Please help me to
understand the significance of antidoron. How should one receive it and handle
it? If one takes it home during the week for daily "communion" is
this wrong? Is there a proper way of doing it—before a prayer, before a meal,
etc.? When can you or should you take propsphora to Church? Should you also
take wine and oil? Do you bring the names of people to be commemorated with
these gifts?
Answer: This is a subject of
great importance which we have several times addressed in the pages of Orthodox
Tradition. When we do not commune at Liturgy, we receive antidoron
(an-dee-tho-ron, with a hard "d" and a soft "d," as in
"the") at the end of Liturgy (that is, blessed bread which
substitutes for the Gifts; thus, antidoron, "instead of the Gifts").
Those who commune during the Liturgy receive antidoron or antidoron and wine
immediately after communing and should not take it again at the end of Liturgy.
Since it is blessed, the antidoron should be carefully handled and no particles
of it should be allowed to fall on the ground. This means that children must be
carefully watched while consuming antidoron and taught to treat it with pious
reverence. It should be received from the Priest at the end of Liturgy and
immediately consumed. Since antidoron is given in place of the Gifts, it is
also received on an empty stomach, for which reason Orthodox Christians do not
eat or drink anything from the midnight before the Divine Liturgy, whether
communing or not.
Antidoron may also be
taken home for use during the week. It is a pious custom for Orthodox
Christians to begin the day, after their morning prayers and before eating, by
consuming a particle of antidoron and drinking agiasmos, or blessed water.
Prosforo(n), the word
for the bread which we offer at the Divine Liturgy, comes from the Greek word
for an offering, prosfora. It is customarily baked in the home with prayers and
taken to Church, where it is offered for the Divine Liturgy. (Incidentally,
women, out of piety, should not prepare prosforon during their monthly
periods.) One may also give oil and wine along with prosforon—other
"offerings"—so as to provide for the oil lamps and the remaining
element of the Eucharist, though this is not mandatory. This can be done for
any Liturgy. It is also customary to offer the names of Orthodox Christian
family members, of friends, and of relatives with the prosforon, so that the
Priest may commemorate them at the Service of Preparation (Proskomide).
***
My brother and I
visited your monastery. The services were beautiful. But you gave antidoron
[the blessed bread distributed at the end of the Divine Liturgy —Editor] to my
brother, who, as I told you, is not Orthodox. You also gave him a blessing.
Father [name deleted] said that you cannot give antidoron and blessings to
heretics....Can you help me through this? I trust your views.
Answer: Non-Orthodox
should be called "non-Orthodox" or "heterodox," not
heretics. Gentlemanly behavior and the success of Orthodox missions within a
religiously pluralistic society dictate this.
Your Priest is
correct in his opinion that antidoron should not be given to non-Orthodox. It
represents the Holy Gifts. (Thus the custom—now sadly ignored in most
Churches—of fasting from the midnight before Liturgy, even when not communing.)
So as not to embarrass non-Orthodox visiting our services, we place portions of
an unblessed loaf of bread at one side of the antidoron tray and give these to
non-Orthodox with the customary blessing: "May the blessing of the
Lord...."
With regard to
blessing non-Orthodox, how can we not bless other Christians, or even
non-Christians? Not to do so is to violate the Christian commandment of love.
Moreover, in the Divine Liturgy we pray for all men and women, Orthodox or not,
blessing them and hoping to bring them to the truth of Orthodoxy.
If, in maintaining
fidelity to the true Faith and avoiding the betrayals of ecumenism, we fail to
pray for those in error, then we cannot possibly belong to the Church of
Christ. Love is the most dominant feature of Christ's Church, and in that love
we are brothers even of our enemies.
***
Most Orthodox
Christians are aware that one should keep a strict and complete fast from
midnight before receiving the Holy Mysteries, but one should also receive holy
water and the antidoron (the blessed bread given out at the end of the Liturgy)
fasting. If, as many do, you keep a supply at home, use a little each day to
break your fast, when you have said your morning prayers and before eating
anything else. If you are attending the Divine Liturgy, then keep a fast until
the service is over (as in any case one should) and you receive your antidoron
from the priest. If for some reason, you have eaten when you attend the
Liturgy, then take the antidoron home as a blessing and consume it on another
day, thus showing reverence for the things of God and the blessing which this
bread has received.
***
It is a pious custom
to keep some holy bread and holy water in one's icon corner—to consume,
breaking the night's fast, with one's morning prayers.
“O Lord my God, may
Thy holy gift and Thy Holy Water be unto forgiveness of my sins, unto
enlightenment of my mind, unto strengthening of my spiritual and bodily powers,
unto health of my soul and body, unto vanquishing of my passions and
weaknesses, by Thy boundless merciful kindness, through the prayers of Thy
Most-pure Mother and all Thy Saints. Amen.”
***
Special note on antidoron: We are always growing in our Orthodox understanding of what we are
doing in worship. Before the Divine Liturgy begins there is a service of
preparation, the Proskomide, in which the priest prepares the gifts for the
Eucharist. The prosphora, or loaf of bread from which the Lamb is taken, is
called the Antidoron which means "instead of the gift (Holy
Communion)". According to Tradition this is received after the dismissal
by those who were not prepared for or could not receive Holy Communion. It is a
symbol of the Theotokos from which Christ (the Lamb) came and is reserved for
Orthodox Christians. This Antidoron will be set by the Holy Water near the
solea. It should only be received by Orthodox Christians while fasting. It can
also be taken home for use after morning prayer before eating or drinking
anything. After the dismissal everyone may venerate the Cross and receive the blessed
bread that will be held by Acolytes or others on each side. (From the parish
newsletter of Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church, Yakima, WA)
Examples of the
Pastoral Application of Oikonomia
A few words from the
OCIC Editor: In our times most Priests think it's enough merely to guard the
Chalice, i.e., not to give Holy Communion accidentally to non-Orthodox. For
this and other pastoral reasons, free distribution of Antidoron to all who come
up to venerate the Cross after the Divine Liturgy appears to be common practice
today in most parishes. This is (hopefully) done by oikonomia, out of love and
respect for non-Orthodox visitors, so as not to embarrass them, and with the
hope of attracting them to the Orthodox Faith.
Orthodox Christians
should, however, keep in mind the traditional teaching concerning Antidoron,
treating the blessed bread with respect, partaking only after fasting, etc.
For those who still
think it's wrong freely to give out Antidoron, some examples follow that
support the use of oikonomia. It's also worth keeping in mind that there are
other traditions (e.g., that catechumens should depart at the end of the
Liturgy of the Word, i.e., before the Cherubic Hymn) that one could defend
using copious quotes from the Holy Fathers. Yet I have never heard of a Priest
telling his catechumens to depart. The pastoral reasons why this tradition is
no longer practiced are likely similar to those justifying oikonomia in the
distribution of Antidoron.
Clinging rigidly to
the practice of traditions that do not touch on dogma (e.g., the Baptism of
converts is not in view because the reasons given today for reception by
Chrismation alone touch on dogmatic issues related to ecclesiology, and are
heavily influenced by Ecumenism) can lead one down the path of the Old
Believers, who could not accept (among other things) a change in the way that
Russian Orthodox make the Sign of the Cross. We must endeavor to "hold
fast to the traditions," as St. Paul wrote, but also not to fall into the
error of "super-correctness".
***
I remember when a
novice from Monastery Josanice, as a soldier from Valjevo, came to Monastery
Celije for Liturgy and brought with him a soldier, a Roman Catholic seminarian
from Slovenia, who was in awe of the Orthodox service of Fr. Justin and the
sisters and the people, and so this Serb, the novice, asked the Abba: Should
the Slovenian approach for the antidoron?, and Fr. Justin allowed him and
personally gave it to him, saying: “He’s a child.”
Bishop Atanasije
Jevtic
***
The Patriarchs of
Constantinople Gennadios Scholarios, Dositheos of Jerusalem and the Archbishop
of Ochrid (Bulgaria) Demetrios Chomatianos when referring to those heretics who
come respectfully to attend our Orthodox Worship and ask for our blessing, all recommend
that we do not send them away, but on the contrary even offer them antidoron***
and our holy water. It is characteristic that while Gennadios allows the
Orthodox to bless the heretics, he discourages them from asking for the
blessing and holy water of the heretics! “It is therefore enough, that you do
not ask for their blessing, for they are heterodox, and separate”. Demetrios of
Ochrid feels the need to justify this suggestion of his, saying that “this
custom has the power to gradually attract them fully towards our holy ethos and
dogmas”.
CONVERSATION