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Sacred Correspondences
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Intinction

Also Known As Communion by dipping
Devotional Practices

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Origin Communion from a spoon appears at Constantinople from about the ninth century; the western revival is chiefly of the nineteenth and twentieth

Intinction is giving communion by dipping the bread into the wine, so that the communicant receives both together instead of drinking from the cup. Churches adopt it for two quite different reasons, and the reasons pull against each other. One is practical: a congregation can be communicated in both kinds quickly, and nobody has to share a rim. The other is theological, and it belongs to the Byzantine rite, where the consecrated Lamb is placed into the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon, an arrangement understood as giving the whole sacrament in a single act rather than as a substitute for drinking. Western churches have been divided about it for a thousand years. Several early western councils forbade it because Christ told his disciples to take and to drink, and dipping obeys only half of that. It was widely revived in Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist parishes in the twentieth century, and again wherever a shared cup came to be thought a hazard. Roman Catholic norms allow the minister to dip the host and place it on the communicant's tongue, and do not allow the communicant to do the dipping.

Facts
Attributions
Tradition
Christianity 3
Observance
Observance Note
Several western councils from the seventh century forbade it, on the ground that Christ told his disciples to drink of the cup 3
Open Questions
Basis of the Evidence
Churches suspended the common cup during the 1918 influenza pandemic and again in later epidemics, and intinction and individual glasses spread as a result. No claim is made here about transmission risk because none could be verified, and the relationship between what has been measured and what churches actually decided is not established.
No review of the published microbiological and epidemiological studies of the shared chalice, paired with the actual decisions of church authorities, has established whether the evidence drove the practice or merely followed it.
Origins
Origin Period
Communion from a spoon appears at Constantinople from about the ninth century; the western revival is chiefly of the nineteenth and twentieth 1
Disputed
Scholarly Note
Whether the shared cup is a practical arrangement or part of the sign itself is argued whenever an epidemic suspends it 4
Camps: one holds that the sign is the giving and receiving of the blood of Christ, so the vessel is a practical matter and intinction or individual glasses take nothing away. The other holds that one cup passed among many is itself saying something about the one body that separate vessels cannot say, so a substitution has a cost even when it is the right decision. Churches have taken both views, and some have taken both in successive years.
Status
Status Within the TraditionSourced to the subject's own account
Permitted when the minister dips the host and places it on the tongue; the communicant is not permitted to do the dipping 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Status Within the Tradition
The Lamb is placed in the chalice and communion is given from a spoon, which is a settled way of giving the whole sacrament in one act rather than an alternative to drinking 1Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy
Status Within the Tradition
Widely permitted alongside the common cup, and adopted or suspended locally 3Tradition: Anglicanism
Practice
Who Performs ItSourced to the subject's own account
Clergy or ordained officiants 2
Solitary or CommunalSourced to the subject's own account
Performed by an officiant for a recipient 2
Liturgical and Scriptural RoleSourced to the subject's own account
Giving the consecrated bread dipped in the wine, so that both are received together instead of from a shared cup 2
Learn More
Dipping Instead of Drinking

Intinction means dipping the consecrated bread into the wine so that the communicant receives both at once. Mechanically it is simple and it solves an obvious problem: a congregation of several hundred can be given communion in both kinds in a fraction of the time, and nobody puts their mouth where anyone else has. The objection is equally simple and it is as old as the practice. At the supper Jesus is recorded as giving the bread and then giving the cup, and telling his disciples to drink of it; a communicant who is handed a dipped wafer has not drunk of anything. Several western councils from the seventh century onwards forbade intinction on exactly that ground, and the argument has never been answered so much as outweighed by circumstances.

The Byzantine practice is a different case and should not be read as western intinction with a spoon. There the consecrated Lamb is broken into the chalice, so that the bread and the wine are together in the cup before anything is administered, and each communicant receives from a spoon. That is not a shortcut around drinking; it is a settled way of giving the whole sacrament in one act, and it has been the normal Orthodox practice for about a thousand years.

Where western churches permit intinction they generally regulate who does the dipping. Roman Catholic norms allow the minister to dip the host and place it on the communicant's tongue, and do not permit the communicant to take the host and dip it, on the grounds that communion is given and received rather than helped oneself to.

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.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first denomination in the United States founded by Black people. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Kept in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion. Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Kept in the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Kept in the Church of Greece. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Church of Ireland. Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.

Kept in the Church of the Nazarene, which stands in the Wesleyan holiness line. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Source Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic ChurchIsabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator)

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.

Kept in the Free Methodist Church. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Global Methodist Church, formed in 2022. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Intinction is practised in many Lutheran churches, though the ordinary manner is to receive the host and then the cup.

Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Communion by intinction is permitted, the minister dipping the host in the chalice and placing it on the tongue, but it may not be self-administered.

Source General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical editionCongregation for Divine Worshipthe holders' own account

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line. Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Kept in the United Methodist Church. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Communion is given in both kinds together, the consecrated bread having been placed in the chalice and administered to each communicant from a spoon. The result is the same as intinction and the manner is not, and the practice here is ancient rather than adopted for convenience.

Kept in the Wesleyan Church. Intinction is the ordinary manner of receiving in many congregations, and it follows from the use of unfermented grape juice in a common cup.

Related To

Intinction is what churches use instead of the shared chalice, or alongside it.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Adopted widely in Protestant parishes in the twentieth century alongside the common cup and the individual glass.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

One of the permitted ways of giving communion under both kinds.

Source General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical editionCongregation for Divine Worshipthe holders' own account
Sources
1. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History
Robert F. Taft, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1992View the Source
2. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, third typical edition
Congregation for Divine Worship, Congregation for Divine Worship, 2002the holders' own accountView the Source
3. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
4. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111
World Council of Churches, Commission on Faith and Order, World Council of Churches, Geneva, 1982
Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church
Isabel Florence Hapgood (compiler and translator), Houghton Mifflin, 1906View the Source
Open Questions (1 open question)
What is the measured risk of infection from a shared communion cup, and has any church changed its practice because of a measurement?

Churches suspended the common cup during the influenza pandemic of 1918 and again in the epidemics of the following century, and intinction and individual glasses spread as a result. This run deliberately made no claim about transmission risk because it could not verify one, and the relationship between what has been measured and what churches actually decided is not established here.

What would resolve this A review of the published microbiological and epidemiological studies of the shared chalice, paired with the actual decisions of church authorities, to establish whether the evidence drove the practice or followed it.
Epidemiology; liturgical studiesDivinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Edition
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