The Unitarian Meaning of the Lord's Supper in Hungary

SHORT HISTORICAL SURVEY

Communion in Hungary and Transylvania does not differ in essence. If there is any difference between them, it is not from a theological point of view, it does not concern their history or their elements, it may concern only the practice. And even in this sense it is only formal, not essential.

Communion can be defined  at least in its meaning - as a true or supposed communion with the suspected God and, as such, it goes along the long way of the historical religious life - which I am not going to analyse here in detail because of lack of space but I can briefly mention the following:

• The roots of this ceremony are deeply implanted in the human soul, that is why Communion has a strong historical and spiritual basis.
• Neibelgall is probably right when he says in this respect: "In the case that the ceremonies of Christian practice disappeared one by one, the last among them would certainly be Holy Communion".
• Communion has always had one special purpose: communion with divinity, to be part of Him, to be in touch with Him; this means that the believer wants to get matierially in communion with God (bread, wine); that he/she wants to bodily become part of Him by eating and drinking; and that he/she wants to get directly in touch with God, without any intermediary.

UNITARIAN COMMUNION

Communion is not a ceremony for obtaining redemption; it only reminds us of Jesus and his teachings, deepening by this our faith, our religious consciousness, improving the vigilance of our conscience, turning us to self-analysis and self-awareness. That means that it creates the proper mood to feel sorry for - and cleansed of - our faults, to change ourselves, to qualitatively improve ourselves. It means to feel spiritually enriched in communion with God and our fellow companions.

THE MEANING OF COMMUNION TEACHING TODAY

I feel it is interesting to mention here that when we have Communion after Divine Service, four times a year, the number of the brothers and sisters present is three times greater than usual. Why? There are several reasons:

• As I have already mentioned, Communion is deeply rooted;
• People need something that they can obtain only through Communion;
• Communion is our only permanent ceremony. And while the blessing at baptism, burial, confirmation and marriage happens - in most cases - only once in a lifetime, one may share in Communion four times each year.
• It is also a very concrete ceremony; here one not only hears words and abstract things, but also receives something one can touch and this proves to be always much more arresting than the abstract things;
• Today, it also has a compensating role, especially in those people's lives who feel that they have debts towards the Church, towards God. They try to compensate the faults their conscience blames them for by sharing Communion.

As far as Communion is concerned the Unitarian Church follows the principles of Jesus, who said, "Do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22,19)

Communion is much more a psychological than a theological usage. It reminds us of Jesus and his teachings. This reminds each person of his/her own relationship with Jesus and the Gospel. It is a testimony of the fact that we belong to God, we want to live according to His will and we want to follow the way Jesus showed us. Communion never means an arrival; it means beginning, it means ignition. It means communion with ourselves, with God and our fellow companions.

One always has to keep in mind during Communion the idea from the Old Testament, which says: untie your sandals, for the place where you are standing is sacred. It is the moment of facing God, of grasping something from His very being, the moment of His nearness. It is a revelation in faith; it means receiving God in our lives and God receiving us. In one word: communion.

THE ELEMENTS OF COMMUNION

Bread and wine. The wine is always white, never red. There is no special expalantion for this. It is the practice of a tradition of 432 years. We never change the wine to any other refreshment such as fruit juice, as is practised in Western Europe, England or the United States.

THE LITURGY OF COMMUNION

Two weeks before the celebration itself, on two Sundays the minister announces the approaching occasion of Communion, which takes place after the solemn Divine Service.

Standing by God's table, the minister reads the basic thought of his speech, only once, not twice as usual. The members of the congregation listen to it, sitting in their places. Then the Communion agenda (sermon) begins, which is of about eight to ten minutes.

After the agenda, the minister says a prayer. He prays for those present and those who are not present, for the ill, for prisoners, for all the brothers and sisters in faith and for the whole of mankind.

Then they uncover God's table, while the minsiter calls those present to come and receive the Communion. Men an women, the young and the old, come together and share in the Communion. First the minister distributes it for those who serve the wine from the large chalice. During the last 45 to 50 years, in Budapest, they took over the practice of serving the wine from small individual cups, one for each person, the way they do in Western Europe. I would mention here that there is an essence lost when a person refuses - on the pretext of being ill - to drink the wine from the common chalice. The teaching of Communion is impaired by it. The idea of unity, of community with our fellow companions, is lost with this practice.

The minsiter says a short prayer after each group, beginning with an invocation, with a line from the Bible.

When everything is over the minister gives the closing prayer, after which God's table is covered again. Then the text of the benediction is uttered and the community sings the closing hymn, after which the Communion is over.