The communicants stand back against the edges of the open space, and along both sides of all the aisles possible — the one thing I would add to James’ description is that I’ve always seen them line up by age, so that the elders receive communion first, and the most recent confirmands last. Some of the elders look so frail that you’re sure they won’t be able to hold the full chalice, but their people lived and died for the right to hold the chalice, by God, and they’re gonna do it. And they do look you in the eye, every one of them… I’m tearing up now, just remembering that. Even in the city churches, where the seating is not segregated by gender, I think I remember that they still came up for communion separated by gender.

It’s been almost ten years since I lived in Kolozsvár, but I can still hear the communion hymn in my head as I type this. I’ve preached before about my grace-filled moments while serving communion, and the Transylvanian Unitarian Church is definitely responsible for my willingness to identify as a UU Christian. I wish I had some pictures to share with you of communion there, but it was always such a consuming moment that we never managed to get any.

Let me push my luck — does anyone (ministers, laity, subsets thereof) kneel during any part of the service?

I ask because this ceremonial would not have been — I think — considered strange in Elizabethan England.

Every Lord’s Table I have seen is rectangular but there is no rule there. Communion holdiays are usually packed. It is only four times per year (Easter, Pentecost, Thanksgiving (last Sunday in September) and Christmas with the possibility of one or two other special occasions.

The bread and wine are kept on the table underneath special linens for that purpose. After a prayer the cover is taken off

The men come up first and form a giant circle, around the Lord’s Table and really practically to the door and down the aisle on the men’s side. The women sing the communion hymn while the officiants go down the line. Usually one person takes the platter of bread around and gives a piece to each person one at a time. It has been explained to me that it is very important to make maximal eye contact as each person takes their cube of bread (which the minister or lay president typically cuts from a loaf earlier that morning). Next usually two people come around, one with the chalice full of wine and a handkerchief. Each person grasps the chalice and takes a drink. The minister then wipes the chalice and turns it half around for the next person. An assistant usually follows with a flagon for refilling the chalice. We had another person who would refill the flagon or swap it with a full one. At Christmas he might even discretely refill the flagons from a bottle hidden inside the minister’s pew.

After the last man, there is a prayer and then the men return to their pews and sing the communion hymn for the women as they come up and form a circle.

I would say there are no hard and fast rules about who stands where. If there are extra ministers who are not serving, they return to the minister’s pew. Communicants stand far enough from the table so that you can pass between them and the Lord’s Table when serving though it can be a pretty tight squeeze. The essence is to be in a circle and to take time with each communicant.