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Communion in One Kind
Reception of Holy Communion under the form of bread (or wine) only. It was the regular method by which lay people received communion in the western church from the twelfth century to the Reformation. There is evidence as early as the third century that lay people took the consecrated bread home with them to receive during the week. The communion of the sick in one kind became common, apparently for practical reasons. Between the seventh and eleventh centuries the practice of intinction, dipping the consecrated bread in the consecrated wine, became popular. By the thirteenth century, intinction had been replaced almost universally by communion in one kind. The Reformers were strong advocates for the restoration of the chalice to the laity. It was restored in the Church of England in 1548. In the Byzantine Church, infants at their baptisms were usually communicated under the form of wine only, since they were unable to swallow bread. This was also true of the Latin Church in the first millennium. The BCP allows for administration of the Sacrament to the sick in one kind if the sick person is unable to receive either the consecrated bread or wine (p. 457). See Concomitance.
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Glossary definitions provided courtesy of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY,(All Rights reserved) from "An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, A User Friendly Reference for Episcopalians," Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum, editors.
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