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The small table by the side of the altar or communion table, on which the bread and wine are placed before being consecrated.

n Christian churches appointed to perform certain subordinate duties varying in different communions. In the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, a person admitted to the lowest order in the ministry, subordinate to the bishops and priests. In Presbyterian churches, he is subordinate to the minister and elders, and h…

Making divine; producing a likeness to God; god-making. "A deifical communion." Homilies.

By extension, to Christians isolated from their own communion, as among the Moravians to those living, usually as missionaries, outside of the parent congregation.

form of it) in divine service and varying in many points of detail, but standing in full communion with each other and united as equals in a great federation. The highest five authorities are the patriarch of Constantinople, or ecumenical patriarch (whose position is not one of supremacy, but of precedence), the patri…

The ecclesiastic who reads the epistle at the communion service.

One of the clergy who reads the epistle at the communion service; an epistler.

that the punishment of all offenses should be referred to the civil power, and that holy communion was open to all. In the present day, an Erastian is one who would see the church placed entirely under the control of the State. Shipley.

morating the death of Christ, in the use of bread and wine, as the appointed emblems; the communion. -- See Sacrament.

To put out of communion; especially, to cut off, or shut out, from communion with the church, by an ecclesiastical sentence.

To drive out or away; to expel. They deposed, exterminated, and deprived him of communion. Barrow.

(Eccl.) To acknowledge as of good standing, or in communion according to standards of faith and practice; to admit to Christian fellowship.

f invocation the purpose of which is, through trance and vision, to bring the dancer into communion with the unseen world and the spirits of departed friends. The dance is the chief rite of the Ghost-dance, or Messiah, religion, which originated about 1890 in the doctrines of the Piute Wovoka, the Indian Messiah, who t…

A portion of the Mass (Gloria in Excelsis Deo, Glory be to God on high), and also of the communion service in some churches. In the Episcopal Church the version in English is used.

A priest or deacon who reads the gospel at the altar during the communion service. The Archbishop of York was the celebrant, the epistoler being the dean, and the gospeler the Bishop of Sydney. Pall Mall Gazette.

pe, except the pope and the king of England. -- Holy bark. See Cascara sagrada. -- Holy Communion. See Eucharist. -- Holy family (Art), a picture in which the infant Christ, his parents, and others of his family are represented. -- Holy Father, a title of the pope. -- Holy Ghost (Theol.),the third person of the Tr…

Having no communion or intercourse with each other. [Obs.] Sir M. Hale.

To cause or permit to share. [Obs.] The mystical communion of all faithful men is such as maketh every one to be interested in those precious blessings which any one of them receiveth at God's hands. Hooker.

An anthem or psalm sung before the Communion service.

A member of the Church of Scotland, as distinguished from a member of another communion. [Scot.]