HOLY COMMUNION/EUCHARIST IN TIMES OF COVID-19: CATHOLIC AND LUTHERAN PERSPECTIVES – A DIALOGUE

Abstract

The goal of the present research, bibliographical and documentary, is to analyse how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the live of the churches, focussing on the celebration of the sacrament of Holy Communion/Eucharist, and how Catholic and Lutheran churches have sought to react to the given situation. In the Catholic case, masses are celebrated in the presence of a reduced number of persons and transmitted online. The Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil – IECLB, for its part, has preferred to discourage the celebration of Holy Communion for the time being, which has resulted in a kind of already extended “Eucharistic fasting”. Either solution has its advantages and disadvantages and its practical and doctrinal reasons to be in place. Analysing the different attitudes of the two aforementioned churches in relation to Eucharistic celebrations during the pandemic, the article explores new modalities that could be discovered for the celebration of Holy Communion/Eucharist in this context, as well as their respective theological implications.