The Sacrament of the Eucharist Immediately Following Baptism

24. For several centuries the practice prevailed in the Church of giving children the Eucharist after the sacrament of baptism. This practice flourished as a simple rite and custom; it involved no belief that it was necessary for the eternal salvation of the children, as the fathers of Trent wisely remarked (session 21, chap. 4). Among the errors of the Armenians which Pope Benedict XII condemned, the fifty eighth was their declaration that the Eucharist as well as Confirmation must be given to children at baptism to ensure the validity of their baptism and their eternal salvation (Raynaldus, 1341, sect. 66).

For the last four centuries, the Western church has not given the Eucharist to children after baptism. But it must be admitted that the Rituals of the Oriental churches contain a rite of Communion for children after baptism. Assemanus the Younger (Codicis Liturgici), bk. 2, p. 149) gives the ceremony of conferring baptism among the Melchites. On page 309, he quotes the Syrians' baptismal ceremony as it was published by Philoxenus, the Monophysite Bishop of Mabbug, and on p. 306, the ceremony from the ancient Ritual of Severus, Patriarch of Antioch and leader of the Monophysites. He gives also the ceremonies of baptism observed by the Armenians and Copts (bk. 3, p. 95 and 130). All of these ceremonies command that the Eucharist should be given to children after baptism.

St. Thomas says that this practice was still observed by some Greeks in his time (Summa Th. 3, qu. 70, art. to the third). But Arcudius writes that this is the practice of the Greeks although some of them gradually abandoned it on account of the difficulties which arose repeatedly from offering the Eucharist to children at baptism (de Sacramento Eucharistiae, bk. 3, ch. 11.). Canon 7 of the Maronite Synod gathered at Mt. Lebanon on 18 September 1596 under Sergius Patriarch of Antioch and presided over by Fr. Jerome Dandin S.J., Nuncio of Pope Clement VIII, reads as follows: "Since Christ's Holy Communion can hardly be given to children with propriety and due respect for the holy sacrament, all priests should in the future beware of allowing anyone to receive before he attains the use of reason." The fathers of the synod of Zamoscia in 1720 agree with this view (sect. 3, de Eucharistia). And the Synod of Lebanon confirmed it in 1736: "In our old Rituals as well as in the old Roman ordo and in the Greek Euchologies, the minister of Baptism is clearly told to give the sacrament of the Eucharist to infants as soon as they are baptized and confirmed. Still, both from due respect for this most august sacrament and since this is not necessary for the salvation of children and infants, we command that the Eucharist should not be offered to infants when they are baptized, not even under the appearance of wine" (chap. 12, Sanctissimo Eucharistiae Sacramento, no. 13). We made the same provision in Our constitution for Italian Greeks Etsi Pastoralis (Our Bullarium, vol. 1, sect. 2, no. 7).