Anglican Church bans chalice over fears of swine flu
Friday July 24 2009
THE CHURCH of England has issued an unprecedented order to suspend the "sharing of the chalice" at services of Holy Communion as a precaution against swine flu.
Even when plague gripped Britain in the 17th Century, churches were not asked to take such a precaution, although the Sacrament Act of 1547 had made provision for the manner in which Communion was distributed.
The archbishops of Canterbury and York have written to bishops asking them to spread the order to clergy at 16,000 parish churches in England.
Symbolic
Usually Anglicans receive bread, or hosts, and consecrated wine at the altar rail during Sunday services, symbolic of the body and blood of Christ.
Where worshippers strongly wish to continue receiving wine, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu are advising priests to dip the host in the wine before placing it in the hands of the communicant. Priests are being told to ensure their hands are sterilised with an alcohol-based gel before handling the chalice or hosts.
The letter follows advice from the UK department of health not to share "common vessels" for food or drink.
Meanwhile, a new website to diagnose people with swine flu is experiencing "unprecedented demand", the British government said last night.
The site, which launched at 3pm yesterday, was receiving 2,600 hits per second at around 5pm.
The website crashed within minutes of launching but appeared to be running normally a short time later. However, the government admitted it was having to increase capacity due to demand.
It comes after new figures showed there were an estimated 100,000 new cases of swine flu last week -- around double the 55,000 in the previous week.
A health department spokeswoman said the website for the National Pandemic Flu Service "has not crashed" but was "experiencing unprecedented demand with 2,600 hits per second, equivalent to 9.3 million hits per hour". (© The Times, London)
- Ruth Gledhill in London
