Holy Communion in Depth - Constantine Zalalas
Church Finnish Church may implement Gluten-free Eucharist
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Holy Communion in Depth - Constantine Zalalas
Just to make it clear I agree with you here, but neither my priest nor my bishop feel this way. I recently tried to explain my position on the use of fetal cells to my priest and he ridiculed me. Do I know better than my priest or my bishop? I can't say that I do. Do you?
The point I was trying to make is that we should strive to have unity in our churches. It is a sad thing that most of our parishes are suffering from internal divisions because of issues regarding covid and vaccines. If we allow our unity to be broken up then the devil wins.
Is the body of christ "bread", or is it something else?
This line of reasoning seems like an awfully slippery slope.
Maybe God wants that person to suffer a little bit each time? Who knows. You're trying to rationalize and you assume it is for you to know or understand what God wants in that situation, rather than focus on obedience and having faith in Him. Perhaps this is His way of testing you.
Unity is great on paper, but what is the value of unity for unity's sake? In my opinion ecumenism is a kind of poison. Not picking on you btw, I just find your comments to be interesting and worthy of a reply.
I doubt it. Illness, suffering, and death are evil. God is not the author of evil.
Ridicule? I hope you are just using strong wording here. Perhaps he was being playful, or do you mean he was seriously insulting you? That is seriously inappropriate in my opinion. Just wondering what jurisdiction is this?
If I recall correctly, the author of “How to live a holy life” specifically says that God sometimes sends illnesses to believers to test them and that we should thank God to in both health and illness because it is part of His will.
For what it's worth, the issue has been brought to the attention of the Roman Catholic Church a while ago and they came to develop a position on it. It's noteworthy that the Roman Catholic Church is using unleavened bread for the host, whereas the Orthodox are using leavened bread. This was actually a major point of contention and part of the many reasons for the Great Schism. Since this is the Orthodox forum, I will not elaborate further on the way the Catholics handle this, except by pointing out that, surprise, surprise, it turned into a slippery slope. Make of that what you will.
Nobody here has advocated for using gluten-free bread for the Eucharist, so enough with the slippery slope.
If I misunderstood you I sincerely apologize. I was under the impression you were advocating or being an apologist for the position that the Church should change its ways in order to accomodate people. Please forgive me if that was not the case.
No. The bread and wine literally do not “transform” into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The forms of the bread and wine do not change. What does change is the substance.
In the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ Himself is truly, really, and substantially present, in body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the forms (i.e. the external appearances) of bread and wine.
By appearances, I mean the figure, the color, the taste, and whatever appears to the senses. All external appearances remain as before consecration, but the substance of bread and the substance of wine are changed into the substance of Our Lord's body and blood.
Again, to reiterate: the substance is the body and blood of Christ, under the appearances (“forms”) of bread and wine. All physically measurable qualities are appearances, so no physical test would show a difference before and after the consecration. We would not expect the measured gluten content to change. Celiacs who would react to unconsecrated wheat bread would be expected to have the same reactions to a consecrated host, unless another miracle prevented it. The external qualities do not change their chemical properties. The substance underlying those external appearances certainly does change.
The fact that qualities remain unaltered is a fact of experience; the fact that the substance changes is revealed by God, and cannot be known in any other way. There are no signs in the consecrated Eucharistic Host itself proving He is bodily present — it is a mystery of faith. The reason why we believe is not in the Host (the consecrated “bread”) as such, but in God. He has revealed this truth, and we believe because He must know and could not tell an untruth.
As a different issue, wheat bread is required for validity of the sacrament, because that is what Our Lord used. Gluten is considered essential to wheat, so non-gluten bread of any form is not valid matter. Rice cakes wouldn't “work”.
Now… Jesus Christ is present whole and entire both under the form of bread and under the form of wine. Under the appearance of bread we receive also Christ's blood. Under the appearance of wine we receive also Christ's body — because in the Holy Eucharist we receive the living body of Our Lord, and a living body cannot exist without blood, nor can living blood exist without a body. Christ is also present whole and entire in the smallest portion of the Holy Eucharist under the form of either bread or wine; for His body in the Eucharist is in a glorified state, and as it partakes of the character of a spiritual substance, it requires no definite size or shape.
So…For celiacs I see no reason why the priest communing them could not simply give them a much smaller fragment of the consecrated “bread” (which contains the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ), even if it is just the size of a pencil eraser, I don’t see how that would endanger someone's life because of an allergy to gluten. If a person truly can't deal with even the smallest amount of gluten, even after years of treatment/proper dieting, they could simply receive a drop of Precious Blood from the chalice, under the form of wine only, since they would still be receiving Christ Himself whole and entire. The should be a fairly easy, straightforward matter to resolve in Eastern rite churches especially, since they already administer the Holy Eucharist to the laity under both forms anyway.
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If your priest or bishop thinks it's AOK to use aborted fetal cells in the R&D or manufacture of a vax, then yes, you do know better!
Update
orthochristian.com
Finnish Church should apologize for issue of gluten-free Communion, says Metropolis of Piraeus
“We hope and wish that the Ecumenical Patriarchate will refuse this horrible innovation, the impious experimentation and interventionism in the Holy Sacrament, and that the hierarchs of the Finnish Orthodox Church will realize their great error and apologize to God and the grievously scandalized...
I still don't understand why people behave this way when a Priest is clearly endorsing something wrong that goes against what The Saints and other living Elders, Priest, Bishops and arguably scripture is saying. If a Priest says gay marriage is OK and for whatever reason it takes weeks, months, or years to depose such Priest are Orthodox laity suppose to walk enough in a daze wondering if they should submit to the clearly immoral counsel of their Priest or should they just accept the obvious that yea they clearly know better than their Priest in this matter??
As someone that can't eat bread easily anymore (1 year of being stomach cancer free now with no stomach) I've developed a gluten intolerance. As it's personally affected me, communion makes me bloated, nauseous, and gassy now...
I actually like this option, whether or not this is in line with scripture is the hard part for me to tell, but I'd like to have the option of being able to partake in the eucharist on Sundays without these symptoms.
I actually like this option, whether or not this is in line with scripture is the hard part for me to tell, but I'd like to have the option of being able to partake in the eucharist on Sundays without these symptoms.
According to canon law the type of flour to be used for making prosphora is wheat. Specifically, it is supposed to be make of white flour (not whole wheat). There exists in the history of the church instances of extreme need in which other types of bread were used. I remember reading about a group of bishops which were exiled to the island of Solovki during the Soviet era. On Pascha they snuck out into the woods and celebrated the liturgy. They did not have white bread, and so they used what they had: black bread (in Russia white bread connotes bread made from wheat, black bread is made of rye). If I remember correctly they also didn't have any wine and so they used water instead. Who would dare criticize this group of holy bishops under persecution for using economia and celebrating the liturgy is this fashion?
With non-celiac gluten sensitivity and celiac disease there are also sometimes cases of extreme need. And it is not limited to this group of people. Other people are allergic to grapes and if they were to take communion they could possibly have an anaphylactic reaction, which is life threatening. I think one problem with celiac disease is that many people don't take it seriously because some of the people who are following the gluten free diet are not doing it because they have to but only because it is a faddish diet to follow. But it is a real problem and people can die from celiac disease.
I think in your case you should talk to your priest about this problem. Would you have the same reaction if the priest were to commune you from the chalice only wine, without a particle of bread? If you even have a reaction to this, there are other work-arounds that can used: as I mentioned above in this thread, it is possible to take some wine out of the chalice before adding in the bread and communing you separately. The problem with this approach is that not all priests are aware that this is an option, or if they are aware they might not be willing to accommodate you in this manner. It is not likely that we are going to begin using gluten-free bread in the Eucharist.