The Eucharistic Chalice and H1N1

Can one contract an illness from receiving the Precious Blood of Our Lord in the Eucharistic Chalice?

This question is being asked today with greater frequency and intensity in the light of the H1N1 pandemic: the Bishops of the Church of England have this year gone so far as to recommend at first the suspension of Holy Communion under both kinds. This advice has now been modified. What are orthodox Anglo-Catholics to make of this situation? How should we react?

The Orthodox Catholic Faith clearly teaches us that What is contained in the Chalice after Eucharistic Consecration by the celebrating priest is the True Blood of Jesus Christ under the form of Wine. Because the Wine has been mystically converted and transformed into the totality of Our Lord's Person, very God and very Man, the Church has always held that the Blessed Sacrament is not capable of transmitting disease. Granted, the Eucharistic Change is not on the material level (for the Blessed Sacrament retains the physical and material properties of Bread and Wine, which are Its necessary sacramental signs - if one were to examine the Most Holy Sacrament under an electron microscope one would see the molecular or atomic structure of Bread and Wine) but on the metaphysical, supra-material and supernatural level. However, the sacramental identification of the Body and Blood of Christ with the outward signs of consecrated Bread and Wine is objectively Real, more real than our own experience of reality. The Bread and Wine contain and conceal the glorified, immortal, impassible, risen and exalted human nature of Christ. The Eucharist is Our Lord Himself.

'God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.'
- John Betjeman

This is indeed a matter of belief in the Real Objective Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. As Catholics holding to the perspicuous teaching of Holy Scripture and primitive Tradition, we Anglicans reject the now centuries-old Roman ecclesiastical precedent of withholding the Chalice from the laity even under normal conditions - so that action should not be an alternative for us.

Anglicans, following the institution of Our Lord, should always administer Communio sub utraque specie, under the form of the Chalice. Here we agree with the Eastern Churches which invariably administer the Holy Mysteries in both forms. Article XXX strictly prohibits us from following the lead of the Latin Rite in this matter. It is always permissible to administer the Precious Blood by intinction rather than having people receive directly from the Chalice. In times of contagion, this would be the recommended manner of administering the Holy Eucharist. The communicant receives the Sacred Host in his hands in the Anglican manner, with his right hand over his left, forming a throne for the Sacrament. The priest or assistant with the Chalice then reverently removes the Host from the communicant's hands, intincts the Host into the Chalice, and carefully places the Host thus dipped into the Precious Blood onto the tongue of the communicant. Rightly done, this practice alleviates the concern some have of contact with the Chalice.

Even if contagion could be transmitted by the Most Holy Sacrament, which the Church has always taught it cannot, the precious metal of the Chalice itself is a natural antiseptic that kills microbes. The alcohol in the Chalice also prevents the survival of microbes. A demonstrable proof of the safety of the Chalice is that the clergy who receive after everyone else would be the first to be infected, but clergy are notoriously healthy and live in most cases to ripe old ages! The clergy would quickly fall ill were the Chalice to transmit disease, but in my experience, and that of a multitude of others, I have never known a single priest or deacon to be sickened by the Chalice.

Below is a snippet from an Orthodox blog on the subject...

Can I get sick from the Chalice?

The answer is, simply, no.

We should not worry about transmission of germs through common use of sacred vessels that have held and touched 'the divine, holy, pure, immortal, heavenly, life giving, and awesome Mysteries of Christ' (Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom). Further, Saint John in his Gospel quotes Jesus saying 'Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal LIFE…' (Saint John 5.54). Why would something that is LIFE-giving be the carrier of something that causes disease and death?

Besides, after everyone else receives Holy Communion, the priests and deacons consume the remainder of the chalice. The clergy, therefore, would be the recipients of a host of germs – from everyone. Yet, in truth, that which is in the consecrated chalice is the very Body and Blood of the Physician of our souls. He has trampled down death by death, and upon us, His faithful children, He has bestowed Life.