Covid-19 Protocols Rescinded; Reflect on the Practice of Communion

Dear Friends of Saints James and Andrew,

The Vestry recently met to discuss our remaining local Covid-19 era protocols; all diocesan protocols having previously been rescinded. It was concluded that we will rescind such protocols, but we want to invite the community to reflect on the practice of communion.

We will no longer require windows and doors to be open for worship. When the weather allows, we will open them for fresh air to circulate. Ushers will collaborate with the Rector on Sunday mornings, or the Wardens, in her absence. 

We will continue to use a Flexible Masking Policy as a way to reduce respiratory virus transmission. While the policy was created as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic, we’ve learned it's a healthy practice in general. With regard to masks, the Celebrant and Lay Eucharistic Ministers will no longer be required to mask for distribution of communion and healing prayers. Moving forward it will be a personal decision for each person. 

With regard to communion:  

The Church has long held that if you take only one form of Communion (either the bread or the wine) you are fully communed; thus no one should ever feel pressured to receive the wine. 

For those who would like to receive the wine, there have historically been two ways: drinking from the common cup and intinction (the dipping of the bread into the common cup). When we resumed communion in 2022, drinking from the common cup was permitted, but intinction was not. 

Effective immediately, we will permit intinction, though the practice is discouraged for two reasons. 

First, intinction has a complex social and theological history. Here is a brief history of intinction, largely gathered from Daniel Sack’s Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture:

• In the Eastern Church, intinction has long been, and remains, the standard practice. 
  

• In the Western church, intinction was practiced “...intermittently in special situations, most often in the case of the dying, until it was banned by the Council of London in 1375, possibly because such dipping echoed the morsel of sopped bread Jesus offered Judas.”*
  
  
  
• Intinction began to return to the Western church through Anglicanism, when in the 19th century some wanted to restore worship practices from the Middle Ages.*
  

• As scholar Daniel Sack notes: “Partly in response to sanitary concerns, the 1948 Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops passed resolutions permitting the use of intinction. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church of America in 1949 allowed churches to use intinction, subject to the approval of the bishop.” 
  

• This was during the same period in American history when segregation was fiercely on the rise, peaking around 1960, meaning for some the shift to intinction was a response grounded in systemic racism. Read more about the sanitary reform movement and the rise of individual communion cups in an article by Episcopal priest, Hilary Bogert Winkler here. 
  

• During the AIDS epidemic, the practice of intinction rose again. Sacks writes, “The Episcopal Bishop of California pledged to continue drinking from the cup himself but encouraged those anxious about the disease, and those persons with AIDS concerned about opportunistic infections, to take only the bread at communion.” Yet in many other dioceses, intinction became a compromise that aimed to respond to people’s fears.  
  

• Most importantly, intinction is a shift away from the symbolism of the body of Christ drinking from a shared common cup. 
  

Second, science has much to tell us about the common cup and the practice of intinction. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts summarized this science well in a letter from Bishop Gates, found here:

• Intinction has long been discouraged by medical authorities due to its own risk potential.  Clergy and chalice bearers [LEMs] will testify to the frequency with which an individual who intincts will inadvertently extend their fingertips into the wine.  Thus, intinction becomes a higher risk activity than drinking from the chalice, because the fingertips and fingernails are a repository for pathogens not found in saliva.
  

• A global public health coalition concluded that:
  

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.

• Likewise, an epidemiological study written for the Anglican Church of Canada concluded that:
  

While it's true a shared cup could transmit infection through saliva, the risk is extremely low, with no documented cases of any disease ever being spread that way.  In the case of COVID-19 the risk is even lower because it's spread by aerosols and droplets: the fact is, the risk of catching COVID is far greater from breathing air exhaled by an infectious person next to you than from sharing a common cup.

We would like to invite each of us to reflect on our own practice of receiving communion. Why do we abstain, intinct, or drink from the common cup? Is it because a caregiver or priest once told us ‘this is the way’? What practice draws us closer to God and the community we worship alongside? What helps us to grow in faith? There is no ‘wrong’ answer, particularly if we are making our decision with intention and care. 

We welcome your reflections and thoughts. Please do not hesitate to be in touch with our clergy and vestry leaders. 

Peace,
Rev. Heather J. Blais,
Rector
On behalf of Saints James and Andrew Vestry