We kneel as we are able. I think I am the only one who receives on the tongue, but everyone could if they wished. Most, myself included take the bottom of the chalice (helps reduce the risk of spill), we have the option of individual cups as well and just guessing but likely about 60% use them. There is a gradual shift away from them that started almost immediately post covid. May it increase.
As covid was ending, we had no altar guild left, all had gone into isolation, and only a couple was interested in returning to service. I ended up in the position of "Sacristan" by default, doing everything; my wife doing laundry and I was doing the ironing, paraments, set-up and clean-up for two services (due to numerical restrictions, we held one service in the Church and another in the Chapel).
As more and more persons returned to in person worship, the work load increased. After discussion, the Pastor and the rest of the Elders gave the congregation a mandate; either we get enough volunteers for all year altar guild duties, or we ditch the individual cups.
We now have a fully functional Guild. LOL.
BTW, none would do laundry as it was a struggle to remove red wine stains; we switched to white wine (yes, there was some crying, but again I offered to buy red wine, if they would assume the laundry responsibilities. We are still using white wine. LOL.
People. LOL.
So you know Mark in Orthodoxy we prefer to receive communion on the tongue, but we do not normally kneel to receive it, especially not on Sundays, because our churches lack an altar rail, and also, kneeling on Sundays is prohibited by the least-observed canon from the Council of Nicaea, Canon XX (but one sees Eastern Orthodox Christians kneel all the time on Sundays, but it is for this reason that the Kneeling Vespers service on Pentecost is a Vespers, because by making it a Vespers, that advances the liturgical day from Pentecost or Whitsunday to Pentecost Monday, and one can kneel on any Monday outside of Eastertide, which ends on Pentecost Sunday (and furthermore, in Orthodoxy, the anti-fasting restriction ends after Bright Week if I recall, whereas it used to be the entire period until Whitsunday was devoid of Wednesday and Friday fasts).
Now the Copts on the other hand do kneel during every divine liturgy, but not when receiving the Eucharist; this is done standing, in a few different procedures, which can take significantly longer than the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox procedures, because whereas the Eastern Orthodox provide communion in the form of an inticted particle of the leavened Lamb, the bread which becomes the actual Body of Christ our Lord, which is basically floating in the Blood of our Lord mixed with hot water (Xenon), since ancient canons observed by all traditional churches except the Armenians prohibit using an unmixed chalice, that is to say, straight wine undiluted with water, in the Eucharist, and in this manner the ratio of Body to Blood can be varied, which is very useful in communing infants, but there is the shared spoon, although interestingly in those churches which refused to change their procedures during the pandemic, no one became ill. Likewise I have heard of no cases of illness resulting from a shared chalice as used in other churches such as the Assyrian Church of the East. The Syriac Orthodox have a method wherein the body of our Lord, which is also leavened in the Syriac Orthodox liturgy, is intincted in the blood of our Lord, and then the priest pops the piece of the body into your open mouth without the use of an implement or touching you, so theoretically their procedure is the most hygeinic, but that is not why I like it. Rather, I particularly like it, and the Eastern Orthodox procedure, because I like the experience of the intincted Eucharist.
Now the Copts do not intinct, but rather, the Eucharist is administered in a manner similiar to how the Eastern Orthodox do it, but one element at a time, and in most parishes, the men, seated on the right, and the women, seated on the left, pass through what would in an Eastern Orthodox parish be the “Deacons’ Doors” to the side of the Holy Doors of the main altar (in Coptic parishes these have the curtains, which all Eastern Orthodox churches are supposed to have but some do not, indeed there are a few “modern” parishes that even lack doors on the iconostasis, but this is more common in Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches (some of which, before Vatican II, were even built without an iconostasis due to Latinization), indeed, all of the Oriental Orthodox churches and the Assyrian Church of the East use curtains, which in some are opened and closed at different parts of the service, and in others remain open throughout a service (for instance, the Coptic Orthodox Church), whereas during Lent the curtain is closed in Armenian churches and only the priest receives the Eucharist, which is in marked contrast to the Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox practice of receiving the Eucharist with greater frequency during Lent. The Copts form a tight line, and if there is only one priest, administer only one element at a time, so the men and then the women receive the body of our Lord, and then the blood, one after another, and afterwards there is a cup of holy water provided to wash it down.
The experience of being in a queue (or line as we call them in the US and presumably Canada (do you guys line up or queue up up there? That could be one of those interesting cultural differences, like how you pronounce the letter Z in the British style) while waiting to receive the Eucharist in a Coptic church, is really special, because one gets crushed together with all of the other laity who are receiving the Eucharist, and there is a strong sensation of brotherly and sisterly love. When I have attended with a female relative who is also Orthodox, the women took very good care of her.
Most Eastern churches, like Roman Catholics, have a method of catching loose particles. So when kneeling at the altar rail of a Traditional Latin Mass, there will be an altar server who will hold what looks like a giant putty knife under your chin when the priest gives you the consecrated Host (which is what Catholics call the unleavened bread which they consecrate in the Mass, derived from the Latin hostiam, which means “victim”, compare “hostage”), which in Orthodoxy is leavened (except in the Armenian church as indicated, which is alone among Oriental Orthodox churches in using unleavened bread; I think some Eastern Catholic churches like the Maronites might also have adopted unleavened bread due to Latinization, but historically most churches in the East have used leavened bread). In Eastern Orthodox churches, since one receives the Eucharist standing, two men hold a cloth underneath the chalice while the priest serves the Eucharist, which will catch any crumbs or droplets.
In all Eastern churches, blessed bread called antidoron is provided to everyone afterwards. The Copts have the best tasting antidoron, because they bake it (and the Eucharistic bread) immediately before the liturgy, and then during the liturgy bake additional antidoron to take home, and the recipe they use is incredibly simple yet incredibly tasty; I have frequently had a relative of mine who likes to bake bake bread for me according to the Coptic recipe (this bread is not antidoron of course, unless it were specifically blessed, but the fact is that the bread the Copts bake is amazing.) In Armenian churches I have heard this is unleavened; Armenians seem to like unleavened bread and eat a form of it called Lavash, which they dip in their delicious soups, stews and in Babaganoush and other delicacies one can find in Armenian restaurants (which occupy a happy middle ground between Greco-Turkish “Mediterranean” food, Persian food, which is also often called “Mediterreanaen”, Lebanese food, and importantly, Russian and Ukrainian food, due to the Soviet connection, with delicacies like Borscht and Pelmeni. This varies depending on where in the Middle East the Armenians are from, so those few still living in Turkey will have more of a Greek style, those in Lebanon more of a Lebanese style, those in Iran more of a Persian style, and those in Republic of Armenia more of a Russian and Ukrainian style (I say Russian and Ukrainian because Borscht, as a soup, originated in Ukraine, whereas Chicken ala Kiev is actually a dish of Soviet origin, I believe it was invented at the luxurious Hotel Ukraina in Moscow, as opposed to being a pre-Soviet Ukrainian dish like Borscht (which also spread throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where frequently an egg is beaten into it, unlike in Russian and Ukrainian and Armenian restaurants where this is uncommon). However, Chicken ala Kiev is similiar to a Russian dish called “Kotlets” which are basically breaded cutlets, the innovation basically being the garlic sauce. But I digress. Speaking of which, there is a retired airline and test pilot on youtube who has a superb aviation channel who digresses more than I do, and is printing a round of “But I Digress” T-shirts; his channel is Ron Rogers, and he was a pilot for United from 1979 until 2015 and before that a test pilot for the USAF, Boeing and Cessna.
