Talk:Intinction

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[edit] Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox

Intinction does not always involve use of spoon in the Eastern Churches. In the Melkite Catholic Church, for example, the host is dipped and then placed on the tongue of the communicant. Majoreditor 01:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

This article will need much work to reflect the practice in the Eastern churches. Majoreditor 18:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Queries

Doubtless I misunderstand the text at the points where I have put {{fact}}. Do the Greeks really believe (and the Russians deny) that the placing of consecrated bread in the chalice (which the article seems to say both traditions practise) "is sufficient for the wine to be considered the Blood of Christ"? And in what sense is the word "intinction" used in the phrase "In this (i.e. the Greek) tradition no intinction is performed"? I ask this because, just before, the article says: "The 'union', where following the fraction a piece of the bread is placed into the chalice, is sufficient for the wine to be considered the Blood of Christ."

I also have difficulty in understanding what is said about the Russian practice: on the one hand it is said that "the priest intincts (whatever that means) the consecrated bread (all of it?) at the Divine Liturgy when it is reserved" (i.e. on the Sunday before?), on the other it says that "at the Divine Liturgy (of the Presanctified Gifts?) he then partakes of the bread alone (some bread that has not been in contact with wine whether consecrated or unconsecrated?)when he communicates himself."

I regret I do not know about Melkite practice. If they use intinction, does that mean that, contrary to the historic Byzantine-Rite tradition, they, at least sometimes, use unleavened bread? I know that the Ethiopic-rite Catholics of Ethiopia and Eritrea do use unleavened bread and always give Communion by intinction, a departure from the historic Ethiopic-rite tradition. Is it the same for the Melkites?

I do not know the Coptic practice, but I would have expected it to be the same as the historic Ethiopic-rite practice. I therefore doubt the accuracy of the statement (no longer in the article) that attributed to the Copts the same usage as the Byzantines.

I look forward to learning more. Lima 11:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I, too, am not familiar with certain Eastern practices; for example, the Russian and Coptic traditions. I'll see if I can find material on the subject. Perhaps someone can help us? Majoreditor 12:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but if even the author of the paragraph about the Byzantine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts doesn't know what it means, I think it should not be left in the article. I will place it here, inviting clarifications. Certainly the use of the word "intinction" must be explained. Is intinction - as defined (with the backing of an authoritative source) at the start of the article, i.e. the practice of partly dipping the host in the consecrated wine - ever used in the Byzantine Rite? I think it would be difficult to partly dip a little cube of leavened bread in the wine within a chalice; but I may of course be wrong.

At any rate, here is the text that needs to be clarified and rewritten, if it is to be reinserted in the article:

There are various practices within the Byzantine Rite with regard to the [[Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts]]. At this Liturgy no consecration takes place, but communion is distributed from bread consecrated at the Divine Liturgy the Sunday before. The practice prevailing in the Greek tradition is that the "union", where following the fraction a piece of the bread is placed into the chalice, is sufficient for the wine to be considered the Blood of Christ.{{fact}} In this tradition no intinction is performed.{{meaning?}} In the Russian tradition, the wine in the chalice remains ordinary wine, and is used only to facilitate swallowing the bread and enable the people to receive Communion in the customary way. Therefore, so that both elements can be available for distribution, the priest intincts{{meaning?}} the consecrated bread at the Divine Liturgy when it is reserved.<ref>{{cite book|others=Archbishop Dmitri (Royster), trans.|title=The Priest's Service Book|publisher=Diocese of the South, [[Orthodox Church in America]]|location=Dallas|year=2003|pages=230-231}}</ref> At the Divine Liturgy he then partakes of the bread alone when he communicates himself but does not drink from the chalice,<ref>ibid, 263</ref> since he must later consume any of the bread remaining in the chalice and he should not break his fast before then.

Note that I have omitted the footnote observation that I myself added, and that I think is clear enough. Everything in it can be verified by sources available even on the Internet that I can cite if necessary. The observation is the following:

These practices have parallels in the present and past forms of the Roman Rite. Hosts consecrated on Holy Thursday are given to participants in the Good Friday Celebration of the Lord's Passion, and no wine is used. Before the 1955 reform of the Good Friday service, wine was, as usual, put in the chalice at the Offertory, but the anaphora was omitted. The priest (alone) received Communion with a large host consecrated the day before, dividing it in two and then breaking off a small piece, which he put into the (unconsecrated) wine in the chalice, acting just as he would in a Mass at which the wine had been consecrated. After partaking of the two large pieces, he drank the wine together with the small piece of consecrated bread that he had placed in it.

Lima 15:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Partially dipping the Host into consecrated wine is the standard practice in certain churches of the Byzantine tradition, such as the Melkite Catholic Church. I say this from firsthand experience. I will produce references.

It's actually not so hard for the priest or deacon to administer, but it often requires that someone hold the chalice.

I, too, am puzzled by some of the statements in above paragraph. I'm going to ask for others to help clarify. Majoreditor 17:45, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Good. I regret I cannot be of help. By the way, you haven't indicated whether the Melkite intinction was with leavened bread (difficult, I perhaps wrongly imagine) or unleavened bread (certainly easy). Lima 18:03, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Melkites use leavened bread to the best of my knowledge. I've added some additional detail on Melkite use of intinction. Majoreditor 04:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll be replacing the original text here and correcting my misstatements about the Coptic rite as well as clearing up any confusion. I'd have appreciated the questions being asked before the cut was made, since it has made more work for me.

I've seen the intinction done two ways. Either the priest places drops of the consecrated wine onto the bread (on the sides without a crust) or he indeed dips the consecrated Lamb into the chalice. The latter method is not what the service books direct, and it's possible he was just trying to save some time. I don't understand the "little cube of bread" remark; the Lamb is not all that little.

I am also aware that intinction is also done elsewhere in the Byzantine rite, but practice varies both geographically and historically which makes it difficult to make any general statements. I don't know how much Melkite practice follows (or leads) that of the Orthodox.

As I said in the comment following the text, I know of an authoritative source on this but I can't find the book at the moment. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

On reading it over, I see I had made a very sloppy and perhaps over-hasty edit and I see where some of the confusion came from. Hopefully this is better.

I had either misremembered my source or it had been describing a historical practice, because on looking over present practice it appears as if intinction is always done at the Presanctified. (cites given) I have therefore omitted the other material until I can confirm it one way or another.

Since I restricted the material to the Byzantine Rite, I cut mention of the other rites where there was no relevant information given. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The section on the practices of the Eastern church is starting to take form , thanks to your efforts. I will maka a point of dropping by the local theology library sometime in the next few weeks to gather additional material. Unfortunately, none of the material I have at home provides enough detail. Majoreditor 02:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all, apologies to both Csernica and Majoreditor: I mistakenly thought that the text was Majoreditor's and I moved it because he couldn't explain it. I should not have moved it without waiting for an explanation from the real author.

Before reading the latest contributions here, I altered the text to avoid using the word "intinction" in a sense different from that given at the start of the article. Perhaps Csernica would prefer to keep the word where I removed it and add that it is also used (is it?) in another sense also. Lima 05:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I have always heard (and read) the procedure for preparing the reserved Gifts for the Presanctified as "intinction". Perhaps it's just a case of Eastern clergy using a borrowed Western term in a slightly altered context so it no longer has exactly the same meaning. If the word can't be applied in this situation, then the material should be taken out. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I have just looked up my copy of the American Heritage Dictionary and found this definition of intinction: "The administration of the Eucharist by dipping the host into the consecrated wine and offering both simultaneously to the communicant. [Late Latin intinctio, from Latin intingere ... to dip in ...]". Perhaps other sources give a different definition. But this definition, and the meaning of the Latin word from which "intinction" is derived, clearly indicate dipping the solid in the liquid, not pouring the liquid on the solid, the proper word for which would, I suppose, be "infusion".

If in fact more than just a few people use the word "intinction" to refer to pouring, the material on reserving the Sacrament for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts could perhaps be given a separate section (not left under a heading about intinction or lack of intinction in Eastern Christianity) introduced by an explanation that the word "intinction" is sometimes used in an improper sense to refer to this infusion practice, and citing (a) source(s) for this statement.

Csernica will know better than I do what is the best thing to do. Lima 08:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I doubt that. My use of it here is based on the way I have heard it used in Orthodox circles, but if it's technically incorrect that ought to be said. (And I really should provide a cite for this usage in that case.) And, as has been said, sometime it's done in such a way that the Lamb is intincted by the strict definition of the word. Perhaps it's also a good word to describe how Communion is normally given to the people, in opposition to what it says now. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is a good point. Both the dictionary definition and Roman Catholic usage refer specifically to what is done at the actual giving of Communion, not to a rite of preparation, several days before. Lima 04:40, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll weigh in at this point. There does exist a parallel to the western 'dipping' in some of the Greek-Catholic Churches. The Melkites, for example, will cut up the Lamb into fingers, and the priest holds the diskos (with a rim) full of these fingers, and the server or deacon holding the cloth and chalice right next to the diskos. The priest then dips the finger into the chalice before putting it into the mouth of the communicant. I'm given to understand that this is a holdover from their days of using the Syriac Rite. Funnily enough, the Greek Greek-Catholic Church seesm to do this - as a little video of the DL at www.elcathex.com will show. I am told Romanian GCs do this as well, but this might be an import from the Latins, who knows! InfernoXV 10:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

What InfernoXV has written is convincing. At least what he says of the Exarchate for Greek Byzantine Catholics is verifiable through the video he mentions. To help others see for themselves, here are instructions on how to reach it on the exarchate's site: click on Είσοδος, then, in the Θέματα menu, on Βίντεο, then choose the Λειτουργία video clip (the one on the right). The church shown must be the smallish one in Giannitsa in northern Greece. Lima 12:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's actually the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, in Athens - the bishop distributing Communion is Kyr Anargyros of Gratianopolis, the current exarch. The one time I was in Athens, I attended Divine Liturgy for the Leave-taking of Pascha, an early liturgy. Imagine my horror at finding it was a low mass (i.e. recited liturgy). InfernoXV 13:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I regret disagreeing with InfernoXV, even on a minor matter. The bishop is certainly Anargyros of Gratianopolis, but the church is not the decidedly larger church in Athens dedicated to the Holy Trinity, which has, if I remember right, all its inner walls frescoed. I think the Divine Liturgy video shows icons hanging, as pictures are hung from a nail, on the right-hand side wall; and the loft over the entrance is also seen to be unpainted. I have no doubt that the church in the Divine Liturgy video is the same as that in the other video (note especially the iconostasis), which is certainly that in Giannitsa, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. It seems to me that both videos were made on 29 June 2004 on the occasion of the bishop's visit to celebrate the patronal feast. Unfortunately, I was not able to make out, in the Divine Liturgy video, the icon that would have clearly indicated to whom the church is dedicated. Lima 14:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, you may well be right. I didn't look terribly closely, having assumed it was the Cathedral in Athens since Kyr Anargyros was celebrating. Then again, the Cathedral in Athens isn't a whole lot larger! InfernoXV 14:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

One other detail. I am told (though haven't verified) that in the Melkite Greel Catholic Church intinction began in Aleppo. Majoreditor 01:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drinking the Precious Blood with a straw

The article cites a Holy See document (from the CDW?) that says the Precious Blood can be consumed with a "tube." I'm curious, is this ever done anywhere? I read that it used to happen in Papal Masses, like, before the turn of the 19th/20th centuries with a gold straw. Is there a special name for the straw? Do we preserve the gold straws from olden times? I'm curious about how it looks. But nowadays, does this even happen anymore, and what are the material requirements? Are the straws still required to be gold? Is the same straw shared with others? I find this fascinating but I don't know where to look for all this info. J.J. Bustamante 03:16, 3 May 2007 (UTC)