Forbidden, Withdrawn, and Revived by Epidemic

The western history of intinction is a series of reversals driven by things other than theology. Early prohibitions gave way to a much larger change when the medieval West withdrew the cup from the laity altogether during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, on grounds of reverence and the risk of spilling. That made intinction unnecessary, since there was nothing to dip into. The Reformation restored the cup itself rather than a substitute for it, and communion in both kinds became one of the visible marks of a Protestant service, which is why the practice did not return quickly in Protestant churches either.

The modern revival began in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as congregations grew and as concern about infection spread. The influenza pandemic of 1918 pushed many churches to suspend the common cup, and the individual glass, already adopted in parts of the free church world, spread further; the epidemics of the following century produced the same response on a larger scale, with common cups suspended, intinction offered as an alternative, and in some churches communion given in one kind only for a period.

Each of those measures poses the same question and none of them answers it. If the shared cup is a practical arrangement, it can be replaced whenever there is reason to. If the shared cup is part of the sign, and one cup passed among many people is saying something that trays of separate glasses cannot say, then replacing it costs something even when replacing it is right. Churches have taken both views, sometimes in the same building.