Communion veils
Communion veils are small cloths used by Coptic communicants to cover their mouths after receiving the Body of Christ; they are laid aside before receiving the Blood.[^1]
Also known as: Corporals · Communion mats · Communion corporals
Description
Communion veils are small cloths held by communicants to cover their mouths after receiving the Body of Christ. This cloth is called a “corporal,” and its use is described under the heading of liturgical “mats.”12
These mats are square or circular pieces of fabric, white, pink, or blue, with a cross embroidered in the center. The same class of cloth has other liturgical uses, including covering the eucharistic bread and wine and being held in the celebrant’s hands during prayers.3
Use at Communion
The mats are distributed to communicants shortly before Holy Communion. Communicants cover their mouths with them after receiving the Body, but lay them aside before receiving the Blood.1 Understanding the Liturgy specifies that the small veil is held in the right hand.2
Historical account
Understanding the Liturgy connects the practice with the earlier reception of communion in the hand. It traces the veils to wealthy women in fourth-century Rome who, out of reverence, received the Body of Christ in silken cloths adorned with a cross and held in the right hand. It explains the name “corporal” as deriving from the Latin corpus, meaning “body.”4
The source suggests that the custom spread rapidly to Constantinople and Alexandria. It places the Egyptian Church’s transition to administering communion directly into the mouth sometime in the Middle Ages, while noting that holding the corporal in the right hand and raising it to the mouth continued afterward.5
References
Sources
- 1.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 4 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 139)
Mats are distributed to the communicants a short while before administering Holy Communion, so that they can cover their mouths after receiving the Body. But they have to be laid aside before receiving the Blood.
- 2.Understanding the Liturgy — Father Athanasius Iskander (p. 80)
The Corporal: The tradition of holding a small veil in the right hand to cover the mouth after receiving the body of the ord has an interesting history behind it.
- 3.The Coptic Encyclopedia, Volume 4 — Aziz S. Atiya (Editor in Chief) (p. 139)
Mat: Liturgical mats are square or circular pieces of fabric, white, pink, or blue in color, with a cross embroidered in the center. They are used for various purposes: to wrap the Lamb (the Body of Christ) and the cruet of wine (the Blood of Christ) during the offertory prayers at the beginning of the liturgy; to cover the Lamb in the paten, and the wine in the chalice, before both are to be covered with the large prospherein on the altar; to be held by the celebrant priest in both hands while saying the prayers of the liturgy.
- 4.Understanding the Liturgy — Father Athanasius Iskander (p. 81)
It all started in the fourth century, when some rich ladies in Rome, out of reverence to the body of the Lord, made silken veils adorned with the cross and held them in their right hand in order to receive the body of Christ in it. These veils were called “corporals” from the Latin “corpus” which means body.
- 5.Understanding the Liturgy — Father Athanasius Iskander (p. 81)
The custom must have spread rapidly into the East (Constantinopolis and Alexandria.) Sometime in the middle ages, the Church in Egypt started to give communion directly into the mouth of the communicant. In spite of this, the habit of carrying a corporal in the right hand and raising it to the mouth, as if it contained the body of Christ, still survives!
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This article was drafted from the sources listed above with AI assistance and reviewed by an editor before publication.