Word Finder - communion

definition

A joining together of minds or spirits.

definition

Holy Communion

definition

A form of ecclesiastical unity between the Roman Church and another, so that the latter is considered part of the former.

The Communion is celebrated once a month.

For this moment of homage to material elements ritually filled with divine potency may be so exaggerated as to obscure the rite's ancient significance as a communion of the faithful in mystic food.

He dwelt upon the illumination of the mind and soul by direct communion with the Creative Spirit; upon the spiritual and poetic monitions of external nature; and upon the benefit to man of a serene mood and a simple way of life.

He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire, but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the methods of the Roman Catholic Church; and after a prolonged mental struggle he joined the Roman Catholic communion in November 1845.

The medieval church set forth Christ as present in the orderly community of the faithful; Protestantism aimed at setting the individual in immediate communion with Christ, without the mechanical intervention of the officers of the community; the 1 D'Argentre, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus, i.

It would appear that its members received the sacraments of baptism and the holy communion from the regular priesthood, at all events sometimes, but maintained a discipline of their own and held services for their own edification.

Then they were admitted to office, after receiving the communion, by the imposition of hands of all ministers present.

A synod was held in 1532 at Chanforans in the valley of the Angrogne, where a new confession of faith was adopted, which recognized the doctrine of election, assimilated the practices of the Vaudois to those of the Swiss congregations, renounced for the future all recognition of the Roman communion, and established their own worship no longer as secret meetings of a faithful few but as public assemblies for the glory of God.

This classification of the members into those who were in full communion and those who belonged only to the " Half Way Covenant " was vigorously attacked by Jonathan Edwards, but it was not abolished until the early years of the 19th century.

But, when the disestablished communion had to be reconstituted under the greatest difficulties, it was found of the highest importance that the occupant of his position should be a man of a liberal and genial spirit.

The Roman Catholics number 2 30% of the whites, the head of their church in the province being a vicar apostolic. At the head of the Anglican community, which is in full communion with the Church of England, is the bishop of Bloemfontein, whose diocese, founded in 1863, includes not only the Orange Free State, but Basutoland, Griqualand West and British Bechuanaland.

His parents were Quakers, and he himself for many years was in communion with the (Darbyite) Plymouth Brethren, but afterwards became a Presbyterian.

In 366 Liberius gave a favourable reception to a deputation of the Eastern episcopate, and admitted into his communion the more moderate of the old Arian party.

Almost immediately the entire assembly with one voice cried out anathema on the impious Nestorius and his impious doctrines, and after various extracts from the writings of church fathers had been read the decree of his exclusion from the episcopate and from all priestly communion was solemnly read and signed by all present, whose numbers had by this time swelled to one hundred and ninety-eight.

Many of the terms in common use in them were employed in connexion with the Christian rites, and many of the conceptions, particularly that of sharing in immortality by communion with deity, became an essential part of Christian doctrine.

Thus the early idea of the services, as occasions for mutual edification through the interchange of spiritual gifts, gave way in course of time to the theory that they consisted of sacred and mysterious rites by means of which communion with God is promoted.

A certain number, too, of Arabic Christians, believers living on the west coast of India, the so-called Christians of St Thomas, and finally those belonging to places nearer the middle of Asia (Merv, Herat, Samarkand), remained in communion with the Nestorian church.

This required a doctrine of Ubiquity, or the omnipresence of the body of Christ extended in space, and therefore of its presence in the communion elements.

The patient's skin burns, that of a frog is cold to the touch; therefore tie to the foot of the bed a frog, bound with red and black thread, and wash down the sick man so that the water of ablution falls 1 In its technical ecclesiastical sense the ablution is the ritual washing of the chalice and of the priest's fingers after the celebration of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church.

Here he repaired the fabric and changed the position of the communion table, a matter which aroused great religious controversy, from the centre of the choir to the east end, by a characteristic tactless exercise of power offending the bishop, who henceforth refused to enter the cathedral.

The pulpit was no longer to be the chief feature in the church, but the communion table.

He held fast to the great idea of the catholicity of the English Church, to that conception of it which regards it as a branch of the whole Christian church, and emphasizes its historical continuity and identity from the time of the apostles, but here again his policy was at fault; for his despotic administration not only excited and exaggerated the tendencies to separatism and independentism which finally prevailed, but excluded large bodies of faithful churchmen from communion with their church and from their country.

An impressive announcement of the Easter Communion Service, made by the Rev. Pryce Davies, vicar of Talgarth, on the 30.th of March 1735, was the means of awakening Howell Harris (1714-1773) of Trevecca, and he immediately began to hold services in his own house.

The Old Catholic Communion, however, was formally constituted, with Reinkens at its head as bishop, and it still continues to exist (see OLD Catholics).

His addresses on the reunion of the Churches, delivered at the Bonn Conference of 1872, show that he was by no means hostile to the newly formed communion, in whose interests these conferences were held.

The nearest equivalent in the ancient Church was the local and temporary African practice of restoring lapsed Christians to communion at the intercession of confessors and prospective martyrs in prison.

During his stay in the city of Mexico his thoughts were seriously directed towards religion, and, eventually entering the Presbyterian communion, he ruled every subsequent action of his life by his faith.

The society supplies the Scriptures to missions of every Reformed Communion on such terms that, as a rule, the books distributed by the missions involve no charge on their funds.

He was prosecuted for assailing the dogma of the communion, but he returned to Sweden to defend himself, and was acquitted.

Compared with the thoroughness of most other catechisms this one seems very scanty, but it has a better chance of being memorized, and its very simplicity has given it a firm hold on the inner life and conscience of devout members of the Anglican communion throughout the world.

Refusing to observe the ecclesiastical regulations of Archbishop Laud, he was brought before the court of high commission in 1629, and again in 1634, when, for opposing the placing of a rail around the communion table, he was suspended and imprisoned.

He took the communion himself in both kinds, and established a new ecclesiastical organization in Brandenburg, but retained much of the ceremonial of the Church of Rome.

After Cyprian's day this view gains ground in the West, and almost obscures the older view that the rite is primarily an act of communion with Christ.

The communion of the laity in the bread alone was enjoined by the council of Constance in 1415, and by the council of Trent in 1562.

Both in its inner nature then and outward effects the Eucharist was the Christian counterpart of these two other forms of communion of which one, the heathen, was excluded from the first, and the other, the Jewish, soon to disappear.

The Eucharist of the synoptists is rather a covenant or tie of communion between Jesus and the twelve, such as will cause his life to survive in them after he has been parted from them in the flesh.

At a later date, apparently early in the 14th century, began the practice of carrying the Eucharist in procession in a monstrance; and at a still later period, apparently after the middle of the r6th century, the practice of Benediction with the reserved sacrament, and that of the " forty hours' exposition," were introduced in the churches of the Roman communion.

At the revision of the Prayer-Book in 1552 all mention of reservation is omitted, and the rubric directs that the communion is to be celebrated in the sick person's house, according to a new form; and this service has continued, with certain minor changes, down to the present day.

But it must be remembered that the Scottish Episcopal Church has an additional order of its own for the Holy Communion, and that consequently its clergy are not restricted to the services in the Book of Common Prayer.

On the one hand, it is widely felt that neither the form for the Communion of the Sick, nor yet the teaching with regard to spiritual communion in the third rubric at the end of that service, is sufficient to meet all the cases that arise or may arise.

The archbishop of York also laid stress upon the fact that the difficulties in the way of the communion of the sick, when they are really ready for communion, are, not so great as has sometimes been suggested.

With its baptism thus completed, the infant was held to be capable of receiving holy communion.

Many of the Protestant bodies have abandoned the rite, but it remains among the Lutherans (who, whether episcopal or not, attach great importance to it) and in the group of Churches in communion with the Church of England.

At the moment of communion the acolytes received in linen bags the consecrated Hosts to carry to the assisting priests.

Under its terms baptized persons of moral life and orthodox belief might receive the privilege of baptism for their children and other church benefits, without the full enrolment in membership which admitted them to the communion of the Lord's Supper.

To have been married a second time disqualified for ordination, or for continued tenure of the office of bishop. In all the action of the church unanimity was considered to be necessary; if any member differed in opinion from the rest, he must either surrender his judgment to that of the church, or be shut out from its communion.

The number of books required for the performance of divine service in pre-Reformation days was very large; the most important being the Missal for the service of Holy Communion or the Mass; the Breviary for the daily service or performance of the divine office; the Manual for the minor sacramental offices usually performed by the parish priest; and the Pontifical, containing such services as were exclusively reserved for performance by the bishop. Many of the contents of these larger volumes were published in separate volumes known by a great variety - over one hundred - different names.

So in the Communion service the most striking departures from ancient precedent have a Protestant origin.

The mixed chalice was ordered to be used, and the Agnus Dei to be sung during the Communion of the people.

The prayer in the burial service, as in the Communion service, contained distinct intercessions for the departed; and a form of Holy Communion was provided for use at funerals with proper introit, collect, epistle and gospel.