By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Representatives of Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches offered the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist reflections from their traditions and expressed sadness that Christians are divided at the altar.

According to published summaries of the Oct. 11 synod talks and a Vatican briefing on their content, the strongest challenge to Catholic Church restrictions on eucharistic sharing came from the Lutheran and Anglican bishops invited by Pope Benedict XVI to the Oct. 2-23 synod.

Retired Lutheran Bishop Per Lonning of Norway told the synod that a young Catholic priest had invited him to receive Communion during a 1971 Mass in Belgium, but he replied, "As a guest, I will certainly do nothing in conflict with the rules of my host."

However, he said, over the next 30 years at Catholic Masses in various parts of the world he has witnessed eucharistic sharing and was even invited by a Catholic archbishop to receive Communion.

Bishop Lonning said the synod working document's reaffirmations that eucharistic sharing is not permissible in most circumstances "make me rather sad, especially because I know they will make many of my Catholic friends sad."

He told the bishops that conclusions about eucharistic sharing are presented and "championed" in the document "with no reference to what has been and is going on in your own church."

"If we really believe the presence of Christ the savior to be linked with the wonder of holy Communion," the bishop asked, "how can we remain with our divided altars and not hear the harsh question (of St. Paul to the Corinthians) as directed to us: 'Has Christ been divided?'"

The "fraternal delegates" had coffee early in the day with Pope Benedict, who was not present at the synod for their speeches. Before they spoke, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, talked to the synod about unity, ecumenism and eucharistic sharing.

"To promote unity with our separated brothers," the cardinal said, "we ourselves must not be divided. And the way to ensure we are not divided is fidelity to the current discipline of the church."

Cardinal Sodano quoted Pope John Paul II's encyclical on the Eucharist, which said the Eucharist generally is to be shared only by those who fully profess the same faith and share Catholic beliefs about the sacraments.

At the same time, Cardinal Sodano said, the pope and the Vatican have recognized that in special situations a Catholic bishop can give permission for an individual non-Catholic who recognizes the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist to receive Communion.

Anglican Bishop John Hind of Chichester, England, encouraged the synod to be more specific about when it is appropriate to share holy Communion.

In his published summary -- but not in his actual words to the synod -- he had asked why it was that the future Pope Benedict gave Communion to Brother Roger Schutz, the Swiss Reformed founder of the ecumenical Taize community, at Pope John Paul's funeral in April.

In July, the Vatican issued a statement saying church policy had not changed, but when Brother Roger was pushed up to the pope in a wheelchair, it did not seem appropriate to deny him Communion.

Bishop Hind told the synod, "The Eucharist is not primarily a matter of rite or ceremonial, but a living of new life in Christ. If it is to be truly Christ, there must be criteria for mutual recognition."

"In the Eucharist," he said, "it is not our fellowship that is being celebrated, but our reconciliation with God which creates our fellowship."

The delegates from the Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, six other Orthodox churches and two Armenian Apostolic churches also spoke Oct. 11, focusing on how, as for Catholics, the Eucharist is the center of their church life.

Metropolitan John of Pergamon, representing the patriarch of Constantinople, told the synod, "there may still be things that separate our two churches, but we both believe that the Eucharist is the heart of the church."

The Eucharist as a source of strength and unity should help Catholics and Orthodox progress toward full communion, he said, "for it is a pity to hold the same conviction of the importance of the Eucharist but not be able to share it at the same table."

The Russian and Romanian Orthodox delegates told the synod that their churches' insistence on individual confession and a serious fast before receiving Communion have kept alive within their churches an awareness of the absolute gift of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Romanian Orthodox Bishop Marsilianul Siluan, who ministers in Western Europe, told the synod that sadness over not being able to share the Eucharist with other Christians "gives birth to an authentically evangelical suffering that goes hand-in-hand with the desire for unity willed by Christ himself."

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops