Communion the Problem(s) at Hand;

¶ … Communion The problem(s) at hand; Taft considers the practice of lay communicants and minor clergy in Byzantium receiving the sacred bread and wine separately and in their hands. He aims to reconstruct the development of the reception of communion practices. How the comparative method and/or other methodologies of liturgical inquiry are employed to address the problem; Taft relies on the numerous contemporary, primary textual accounts of the communion rites. Many of these accounts confirm and support each other, indicating sufficient reliability.

These accounts also come from a broad range of sources from Europe, the Near East, and Africa, providing valuable distance and perspective on the practices from outsiders. Taft identifies four unique elements of the early Christian Byzantine communion rites: the Place of Lay Communion, the Enclosed Sanctuary, the Order of Communion, the Minister of the Sacrament, and the Rite of Communion in the Hand. Taft compares the sources on each stage of the communion rites separately, with Eusebius being a common primary source throughout.

Conclusion Taft concludes that the lay communion were treated largely like the minor clergy in receiving communion and organization. The major distinction was that laypersons did not enter the sanctuary and approach the altar to communicate, but lined up outside the chancel barrier to receive first the consecrated bread, then the cup. A critical evaluation of the reading. Taft's conclusions are more descriptions than original arguments. As such, they are very hard to criticize.

Taft relies on a number of rich, reliable, and contemporary primary sources and limits his observations to those which can be verified within these sources. Litany The problem(s) at hand; Taft describes the structure and development of the Antiochene precommunion rites. He focuses on the discrepancy between the elements of the litany indicating a standard petition to God on behalf of the gathered and the "Angel of Peace Biddings" indicating a dismissal of the gathered.

For Taft, this discrepancy is puzzling because scholars had heretofore assumed that they understood the purpose and function of these particular rites on their own. To see the rites joined together as such challenges their understanding of these rites. How the comparative method and/or other methodologies of liturgical inquiry are employed to address the problem; Taft compares the function of the "Angel of Peace Biddings" to the "Inclination Prayer of CHR" as a prayer of conclusion sometimes added to the beginning of communion rites.

Taft has limited primary accounts of the precommunion rites and has to rely on inference from historical trends. He notes that the Inclination Prayer was added to communion rites at roughly the period when some of the faithful who felt unfit to receive the sacrament started leaving at the start of the communion period. Taft observes that the Inclination Prayer of CHR, as a prayer of conclusion, also functions as a prayer of dismissal.

He proposes that the Inclination Prayer of CHR, as a prayer of conclusion, was adapted for its dismissal functions to the standard communion rites. Thus, giving the Inclination Prayer of CHR at the start of a larger litany of petition would allow some of the.