Only proper boozy wine can be used for communion, Church of England decrees

With Dry January well and truly over, the Church of England has taken the opportunity to proclaim that alcohol-free wine can’t be used for holy communion.

The Church’s governing body slapped down proposals for non-alcoholic wine and also gluten-free bread to be allowed during the ritual.

Instead, an Anglican leader insisted communion bread had to come from wheat flour and wine from the fermented juice of grapes.

Holy communion has gone on for millennia, with the bread and wine taken to symbolise the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

One reverend argued thousands of people with a severe allergy to gluten, such as those with coeliac disease, or who do not drink alcohol are being unfairly shut out.

Reverend Canon Alice Kemp called it an ‘injustice of exclusion’, as she asked the Church’s governing body to soften the rules.

‘Both priests and congregants who are unable to consume gluten and/or alcohol are forced to receive in one kind only or may be prohibited from receiving both elements if they are unable to consume both gluten and alcohol,’ she added.

The row has been triggered by the beginning of the Church of England’s General Synod on Monday.

The Synod lasts for five days and brings together Church leaders to make decisions about rules and practices.

While low-wheat communion wafers are available and are allowed for communion, a residue will always remain.

But advocacy group Beyond Coeliac says ‘some people may still get sick’ from the amount present.

Michael Ipgrave, the Bishop of Lichfield and chairman of the Church’s Liturgical Commission, argued any move to substitute wheat flour and wine would overturn two settled positions in the Church of England.

‘First, that bread made with wheat and the fermented juice of the grape are the elements to be consecrated in holy communion,’ said Ipgrave.

‘Second, that receiving holy communion in one kind in a case of necessity is not an ‘exclusion’ but full participation in the sacrament, as often practised in the communion of the sick, or with children.’

Ipgrave reassured churchgoers who do not take wheat bread and alcoholic wine they are still ‘partakes by faith of the body and blood of Christ, and of the benefits he conveys to us by them.’

Members of the congregation can indeed choose to have a blessing instead of communion.

The Church of England has, however, shown flexibility in its historic rituals before.

During the Covid pandemic, they broke with tradition to allowed churches to use individual cups, rather than shared cups, during communion to tackle the risk of infection.

The Catholic Church also insists on wheat flour and alcoholic wine during communion.

However, the Vatican has also approved the use of ‘low gluten’ wafers.

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