“Eucharistic Concelebration: Theological, Historical, and Liturgical Aspects” — Guest Article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

New Liturgical Movement is pleased to be able to publish online the following incisive text by Bishop Athanasius Schneider, which also appears in print in the latest issue of Latin Mass magazine. In the first part, His Excellency looks at the historical roots and theological implications of Eucharistic concelebration, while in the second part he makes a concrete proposal for how concelebration might be rarely but appropriately used and how its ceremonial ought to unfold. This rich presentation comes at a critically important time, as concelebration has once again been much in the news.—PAK

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Papal Mass (1832)

Eucharistic Concelebration:
Theological, Historical, and Liturgical Aspects

Bishop Athanasius Schneider

I. The Theological and Historical Aspect

1. The first Holy Mass was celebrated by Our Lord in the cenacle. This Mass did not have the form of a sacramental concelebration because the apostles did not pronounce the words of consecration; only the Lord pronounced them. The apostles participated in the Eucharist, celebrated by the Lord, by sacramentally receiving His Body and His Blood. We could say they “concelebrated” in the first Mass in the form of a non-sacramental concelebration.

2. From the earliest times, the universal Church (both in the East and in the West) conserved faithfully this original form of Eucharistic concelebration with these two characteristics:

1. The main celebrant alone pronounces the words of consecration;
2. The main celebrant is always and exclusively the “high priest,” i.e. the bishop (and in Rome the Pope).

3. In the beginning of the Middles Ages, in the Papal Liturgy in Rome there was a development of the original form by the fact that the concelebrants pronounced the words of consecration together with the Pope (cf. Ordo Romanus III, 8th century).

4. However, down to the present, the most ancient Oriental churches—the non-Catholic Greek Byzantines, the non-Catholic Copts, and non-Catholic Nestorians—have conserved the norm that only the main celebrant pronounces the words of consecration.

5. Until recent times in the universal Church, a priest never presided as the main celebrant of a Eucharistic sacramental concelebration.

6. From the seventeenth century on, the Byzantine Catholic churches introduced an innovation, that is, the form of concelebration among priests without a bishop as the main celebrant. Thereby the concelebration among priests became usual (cf. the article “Le rituel de la concélébration eucharistique” of Aimé Georges Martimort in Ephemerides Liturgicae 77 [1963] 147–168).

7. Such a form of Eucharistic concelebration only among priests was alien to the universal and constant tradition of the Church. Therefore the Roman Church forbade such concelebration among priests (cf. can. 803 of the Code of Canon Law 1917).

8. Only the Catholic Oriental churches adopted the custom that all concelebrants pronounce the words of consecration.

9. Until the Second Vatican Council, in the Latin Church a Eucharistic sacramental concelebration, where all concelebrants pronounce the words of consecration, was practiced only on three occasions:

1. Episcopal consecration: only the main consecrator and the newly consecrated bishops concelebrated.
2. Priestly ordination: only the bishop and the newly ordained priests concelebrated.
3. Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday in the Cathedral of Lyons (France): the bishop concelebrated with six priests.

10. For the Chrism Mass, the Roman Church conserved until the Second Vatican Council however the most ancient form, i.e. the words of consecration pronounced only by the bishop, although twelve priests assisted him clothed with all the vestments required for Mass. With this form, the Roman Church perhaps wished to recount the first Holy Mass on Holy Thursday, where the main celebrant, Jesus the High Priest, alone pronounced the words of consecration while the twelve apostles concelebrated non-sacramentally, since they did not pronounce together with the Lord the words of the sacramental consecration.

11. In the millennial tradition of the Roman Church, sacramental Eucharistic concelebration constituted always an extraordinary solemn act, which occurred on:

1. Ecclesiastically important circumstances, which reflected the hierarchically ordered constitution of the Church, such as in the aforementioned episcopal consecrations and in priestly ordinations;
2. When the bishop celebrated Mass in a most solemn and hierarchically structured form, such as was the case in the Chrism Mass of Lyons, or when the Pope (in the first millenium) celebrated solemnly on the four highest feasts in the year: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ss. Peter and Paul (a custom that ceased in Rome in the high Middles Ages).

P. Villanueva, Blessing of the Chrism on Holy Thursday in the Lateran Basilica (ca. 1900)

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