Communion cups kerfuffle: legal eagles enter the fray
by Barry Duke, Patheos:
WHEN a group of top UK lawyers are asked for their opinion on – of all things – communion cups, you can only shake your head in disbelief.
This tale has its beginning in March when the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said churches should not use a single shared cup – or chalice – for communion wine because of the risk of transmitting Covid-19. Which makes perfect sense.
But then, at July’s Church of England General Synod, Mary Durlacher, an evangelical lay member , suggested the use of individual cups for wine was a “valid, common sense, pro tem” way forward.
Things then started to get ugly.
Her suggestion was dismissed as “illegal” by the Bishop of London Sarah Mullally, above. She said that the church’s Legal Advisory Commission believed it was:
Contrary to law for individual cups to be used for each communicant.
The bishop cited an obscure 16th century law, the 1547 Sacrament Act, which concerns those who:
Unreverentlie speake against the Sacrament of the bodie and bloude of Christe.
Durlacher was not going to be brushed off that easily. So she invited the legal eagles to give their opinion. According to Christian Today, the six leading QCs and barristers said in a statement last week they believe that individual chalices are lawful.
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