‘Intinction’ means ‘dipping’, and it refers to the practice of dipping the bread (usually a wafer) into the wine as part of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion, the Eucharist, the Mass).

I’ve been dipping into the topic a little, far enough to gather a short reading list. I’m unlikely to take it much further any time soon, so I thought I’d deposit my notes here for future reference. It might even be useful to someone else, who knows.

First, a brief summary…

There are very few references to intinction in the early centuries of church history. It might have been introduced in some places as a way of making the bread easier to swallow for the sick or for young children. It is difficult to know when the practice arose, but in the Eastern Orthodox Church today, the bread and wine are mixed together and then served using a spoon. Intinction was a controversial practice in the Western (Roman) Church, and it was banned in the thirteenth century. It seems to have become more popular since the early twentieth century, in response to growing awareness of the role of germs in spreading diseases.

In dictionaries and encyclopedias, there are brief entries on ‘Intinction’ in A New Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (SCM) (and presumably also in its successor, The New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship), in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and in An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church. Wikipedia also has an article on the topic.

In the Church of England, current practice is that intinction is generally discouraged but not actually prohibited in the Church of England as a whole, although it is prohibited in quite a few dioceses. Examples of diocesan guidance in which intinction is strongly discouraged include:

The Church of England’s Legal Advisory Commission of the General Synod issued a legal opinion way back in ‘January 1991, revised September 2003’ on ‘Holy Communion: administration of the Sacrament’ (also available as a PDF). This includes a lot of detail about individual cups and a smaller amount about intinction. However, the current version includes the following note at the top:

At its meeting on 13 June 2024, the Legal Advisory Commission noted that there are two respectable views on the matter of the use of individual cups at Holy Communion.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Church of England guidance was issued in mid-2020 on ‘Holy Communion and the distribution of the elements’, in which the common cup was suspended. This led to an intense debate on the use of individual cups:

Subsequent Church of England guidance was issued in December 2020 regarding intinction, using the language of ‘simultaneous administration’, where the priest (rather than the communicant) dips the wafer into the wine (otherwise known as ‘priestly intinction’). That guidance is available on the Thinking Anglicans website (linked from a blog post).

The Church of England website still contains a page with Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance. This page includes a link to a July 2022 document, ‘Opening and managing church buildings’, which says the following under ‘Administration of Holy Communion’:

If communicants do not wish to receive in both kinds, they may do so by receiving only the bread (communion in one kind) or the president may dip the bread in the wine before giving it to the communicant (simultaneous administration). Intinction by the communicant is not recommended.

More recent discussion in the Church of England has been on the topic of gluten-free bread and alcohol-free wine, precipitated by a question posed at General Synod.

Looking a bit further back in the history of the Church of England, Andrew Atherstone had an article published on 19 September 2025 on ‘Germ Panic and Chalice Hygiene in the Church of England, c.1895–1930’.

Outside the Church of England, there was quite a debate on the topic of intinction in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) around 2012, with the 40th General Assembly in 2012 giving ‘initial approval’ to an amendment ‘to prohibit the practice of intinction in communion’, which was then not approved by the presbyteries and was therefore taken no further, as noted at the 41st General Assembly in 2013.

On the same side of the pond, in The Episcopal Church, I came across a couple of articles:

That post has some helpful links to the science, including ‘Holy Communion and Infection Transmission: A Literature Review’ by Dimitrios Anyfantakis (2020).

Roman Catholic practice is governed by the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, as described in various places.

Plenty to read, if anyone is inclined to delve deeper into the topic!

comments powered by Disqus