Closed communion

[2][3][4][5][6] Churches which practice open communion allow all Christians to partake in the Lord's Supper, with membership in a particular Christian community not required to receive bread and wine; this in contrast to pre-Reformation churches, which hold that what is received in their celebrations ceases to be bread and wine.

However, provided that "necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it" and that the danger of error or indifferentism is avoided, canon 844 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Latin Church and the parallel canon 671 allow, in particular exceptional circumstances that are regulated by the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, members who cannot approach a Catholic minister to receive the Eucharist from ministers of churches that have a valid Eucharist.

[11] The Catholic Church does not ordinarily allow a Catholic to receive communion in a Protestant church, since it does not consider Protestant ministers to be priests ordained by bishops in a line of valid succession from the apostles, although Moravians, Anglicans and some Lutherans teach that they ordain their clergy in lines of apostolic succession.

[12] It applies this rule also to the Anglican Communion, pursuant to Apostolicae curae, a position that the Church of England disputed in Saepius officio.

Amen.”[16] The Directory for the Application of Principles and Norms on Ecumenism warns that "due consideration should be given to the discipline of the Eastern Churches for their own faithful and any suggestion of proselytism should be avoided.

[22] Bishop Franz Jung, while celebrating a Jubilee Mass on July 5 at Würzburg Cathedral, called inter-denominational marriages "denomination-uniting" and thus "especially invited" couples in which one spouse is Protestant to receive the Eucharist during his sermon.

[25] Notably, Pope John Paul II gave Holy Communion to Brother Roger, a Reformed pastor and founder of the Taizé Community, several times; in addition Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) also gave Brother Roger the Eucharist.

[26][27][28] Moreover, after Brother Roger's death, at the Mass celebrated for him in France, "communion wafers were given to the faithful indiscriminately, regardless of denomination".

However, this attitude has been relaxed in most Orthodox churches; a non-communicant may stay and participate in the Divine Liturgy but may not partake of the Eucharist.

[30] Thus, while in certain circumstances the Catholic Church allows its faithful who cannot approach a Catholic minister to receive the Eucharist from an Eastern Orthodox priest, the Eastern Orthodox Church does not admit them to receive the Eucharist from its ministers.

Non-Orthodox present at the Liturgy are not only permitted but even encouraged to receive the blessed bread as an expression of Christian fellowship and love.

In addition, Orthodox bishops and other teachers make clear to their faithful that they can only properly receive communion from a canonically ordained priest or bishop within the context of the traditional Orthodox Divine Liturgy (which includes communion taken to the sick).

[40][41] Those not communing are invited to come forward with their "arms crossed across their chest" in order to receive a blessing from the priest.

They restrict the partaking of communion (or the Lord's Supper) to members of the local church observing the ordinance.

The earliest use of close communion comes from a mistranslation of the Lutheran theologian Franz August Otto Pieper's Christian Dogmatics.

Since all Christians are now no longer of a unity that would allow common celebration of the Eucharist between them all, the bread being a visible sign of union, communion is not taken together between separated Churches and communities.

"No one may share in the eucharist except those who believe in the truth of our teachings and have been washed in the bath which confers forgiveness of sins and rebirth, and who live according to Christ's commands" (First Apology, 66).

The Heidelberg Catechism, for example, says that those who "by confession and life, declare themselves unbelieving and ungodly" are not to be admitted to the Lord's Supper, for then "the covenant of God would be profaned, and his wrath kindled against the whole congregation."

Church leaders are obliged to do all they can to ensure that this does not happen, and hence "exclude such persons... till they show amendment of life," (Q & A 82).

Fencing the table is thus the opposite of open communion, where the invitation to the sacrament is extended to "all who love the Lord" and members of any denomination are welcome at their own discretion.

The phrase goes back to early Scottish Calvinism, where the communion table literally had a fence around it, with a gate at each end.