Inter-faith Communion

Question: 

I am a Catholic who believes it makes no difference if someone is Catholic or Orthodox. Also, I have received Holy Eucharist in the Orthodox Church in the past and I did not get permission from the Orthodox Priest to do so. I do not see any problem with a Catholic receiving Holy Eucharist in the Orthodox Church.

Very Rev. Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org 

It is paradoxical - because we are indeed already one in Jesus - all who have ever or shall ever been/be incorporated into the miraculous mystery of His Divine-Human life!

And yet, sadly, we are still divided.  When we do as the most sensitive (and perhaps pious) of us wish to and receive the Eucharist together as you say you have done, we are not truly doing what our Churches normally do.  The Eucharist is the highest expression of confessional unity.  There are still issues - some of them important indeed upon which we have not agreed.

We must experience the pain of separation so that we can be prompted to dialogue and treat each other with the love, kindness and mercy that the Lord expects of us.

That is why I have never received the Eucharist at a Catholic celebration of this mystery - up until this day - only spiritually and not with the wholeness of my humanity.  But I have given and been present when other Orthodox celebrants have given the Eucharist to brothers and sisters with whom we are not yet in full Communion.  This has been done as an exception - one calls it economy, which means that each such act is unique and cannot be cited as a precedent which must thereafter always be adhered to.

You shall do as you decide, beloved fellow Citizen of Jesus' Kingdom, but I feel I must say that it would be best if you somehow alerted  the celebrant as to your intentions before you came forward so that he could have the benefit of deciding how he ought to receive you.

Let us pray that the day will soon be here when such considerations and deliberations will be a matter of the sad past - the "before" to a glorious and eternal "after".

Please see a related article on this site.

Ukrainian Orthodoxy