Begin Here · Lesson 2 of 12

What is ecclesiastical communion?

In plain language

Communion (κοινωνία) is more than receiving the Chalice. It is the whole web of shared church life: praying at the same Liturgy, receiving the same Mysteries, and, decisively for our subject, the bishop's name spoken aloud in the services. To commemorate a bishop is to declare before God and the congregation: his faith is my faith; I stand where he stands.

That is why the ancient way to enter or break communion was to add or strike a name from the diptychs, the lists read at the altar. Communion runs in two directions at once: vertically, joining the local church to its hierarch and through him to the wider Church; and horizontally, joining all who share the same Chalice to one another. What passes along those lines is the point of this whole course.

Key terms

κοινωνία, communion, fellowship, participation, the New Testament's word for what the Eucharist creates.
Diptychs, the lists of names, living and departed hierarchs, commemorated at the Liturgy; the Church's ledger of who is in communion with whom.
Commemoration (μνημόσυνον), the liturgical naming of one's bishop; ceasing it is the precise act Canon 15 regulates.

Primary sources

St Paul: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). St Ignatius binds this to the bishop: one Eucharist, one altar, one bishop (Philadelphians 4; Smyrnaeans 8). The erasure of Pope Vigilius' name from the diptychs at the time of the Fifth Council shows the mechanism working in reverse.

A historical example

When the Fifth Ecumenical Council's era dealt with Vigilius' wavering over the Three Chapters, the sanction was precisely the striking of his name, suspension of communion with the man, while the see and the Church endured.

A common misunderstanding

“Communion is just my own reception of the sacrament, so what my bishop teaches is his problem.” The tradition denies this: commemoration makes the congregation a participant in the bishop's stand. That is exactly why the canons treat ceasing commemoration as so grave, and why, in one case, they honour it.