Lingurița de împărtășanie în vreme de pandemie: presiune mediatică, angoase sanitare și redescoperirea catehezei liturgice

Abstract

The efforts to slow down the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) have revived, for certain categories of people well known in the public space, an over 1,000 year old debate in the Christian world: how to offer the Holy Eucharist. This time, the debate was viewed from a “hygiene and health” perspective. Should the Church use a common spoon to offer the Holy Eucharist to those who wish to receive it? Does using it repeatedly, especially in times of pandemic, become a source of infection? The debate has resurfaced amid unprecedented measures that are forcing religious institutions around the world to temporarily change some traditional practices. The Eucharistic communion of the faithful during the Holy Liturgy with the same spoon, although not canonically decided by any Orthodox Synod, is still a practice in the Orthodox Church for almost nine centuries. Therefore, this practice cannot be changed, not even during a pandemic, even if epidemiologists demand this change, as a condition to allow the participation and communion of lay believers in the Holy Mass. Representatives of the opposite side believe the contrary: a common Holy Grail, especially a common spoon, used for everyone to receive the Holy Communion, can cause the spread of disease.