36 PART ONE: INTRODUCTION communion, expressed most profoundly in the celebration of the Eucharist,85 inevitably makes the question of Eucharistic sharing in general a matter of universal significance. Full communion implies that Christians from different traditions within the communion (for example, Latin, Antiochian, or Byzantine) can celebrate church unity by sharing the Eucharist. Priests and bishops, in turn, can concelebrate the Eucharist. The (current) Roman Catholic conviction is that sharing or concelebrating are, in principle, impossible between those who are not in full communion.86 In 1992, then CDF prefect Cardinal Ratzinger stressed that “[t]he unity of the Eucharist and the unity of the Episcopate with Peter and under Peter are not independent roots of the unity of the Church, since Christ instituted the Eucharist and the Episcopate as essentially interlinked realities,”87 thereby articulating the foundations of the Roman Catholic hesitance to share the Eucharist with Christians who are not in full communion with the bishop of Rome. Nevertheless, the relationship with other Christian churches and communities is defined by communion as well, founded in Baptism. This communion, however, is not full but only partly realized.88 Other communions, such as the Anglican communion, operate according to similar principles. However, between two such communions, no full communion exists (as of yet). If a member of one communion wishes to partake of the Eucharist celebrated in another communion, one will encounter one’s own ecclesial law as well as that of the other communion promoting or prohibiting participation. We can differentiate between levels of admission, as Faith and Order did in its 1971 report, which speaks of limited, general, and 85 The Eucharist understood as an expression of unity inspires the prohibition of sharing the Eucharist with those not in full communion. However, others argue that the Eucharist, as the “source and summit of Christian life” (LG sec. 11) is just as much the source for unity. 86 With many Churches and communities, fundamental differences in understanding of ministry and sacraments still prevent full communion. In the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches, such differences barely exist. The Roman Catholic Church, therefore, regards them as proper sister churches and stimulates Eucharistic sharing with these communities. However, since this attitude is not reciprocal, even in these relationships Eucharistic sharing is uncommon. 87 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Joseph Ratzinger, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion,” Vatican website, 1992, sec. 14, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/ documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_28051992_communionis-notio_en.html (italics in original). 88 UR, sec. 3 discriminates between full communion/communio plena and imperfect communion/communio non plena or imperfecta. The latter is not further defined or differentiated: the concept seems to indicate a continuous scale rather than clearly defined levels or stages.
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