Rituals
The Lord's Supper
Also Known As Holy Communion · The breaking of bread
Liturgical Rituals
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Origin From 1525, when Zurich replaced the Mass with a service at a wooden table
The Lord's Supper is the name most Protestant churches give to the rite that Catholic churches call the Mass and the Byzantine churches the Divine Liturgy, and the change of name carries an argument. Supper points at a meal shared at a table; Mass points at an offering made at an altar. The furniture changed with the word. The holy table stands in the body of the church rather than against the east wall, the minister stands behind it facing the congregation, the cup is given to everyone rather than to the clergy alone, and the whole rite is in the language of the people. The minister reads the account of the institution from the New Testament as the warrant for what the congregation is about to do, gives thanks over the bread and cup, breaks the bread in the sight of the people, and the elements are carried out to the pews or received at the table. Nothing is elevated for adoration and nothing is reserved afterwards. Within that common shape the churches differ sharply about what is received, how often the rite should be held, and who may preside, and those differences are the substance of the entries linked below rather than details of this one.
Facts
Disputed
Scholarly NoteWhether a lay person may preside at the table is argued inside Anglicanism, not only between traditions 1 Who may preside at the Lord's Supper, the Anglican communion service, is disputed within the Anglican Communion itself along a fault line centred on the Diocese of Sydney. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, third revised edition (2005), records that Sydney has argued for many years that presidency is a matter of good order, a role the church may in principle authorise anyone suitable to fill, rather than a power tied to priestly ordination specifically, so that a deacon or a suitably authorised lay person could licitly preside. The rest of the Anglican Communion holds that presidency belongs to the priesthood as such and has repeatedly declined, at General Synod and comparable bodies elsewhere, to authorise lay or diaconal presidency. The method is comparative reading of the same Anglican formularies, the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles among them, since both sides appeal to identical texts and draw opposite conclusions. Because the dispute concerns interpretation of shared authoritative documents rather than a disputed fact, it remains open rather than settled for the Communion as a whole. Meaning
Literal MeaningThe phrase itself is New Testament wording: 1 Corinthians 11:20 uses kyriakon deipnon, "the Lord's supper." Reformers preferred this term over "Mass" precisely because it was drawn straight from scripture and carried the evening-meal sense of a supper, echoing the Passover setting of the Last Supper, rather than the Latin missa, whose own root sense is a dismissal at the end of a service. 1 Practice
Who Performs ItClergy or ordained officiants 1 Practitioner DetailA called and ordained minister in most churches; a recognised elder or any member in Brethren and some Baptist congregations 1 Solitary or CommunalPerformed by an officiant for a recipient 1 Liturgical and Scriptural RoleThe bread is broken in sight of the congregation and carried out to the people, or received at the table; nothing is elevated for adoration and nothing is reserved afterwards 4 Observance
Observance NoteCommunion in both kinds is given to every communicant, reversing the medieval Western restriction of the cup to the clergy 1 Attributions
TraditionProtestant Christianity 1 PurposeSourced to the subject's own accountThe Westminster Confession states the rite's purpose as the spiritual nourishment and growth in grace of worthy receivers and as a seal confirming their interest in the covenant of grace, framing the Supper as ongoing pastoral sustenance for believers already within the covenant rather than as a re-presentation of Christ's sacrifice. 2 Origins
Origin PeriodFrom 1525, when Zurich replaced the Mass with a service at a wooden table 3 Place of OriginRoman Judaea and Galilee 1 Historical OriginSourced to the subject's own accountThe Westminster Confession of Faith traces the Lord's Supper to Christ's own institution at the Last Supper, the Reformed tradition's own account of the rite's origin that its confession states directly. 2 Use
OccasionWeekly in Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist and many Reformed congregations, monthly or quarterly across much of the Baptist and independent world 1 Learn More
A Table, Not an Altar
The physical changes the Reformers made were arguments in wood and cloth. A stone altar fixed against the east wall, with the priest standing before it and the people behind him, states that something is being offered on their behalf. A wooden table standing in the body of the church, with the minister behind it facing the congregation, states that a meal is being shared. Zurich made the change in 1525 and the rest of Protestant Europe followed at different speeds; in England the order to replace altars with tables came in 1550 and was reversed and restored more than once before it settled.
Several other features follow from the same decision. The cup is given to every communicant, reversing the medieval Western restriction of the wine to the clergy. The elements are received in the language of the people, from a minister the congregation can hear, and the account of the institution is read out from scripture rather than said quietly as a formula, because it functions as the warrant for the action rather than as the mechanism of it. Nothing is elevated for the people to adore, and nothing is kept afterwards; the bread and wine left over are ordinary bread and wine again, which is why these churches have no tabernacle, no monstrance and no rite of benediction.
What none of this settles is what the communicant receives, and the churches that share the furniture divide completely on that question. A Reformed congregation and a Baptist congregation may use the same table, the same words and the same trays, and hold quite different accounts of what happens at them.
How Often, and Who Presides
Frequency divided the Reformers from their own city councils. Calvin argued that the supper belonged in every Sunday service and the Geneva council refused, settling on four times a year, and the pattern of quarterly or monthly communion spread across the Reformed and free churches and held for four centuries. The Scottish communion season grew directly out of that infrequency: a gathering of several days with preparatory services, a fast day, examination of communicants and a great open air communion at the end, which emigrants carried to North America and which shaped the frontier camp meeting. The Churches of Christ and the Disciples went the opposite way and made a weekly supper a mark of the restored New Testament church. The liturgical movement of the twentieth century then reversed the general trend, and weekly communion is now normal in Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist and many Reformed congregations.
Presidency is treated as a matter of church order rather than of sacramental power, which is the deeper difference from Catholic and Orthodox practice. Where the Catholic tradition holds that only a validly ordained priest can consecrate, Protestant churches generally hold that a rightly called minister presides because the church has appointed one to do so, not because a power has been conferred on him. That leaves room for arguments the other tradition cannot have: several Baptist and Brethren congregations allow any recognised elder or member to give thanks at the table, and the Anglican diocese of Sydney has argued publicly for many years that a deacon or a lay person may preside, against the settled practice of the rest of the Anglican Communion.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Assembled From
Performed in sight of the congregation in the Reformation orders.
Belongs to Tradition
Element Of
Related To
The bread and wine of this rite.
Adopted widely in Protestant parishes in the twentieth century alongside the common cup and the individual glass.
Why this is disputed. Memorialist churches, following Zwingli rather than Luther or Calvin, hold that the meal is a symbolic act of remembrance with no special presence of Christ in the elements or the rite itself, a position the Reformed and Lutheran traditions have historically regarded as an impoverished reading of the words of institution, and the disagreement has never been resolved between them.
The question of who may come to this table.
Why this is disputed. The Lutheran tradition holds that Christ's body and blood are truly present in, with and under the bread and wine without any change in their nature, a position it distinguishes sharply from Catholic transubstantiation on one side and from Reformed spiritual presence and memorialist symbolism on the other, and the 1529 Marburg Colloquy famously failed to reconcile it with the Reformed reading.
Why this is disputed. The Reformed tradition holds that Christ is truly but spiritually present and received by faith alone, not in the elements themselves, a position distinct from both the Catholic and Lutheran belief in a change in or addition to the elements and from the memorialist view that the meal is symbolic remembrance only. Which account is correct has divided Protestant churches since the Reformation and remains unresolved between them.
The Protestant orders cut the great prayer back sharply, and the twentieth century restored it.
Both names belong to one institution. This entry describes the Protestant celebration, at a table, in the vernacular, with the cup given to all; the other describes the Catholic Mass. Neither is a variant of the other.
The question of what is received at this table.
Read as the warrant for the action in the Protestant orders.
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source 2. The Westminster Confession of Faith
3. Commentary on True and False Religion
Huldrych Zwingli, Zurich, 1525
4. The Shape of the Liturgy
The Formula of Concord
Jakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others, 1577View the Source Baptist Confessions of Faith
Encyclopedia of American Religions
J. Gordon Melton, Gale, 2009Element Of: American Baptist Churches USAView the Source Apostolic Lutheran Church of America (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, WikipediaElement Of: Apostolic Lutheran Church of AmericaView the Source Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationElement Of: Evangelical Lutheran Church of FinlandView the Source Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, WikipediaElement Of: Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church of AmericaView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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