COMMUNION, in matters of religion, the being united in doctrine and discipline; in which sense of the word different churches are said to hold communion with each other. In the primitive Christian church, every bishop was obliged, after his ordination, to send circular letters to foreign churches, to signify that he was in communion with them. The three grand communions into which the Christian church is at present divided, is that of the church of Rome, the Greek church, and the Protestant church; but originally all Christians were in communion with one another, having one common faith and discipline.

Communion is also used for the act of communicating at the sacrament of the eucharist, or the Lord’s supper.

The fourth council of Lateran decrees that every believer shall at least receive the communion at Easter, which seems to import a tacit desire that they should do it oftener; as, in fact, they did in the primitive days. Gratian and the master of the sentences prescribe it as a rule for the laity to communicate three times a year, at Easter, at Whitsuntide, and at Christmas. But in the thirteenth century the practice was adopted never to approach the eucharist except at Easter; and the council thought fit to enjoin it by a law, lest coldness and remissness should go farther still. The council of Trent renewed the same injunction, and recommended frequent communion, without enforcing it by an express decree.

In the ninth century the communion was still received by the laity in both kinds; or rather the species of bread was dipped in the wine, as is admitted by the Roman Catholics themselves. See Acta SS. Benedict. Soec. III. Μ. de Marca observes, that the people received it at first in their hands (Hist, de Bearn), and believes the communion under one kind alone to have had its rise in the West under Pope Urban II. in 1096, at the time of the conquest of the Holy Land. But it was more solemnly enjoined by the council of Constance in 1414. The twenty-eighth canon of the council of Clermont distinctly enjoins the communion to be received under both kinds; adding, however, two exceptions; the one of necessity, the other of caution, nisi per necessitatem et cautelam ; the first in favour of the sick, and the second in favour of the abstemious, or those who had an aversion to wine.

It was formerly a kind of canonical punishment for clerks guilty of any crime, to be reduced to lay communion, that is, only to receive it as the laity did, under one kind.

There was another punishment of the same nature, though under a different name, called foreign communion, to which the canons frequently condemned bishops and other clerks. This punishment was not any excommunication or deposition, but a kind of suspension from the function of the order, and a degradation from the rank they held in the church. It had its name because the communion was only granted to the criminal on the footing of a foreign clerk; that is, being reduced to the lowest of his order, he took place after all those of his own rank, as all clerks and others did in the churches to which they did not belong. The second council of Agda orders every clerk who absents himself from the church to be reduced to foreign communion.
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Communion Service, in the liturgy of the church of England, the office for the administration of the holy sacrament, extracted from several ancient liturgies, as those of St Basil, St Ambrose, &c. By the last rubric, part of this service is appointed to be read every Sunday and holiday, after - the morning prayer, even though there should be no communicants.