion is the problem, it is a symptom of a problem. The source is lack of attentiveness, not being fully in the moment of the presence of God. So, a lack of effort. Which could easily happen two months later were the Divine Liturgy to be only served after two months. So the period is not necessarily a solution. The solution is inside of us. And inside of ME. Not everyone else around me but me. All the individuals in the church who are concentrating on themselves and their own attentiveness, even if my mind were to wander and I start looking at them, I will quickly be shamed to look at myself because they will all be attentive to what They are doing. I must not let my mind wander about in the Divine Liturgy, I shall not have an excuse on the Dread Day to say I saw Nicholas next to me not paying attention, so I also lost my attentiveness because I do not know the time that Nicholas next to me will repent of his apparent lack of attention.
The same idea applies to confession. I may not have twenty minutes of expansive discussion with the priest about my sins because realistically, there’s ten other people in the queue waiting to confess. Had I done my reflection and preparatory prayers before confession, the event of confession will not be just perfunctory. It will have Divine impact on me. Christ does the healing and the priest stands in the stead of Christ.
So, no, frequency is not a problem. The problem is me.
Throughout this conversation, though I may have missed it, I did not read of anyone mentioning going to their spiritual father for guidance on this matter. Sadly, it seems to me that most of our priests still do not espouse the importance of all of us finding a proper spiritual father. If they did and if we followed their advice, many issues including that of Holy Communion, Holy Confession and a cultivated Orthodox fronema (mindset) would begin to work itself out.
The issue perhaps is not the frequency of Communion but the lack of preparation and discernment, which mechanical confession does not overcome. Our priests need to exercise once again their responsibility as guardians of the Chalice in order to instill proper piety. Excellent topic for a much broader discussion or retreat!
The Cannons say if you skip communion for 3 weeks you are no longer a member of the Church.
There is a great deal I disagree with in this article. But first, it makes me sad to know that the author has never experienced someone asking forgiveness for a specific offense at the beginning of Lent, nor done so in the reverse. I surely have, one more than one occasion and it was difficult but freeing.
Secondly, how does the author “know” that “people” approach the Chalice casually?
A lot of what is written about can be remedied with better, and maybe, longer periods of catechism.
“…probably the most intimate sacrament…” The Holy Mysteries are the purpose of the Divine Liturgy. And They ARE essential to all people for the healing of body and soul.
I see too many “we” and “you” in this article. How about replacing some of them with “I”?
St John Chrysostom: “Look, I entreat you: a royal table is set before you, angels minister at that table, the King Himself is there, and yet, you take no account of it. Arc your garments clean? Then fall down and partake! For everyone who does not partakes of the mysteries is standing here in shameless falsity. When you behold the curtain drawn, then imagine the heavens are let down from above, and that the angels arc descending! Why stay at liturgy and yet not partake of the table? I am unworthy, you say. Then you are also unworthy of that communion you also have in prayer. Come!”
I apologise for the misspellings. They are not mine,
but I did cut and paste (and post) without checking.
I have to disagree with most of the above article. Frequent communion was the norm in the early Church, and had it not been, the Divine Liturgy would not be the main service on Sunday morning, but no doubt Matins would have that function, as in many Protestant denominations. It has been a fairly recent development, that people began receiving communion more often: 50 years ago, most Orthodox communicated about 5 times a year, once before Christmas, again before Pascha (usually on the Saturday of St. Theodore in the first week of Lent, and perhaps again on Holy Saturday; again in the Apostles’ fast, again in the Dormition fast and maybe, but not always, on their nameday. But what is needed today, is a more disciplined approach to the Liturgy and to Holy Communion.
I am so weak and so BAD that I feel I absolutely need to receive the Eucharist as often as it is offered, if possible. Every Sunday. My parish is large enough that it is very difficult to get to the priest four times a year during the fasting seasons, but I go twice a year during the Nativity fast and Lent, and if possible during the other two fasts.
The priest at the first parish I attended instructed us not to run back to confession right away if we committed a sin we had just confessed. He told us to KEEP WORKING AT IT, and then come back again after awhile. To me that made a lot of sense.