Holy Communion by non-Episcopalians
Through most of the Episcopal Church’s life, Holy Communion could only be received by people who had been confirmed in the Episcopal Church. In the 1970’s, when the implications of the Ecumenical Movement in the USA began to take hold in local churches, the Episcopal Church passed legislation allowing, under certain circumstances, non-Episcopalians to receive Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church.
The following standards were established by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1979:
(1) The person desiring to receive Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church shall have been baptized with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Sprit, and shall have previously been admitted to the Holy Communion within the Church to which they belong.
(2) That person shall examine their lives, repent of their sins, and be in love and charity with all people, as the Episcopal Church in its catechism says is required of all those who come to the Eucharist.
(3) That person shall approach the Holy Communion as an expression of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ whose sacrifice once upon the cross was sufficient for all humankind.
(4) That person shall find in this Communion the means to strengthen their life within the Christian family through the forgiveness of theirs sins, the strengthening of their union with Christ and one another, and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet.