Some churches make an announcement before communion begins such as "We invite all who have professed a faith in Christ to join us at the table."
Open communion is generally practiced in churches where the elements are passed through the congregation (also called self-communication).
Most Protestant churches practise open communion, although many require that the communicant be a baptized Christian.
The Plymouth Brethren were founded on the basis of an open communion with any baptized Christian: today, following John Nelson Darby, Exclusive Brethren practise closed communion, and Open Brethren practise open communion on the basis of "receiving to the Lord's table those whom He has received, time being allowed for confidence to be established in our minds that those who we receive are the Lord's.
Other groups that practise open communion are the Moravian Church[14] Wesleyans,[15] and the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
"[25] In lieu of Holy Communion, some parishes invite non-Catholics to come forward in the line, with their arms crossed over their chest, and receive a blessing from the priest.
[28] On 15 November 2015, while at Christuskirche in Rome Pope Francis answered a Lutheran woman wishing to be able to participate in Holy Communion with her Catholic husband: "It is a question that each person must answer for themselves … there is one baptism, one faith, one Lord, so talk to the Lord and move forward".
[29][30][31] In the following year at Lund Cathedral, in a joint Lutheran-Catholic service commemorating the Reformation, Pope Francis and Bishop Munib Younan (the head of the Lutheran World Federation) "jointly pledged to remove the obstacles to full unity between their Churches, leading eventually to shared Eucharist.
[37] Bishop Franz Jung, while celebrating a Jubilee Mass on 5 July 2018 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.
[37] For other baptized Christians (such as Anglicans, Methodists and other Protestants) under the jurisdiction of other episcopal conferences, the conditions are more severe.
[39][40] 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.
[41][42][43] 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".