This is why the question of Sacraments is so important. Only in them, and of course above all in the very Sacrament of Christ's Presence and of our unity with Him and in Him, can we rediscover the positive, and not the negative, principles so obviously lacking in our Church today. Only in them are the roots for the very possibility of a change and renewal in the layman's mind which, for a long time, has been cut off from the sources and the experience of the Church. And if, in our days, this question has acquired such an urgency, it is because more and more people are, consciously or unconsciously, seeking such a renewal, seeking that foundation which alone can help the Church and the parish to recover their religious depth and to stop their rapid secularization.
I am fully aware that there exists among the Orthodox a tendency to solve all problems, all burning and difficult issues, including the one we are to discuss here—that of lay participation in the Divine Mysteries—by simple references to the past, i:e., to what was done thirty, fifty, or a hundred years ago, or is still being done in Russia, Greece, Poland, Serbia, etc. This tendency, however, is not very helpful and can sometimes do more harm than good. It is not helpful because not everything in that past, be it Russian, Greek, or whatever, was ipso facto truly Orthodox. To realize this one should read for example the observations made by Russian bishops at the beginning of this century, at the time of the preparation by the Russian Church of her long overdue national Council (which convened in 1917 but was interrupted by revolutionary violence and adjourned in 1918 without having completed its work). Virtually without exception, the Russian bishops, then probably the best educated in the whole Orthodox Church and unquestionably conservative, declared the Church's situation—spiritual, liturgical, structural—to be deeply deficient and in dire need of reforms. As to Russian theology, all its best representatives unanimously denounced its surrender to Western scholasticism and legalism, and precisely in the crucial area of sacramental theology. In a famous report to the Russian Holy Synod, one of the leaders of the Russian episcopate, Archbishop Anthony Khrapovitsky, suggested physical destruction of Russian theological schools and their replacement with an entirely different approach to religious education. The saintly Father John of Cronstadt tirelessly denounced and condemned the lukewarm and formal piety of Russian society, the reduction of Communion to a "once-a-year-obligation," the lowering of the Church's life to the level of customs.
In view of all this, mere references and appeals to the past are not sufficient, for this past itself needs to be evaluated in the light of the genuine Orthodox Tradition. The only criterion, always and everywhere, is Tradition itself—and the pastoral concern about how to "apply" it in our situation which is often radically different from those of the past.
It is impossible and unnecessary to present here the question of lay participation in the Divine Mysteries in all its dogmatic and historical aspects. What is essential can be summarized as follows:
The well-established and undisputed fact is that in the early Church the communion of all the faithful at every Divine Liturgy was a self-evident norm. What must be stressed, however, is that this corporate and regular communion was understood and experienced not only as an act of personal piety and sanctification, but above all as an act stemming from one's membership in the Church, as precisely the fulfillment and the actualization of that membership. The Eucharist was both defined and experienced as the Sacrament of the Church, the Sacrament of the assembly, the Sacrament of unity. "He mixed Himself with us," writes St. John Chrysostom, "and dissolved His Body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness and be a body united to the Head." In fact, the early Church knew no other sign or criterion for membership save participation in the Sacrament: "it was commonly held that the one who did not receive Communion for a few weeks had excommunicated himself, had anathematized himself from the Body of the Church." Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ was the self-evident fulfillment of Baptism and Chrismation, and there existed no other conditions for receiving Communion. All other Sacraments were also "sealed" in the partaking of the Holy Gifts. And so evident was this connection between membership in the Church and Communion that in an early liturgical text we find the dismissal, before the consecration, of those "who cannot partake of this Divine Mystery." And it must be clear that however obscured and complicated it became later, this initial understanding and experience of Communion has never been discarded and forever remains the essential norm of the Church's Tradition.
One must ask, therefore, not about this norm but about what happened to it. Why did we forget it so fully that a mere mention of more frequent (not to speak of regular) communion appears to so many (and especially to the clergy) an unheard of novelty shaking and, in their opinion, even destroying the foundations of the Church? How is it possible that for centuries nine out of ten Liturgies were Liturgies without communicants? Why is it that this incredible fact provokes no amazement, no trembling, while the desire to communicate more often raises fear, opposition, resistance? How could the strange doctrine of a once-a-year Communion appear in the Church and be considered a "norm" any departure from which could be but an exception? How, in other terms, did the understanding of Communion become so deeply individualistic, so detached from the doctrine of the Church as the Body of Christ, so deeply contradictory to the Eucharistic prayer itself: "and all of us partaking of the one Bread and one Cup unite one to another in the Communion of the one Spirit. . .""?
The usual answer given to these questions is this: if the early practice had to be discontinued, say the opponents of frequent or regular communion, if a radical distinction had to be introduced between the clergy whose receiving Communion is a self-evident part of their celebration, and the laity who may be admitted to it only under certain conditions unknown to the early Church, if, in general, communion for laity has become exception rather than norm, it is because of a good and holy fear—that of profaning the Sacrament by unworthily partaking of it, thus endangering one's salvation; for, in the words of St. Paul, "he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks his damnation" (I Cor. 11:29).
This answer must in turn be answered, for in fact it raises more questions than it solves. First of all even if it were true that the de facto excommunication of the laity had its origin in this saving fear and the feeling of unworthiness, it is certainly no longer true today. For if it were so, the non-communicants would at least feel some sadness while attending the Divine Liturgy, would feel sorry for the sinfulness and unworthiness which separate them from the Holy Gifts, would, in short, feel "excommunicated." But in reality none of this is true. Generation after generation of Orthodox attend the Liturgy with a perfectly clear conscience, totally convinced that nothing more is required from them, that Communion is simply not for them. Then, on those very rare and exceptional occasions when it is given to them, they receive it as an "obligation being fulfilled" by which, for one full year, they again consider themselves Christians "in good standing." But where in this attitude, which alas has become a norm in our Church, can one find—be it only a trace—humility and repentance, reverence and the fear of God?