Pouring Water into the Chalice

26. Our final point on the Sacrament of the Eucharist concerns the other Oriental and Greek rite in which the priest pours a little warm water into the chalice, after consecration but before communion. Matthaeus Blastares mentions this rite and explains its meaning in his Syntagmate Alphabetico, chap. 8 (Synodicon Graecorum, vol. 2, p. 153), Euthymius, Archbishop of Tyre and Sidon, made some inquiries of Pope Clement XI in 1716. He asked whether the Melchites of Syria and Palestine should be forbidden to add warm water to the Divine Blood after the Consecration. The reply he received contained a clear, careful instruction which the Pope approved and ordered sent to the superiors of missions in the Holy Land, Damascus, Tyre, and Sidon. He ordered the Archbishop not to forbid this practice, since it was an ancient rite which the Apostolic See had examined and allowed to Greek priests even in Rome. The warm water signified the warmth of faith which should burst out in great flames in the face of so mighty a mystery. Pope Benedict XIII gave a similar answer on March 31, 1729, to Cyril, Greek Patriarch of Antioch. This rite is allowed to Italian Greeks in Our constitution 57, Etsi Pastoralis, sect. 6, no. 2.

Subsequently, in the Congregations formed for the careful revision of the books of the Eastern Church, when a long dispute arose as to whether the rite of pouring warm water into the chalice after the consecration should be prohibited, the answer was given on May 1, 1746, that "no changes should be made." It is true that Cardinal Humbertus of Silva Candida had vigorously attacked this rite in earlier times, but it was discovered that his arguments against the rite lacked substance. Still the fathers of the Synod of Zamoscia in 1720 forbade Ruthenian priests to pour warm water into the chalice after the Consecration. "For a serious reason, the synod forbids and abolishes the rite which is tolerated in the Eastern Church of pouring warm water into the chalice after the Consecration before communion" (sect. 4 on the celebration of Mass).