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I have heard that Bishop JOHN of Parma has given permission for two laypeople to serve as Eucharistic Ministers at a Church near Cleveland. What does anyone else know about this innovation?

The "official" allowance for Eucharistic Ministers in The Ruthenian Byzantine Metropolia was begun by Archbishop Dolinay over a decade ago. I believe in some parishes, it began at an earlier date without approval. In parishes such as Johnstown (Pa.), Clairton(Pa.), Cambell (Oh), to name a few, they were allowed to help older clergy distribute communion. Again, this shows the lack of correct Particular Church "rubrics". Instead of Eucharistic Ministers, an active permanent deaconiate should have already been in use. If enough men are encouraged to become permanent deacons, there would be enough of them to help those parishes who need them!

Ung-Certez

The Particular Law of the Pittsburgh Metropolia specifies that every parish is allowed one such minister at every Liturgy, plus another for every 75 communicants. No episcopal permission is needed.

I thought ONLY the priests administer the MYSTERIES (SACRAMENTS), not lay people. So therefore, there should be NO Eucharistic Ministers. I believe that ONLY priests can administery the Mystery of Eucharist.

What else is there about the "Ruthenian" Churches that we don't know about?

And is there anything else that can hinder the Catholic-Orthodox relations?

Thank goodness that I'm in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church!

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

It is not the tradition of the Byzantine Church to use Eucharistic Ministers.

The Particular Law of the Byzantine Catholic Church promulgated in 1999 does, however, provide for the use of Eucharistic Ministers in cases of true necessity. If another priest or deacon is not available (either as a concelebrant or in the congregation) and there is great need then a layman may be called upon to distribute the Divine Eucharist. Special permission is required in advance from the eparchial bishop for a layman to serve in this role and anyone distributing the Eucharist must be trained in advance and individually granted such permission.

I am familiar with one case our Church where a priest was physically unable to distribute the Eucharist and sought and received special permission to allow a layman to distribute the Eucharist in his place. When this priest was recovered enough the again distribute the Eucharist the layman stopped serving as a Eucharistic Minister as the permission was to expire once the priest was physically able to distribute the Eucharist.

"The Particular Law of the Byzantine Catholic Church promulgated in 1999 does, however, provide for the use of Eucharistic Ministers in cases of true necessity"

Is this any different than the Roman Catholics? Look what's happened there. What's to stop it from happening to us?

Dan Lauffer

Dan,

The difference is that in our Church episcopal permission is required before a layman can distribute the Eucharist. I am not sure on the rules in the Roman Catholic Church but I think permission is granted by the pastor or celebrant and episcopal permission is not required on a case by case basis.

To be honest, this is not one of the issues I get upset about. In the early Church people used to take the Divine Eucharist home with them so that they and their families could self-communicate during the week.

The Roman Catholic Church in my neighborhood has almost 4,000 families and averages 700 or 800 people at each of their eight Masses (2 on Saturday and 6 on Sunday). It is only logical that they use Eucharistic Ministers to assist with the distribution of the Eucharist. On average they have five Communion stations (the celebrant, another priest or the deacon, and four Eucharistic Ministers). The distribution of the Eucharist takes about 10 minutes with six people distributing. If the priest had to do this all by himself it would take 60 minutes (or 30 minutes if both priests were at every Mass). The current Mass is about 70 minutes long (and is quite excellent and orthodox in worship and music). I know of no one who would welcome 60 minutes distributing communion and I think it would be rather unfair to the priest to ask him to spend 6 full hours distributing the Eucharist in addition to the 8 hours or so he would be celebrating the Masses. Even if you divide that by two for two priests or by three if the deacon assisted, you will still wind up a lot of time given to the distribution of the Eucharist. I don�t think the answer here is to forcibly stop the use of Eucharistic Ministers in the RCC. The answer probably lies in developing smaller parishes and to do that they need more priests.

Actually, I wish that each of our parishes had an acute need for Eucharistic Ministers. That would mean that they were all full!

Admin

Would you please reproduce the relevant canon that mentions the hierarch's intervention? I don't have access to this information.

I don't recall anything about this--just that the layperson must receive training before serving in this role.

Administrator or anyone...can you help me with my confusion about the Mystery of Eucharist.

Since the Eucharist is a Mystery (Sacrament), I thought that ONLY the Priest is allowed to administer it.

If one allows a lay person administer the Mystery of Eucharist, then why not allow them to administer the other 6 Mysteries (Sacraments)?

Thank you.

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

God willing, with a reinvigorated diaconate/ subdiaconate reinstated in parishes this wouldn't be an issue.

Bishop (now Metropolitan) BASIL also gave this permission to several in the Parma Eparchy before the appointment of Bishop JOHN.

Shane, not only priests can give the Holy Mysteries by church law, even Ukrainian Catholic particular law. Deacons have always been allowed in Greek Catholic and some Orthodox churches to administer the Holy Mysteries.

As an ordained subdeacon I have also administered the Holy Mysteries on many occasions when the priest was not present with the blessing of the pastor and the bishop in both the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Chicago and the Ruthenian Eparchy of Parma.

Even in the Orthodox Church you can find deacons administering the Holy Mysteries. That's nothing new. When you are out in the West, with many miles between priests and faithful, we have to use that good ol' Eastern approach called economia when dealing with pastoral and logistical difficulties.

And not to shock you Shane, but besides the Ruthenians there are some renegade Ukrainian Catholics and Melkites who have also succombed to this abuse as well, although it is less prevalent than in the Ruthenian Metropolia.

In contrast the particular law for the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the USA allows for laymen to distribute the Holy Mysteries ONLY with the permission of the Bishop and ONLY if no priest, deacon, or subdeacon is present to distribute the Holy Mysteries for a Sunday or feastday Liturgy.

According to the Ukrainian Catholic particular law in the USA, there has to be a grave need for such a minister, he must be male, at least 33, trained, have written permission from the Bishop, and has to have his permission reinstated every 12 months by the bishop. But the particular law also clearly states that this is a variance reserved for grave situations, and that the priest is the primary and the deacon the secondary ministers of the Holy Mysteries.

SPDundas,

Think about the difference between the changing of ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus by the priest during the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer) of the Divine Liturgy and the action of physically distributing the Eucharist to the faithful. It is the priest alone who prays the Eucharistic Prayer and thus administers this Sacramental Mystery. Someone who assists him in distributing the Eucharist to the faithful does have a share in the administration of this Mystery but this is a tremendously different role than that of a priest. Administration of the Eucharist does not have to include the actual distribution of the Eucharist. In the early Church it was common for people to take the Eucharist home to administer communion to those who could not attend liturgy. In this sense, the term �administrate� has different meanings depending on how it is used.

Admin

Shane, with regard to the other sacaraments, they all involve a blessing, whether it is the sick person, the couple in a marriage, or the penitent in confession. Only a priest (or bishop) can give a liturgical blessing.

With the presanctified Holy Mysteries, they can be administered by someone other than a priest since they are already blessed and consecrated by the priest at a previous Divine Liturgy. That is what makes it different from the other sacraments in this regard.

Diak,

Please note that L-R�s presentation of the Byzantine-Ruthenian Particular Law is incomplete. Special permission is required from the eparchial bishop.

Admin

Shane,

You are confusing administering the sacrament with confecting the sacrament, to borrow a Latin term. Only a priest may pray the anaphora and epiclesis turning the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. However, once that is done it is a matter of time and tradition who administers the Holy Gifts. Early on there was no distribution by intinction. The priest distibuted the Body, the deacon the Blood and, as has been pointed out, after Liturgy people were given a supply to self-communicate from through the week.

The use of laymen in the distribution is up to the Bishops, who have the right to allow it as a form of economy. Personally, I would rather see a restoration of the subdiaconate at the parish level to fulfill their ordianry duties as well as to help in distributing the Gifts when needed.

Ung-Certez's suggestion, while ideal, is unrealistic as I don't think every parish is going to have the luxury of having a member willing to go through a four-year program.

In Christ,
Lance

Can anyone provide the specific citation of the Ruthenian particular law in this matter ? There seems to be some disagreement here about what the law says with regards to required episcopal approval for lay extraordinary ministers. And I would be curious to compare wording with the UGCC particular law for the USA.