Holy Eucharist (Communion)

The Mystery of Christ’s Body and Blood, the centre of the Church’s life, and in the Orthodox understanding not a symbol of Christ but Christ: the bread and wine offered are changed by the Holy Spirit at the epiclesis into His true Body and Blood. The Church has generally declined to define how; the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 used the word metousiosis, and the older and commoner word is simply change. The bread is leavened, as it always has been in the East, and warm water is poured into the chalice before communion. The faithful, infants included, receive the Body and Blood together from a spoon, having fasted from the night before and prepared by prayer and, according to local practice, confession. How often to receive has been argued in every age, and the saints have usually argued for more often.