In 1095 the Council of Clermont decreed that all should communicate in both kinds, unless for some reason it should be otherwise.  It was first laid down by the Council of Constance in 1415 that communion in the bread only by lay‑people was sufficient, on the ground that the substance of each Element was included in the other.  At the same time it was conceded that the practice was an innovation, and without authority in Scripture or Primitive practice: ‘Although Christ instituted this Sacrament in both kinds, and the faithful in the primitive Church received in both kinds; yet the contrary practice being reasonably brought in to avoid some danger and scandal, they appoint the custom to continue of consecrating in both kinds, and of giving to the laity only in one kind, since Christ was entire and truly contained under each kind’ (Session xiii).  In 1562 the Council of Trent confirmed this doctrine of concomitance – ‘that Christ, whole and entire, the fountain and author of all graces, is received under the one species of bread’, and followed the Council of Constance in withholding the Chalice from the laity.  This Article was composed in reply by Archbishop Parker in 1563.  The reasons given by the Council were: ‘The risk of spilling the precious Blood; the difficulties of reserving Communion under the species of wine; the dread of drinking from a chalice touched by infected lips; the cost of obtaining wine for thousands of communicants’.  But such reasons of expediency hardly justify the abandonment of a principle established from Apostolic times.  Roman apologists defend their denial of the Chalice to anyone save the Celebrant^[1] by citing the Revised Version of 1 Corinthians 11:27: ‘Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’.  But the context makes it clear that no special significance is to be attached to the word ‘or’ for each recipient is expected to ‘eat this bread and drink this cup’.^[2]  This was clearly the intention of our Lord when He said ‘Drink ye all of  it,’^[3] and according to St. Mark ‘they all drank of it’.^[4]  Even if only the Apostles were present, and they are all regarded as being Priests, the Roman practice is still without support because in the Mass the Celebrant alone partakes of both kinds; the other clergy present are ranked with the laity and only receive the consecrated Bread. St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:27‑29 refer to the members of the Corinthian Church in general, as do those of 10:16, 21: ‘ye cannot drink the cup or the Lord, and the cup of devils’.  The testimony of early Church authors is to the same effect. St. Ignatius writes to the Christians in Philadelphia: ‘Be ye careful to observe one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and one cup into union in His blood)’.^[5]  Similarly, Justin Martyr relates that ‘the deacons gave to each one present to receive of the bread, over which thanks had been offered, and of wine mixed with water’.^[6]

While we acknowledge that the Church has ‘power to decree Rites and Ceremonies’,^[7] she has no right to authorize anything that is ‘contrary to God’s Word written’, and therefore no right to deny the Chalice to the laity.  Our Lord at the institution of the Sacrament linked the Cup with the shedding of His blood,^[8] and this reference is preserved in the Anglican Words of Administration, but is lost if the Chalice is denied to the laity.  Earlier in the 5th century Pope Leo ordered that certain Manichaeans should be excommunicated for refusing to drink the Cup; at that period its non‑reception was regarded as heretical!  Pope Paschall II in 1118 also condemned the practice of communicating in one Kind.  For the first six centuries the Bread and the Chalice were administered separately to all the Faithful, and it is a serious charge against the Church of Rome that by a precaution inspired by the erroneous doctrine of Transubstantiation she had mutilated the ordinance of Christ and contravened early Church practice.