[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Allow me to correct
a serious mistake in your article on the Czar's Coronation. The Greek Church is most scrupulous in communicating the laity in both kinds, and the only approach it knows to Communion in one kind is that an infant'sfirst communion is made with the species of wine alone. The ritual difference made between clergy and laity is that the former receive the two kinds separately, and that of wine from the chalice ; while the laity receive both together, in a spoon. The Cztir is allowed, on the ground of his sacerdotal anointing, to have a hieratic character, and thus communicates as do the clergy. It was the custom to communicate the Kings of France with the chalice at their coronation, long after it was taken away from the rest of the laity in the Latin Church.—I am, Sir, Sze., RICHARD F. LITTLEDALE.
9 Bed Lion Square, London, WC., June 2nd.
[We have had quite a mass of letters on this subject. It appears from them that the Russian etiquette as to Kings is also the Roman. The Kings of France received the Communion in both kinds till the Revolution, and our own Kings before the
Reformation. The King, in short, is considered consecrated.—En. Spectator.]
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