by Ian Paul, Psephizo
The use of individual cups at Holy Communion is again being hotly debated in Church of England parishes and PCCs. I asked Prof Andrew Atherstone about the fruits of his latest historical research into the topic.
IP: As you and others have pointed out in the past, the command of Jesus is to ‘drink you all of this’, so ‘drinking’ seems to be an important part of sharing Communion, and individual cups are an obvious way to allow this when people are concerned about contagion. So why are individual cups still causing controversy?
AA: Five years ago, at the height of the early Covid lockdowns, the House of Bishops caused consternation by declaring that individual cups were illegal. They were relying on a former opinion from the Church of England’s Legal Advisory Commission (LAC). This shocked many parishes who wanted to use individual cups during the global health emergency, or had already been using them for years. There was an avalanche of newspaper articles and General Synod questions on the subject. Andrew Goddard and I wrote a short primer for clergy and PCCs, which we sent gratis to the House of Bishops and every member of General Synod: “Drink This All of You”: Individual Cups at Holy Communion (Grove Books). Many parishes simply got on with introducing individual cups, and it seemed like the heat had gone out of the question.
But the saga rumbles on, because there is a steady stream of reports in 2025 of bishops and archdeacons across the Church of England trying to persuade parishes to abandon individual cups and go back to a common cup. It seems that they have not yet caught up with the evolving advice of the Legal Advisory Commission.
IP: What does the Legal Advisory Commission say now?