LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 175

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IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

Knowing What We Seek and Why We Come 1
Questions and Answers concerning the Communing of Infants and Young Children
(Note: This document, together with the document Response to the Request for a Supplement to the 1997 CTCR Opinion: Response to
“Concerns of the South Wisconsin District Circuits 18 and 19 Regarding Infant Communion,” was prepared by the CTCR in response to
a November 9, 2012 request by LCMS President Matthew Harrison for a supplement to the 1997 CTCR opinion Response to “Concerns
of the South Wisconsin District Circuits 18 and 19 Regarding Infant Communion.”)

Introduction
On that night when our Lord was betrayed, almost immediately after He instituted the sacrament
of His Holy Supper, a dispute broke out among the disciples, Saint Luke tells us, a dispute “as to
which of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Luke 22:24). We are ashamed to read that
before the aroma of this gift of the Lord’s own body and blood had faded from the room, the
recipients of this meal should be battling over which of them at the table was the greatest. And
yet, we must admit (also with shame), that no small number of disputes has arisen concerning
this meal and among His disciples in the days since. There is, in fact, and somewhat ironically, a
dispute or at least a very serious conversation going on among the Lord’s disciples today as to
who should be least at the table, least in the sense not of value or worth but of size and age.
Questions of curiosity, interest, concern, and even conscience have been raised not only
throughout the church catholic, but among us, as well, in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
with respect to the sharing in the Lord’s Supper of young children and infants. 2
We in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod cherish this “holy and precious meal” and hunger
for the sustenance and strength it provides us throughout our earthly pilgrimage. 3 Since even
earthly parents know how to give good gifts to their children, none of us would wish to withhold
from our children good gifts from the Lord. Although there is precedent for the practice of
paedocommunion in the history of the church, there have always been questions regarding its
appropriateness raised by Christians as well. There is today renewed interest in this practice on
the part of the church in many places in the world and on the part of some members of the
LCMS.
In the hopes of moving forward in a way that might be pleasing to God and satisfying to His
church, we will here try to guide the dispute into conversation and let the conversation begin by
hearing what our history, our Scriptures, our Confessions, and the needs of those under our care
have to say on this important question.

1
Cf. Luther, Large Catechism, Fifth Part: The Sacrament of the Altar (line 2): “For we do not intend to admit to
the sacrament and administer it to those who do not know what they seek or why they come.” The Book of Concord,
trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 447.
2
In order to make the language a little less cumbersome, from this point forward the term paedocommunion will be
used to refer to the communing of children. The Greek word παῖς (pais, “a child, a youth”) does not carry very
specific age limits with it, so the compound is also somewhat imprecise. Unless qualified by an age, the term will be
used in this paper to refer to the communing of children within the age range stretching from infancy to puberty.
3
Cf. “What about the Sacrament of the Altar” by A. L. Barry. Download available at
http://lcms.org/page.aspx?pid=726&DocID=1088.

Question 1: What historical precedent is there for paedocommunion?
From the information we have available, we must admit that there is no evidence for a
widespread practice of paedocommunion in the earliest centuries of the church’s history
following the time of the Apostles. In documents dating from the middle of the third century of
our era, there begin to appear references to the practice. The churches that belong to the eastern
side of the East-West division of the church have maintained the practice of infant communion
since ancient times. In the West, however, the practice waxed and waned in connection with
various competing understandings of the Supper and the right reception of it. The practice all but
ceased to exist in the western churches around the year 1200, although there continued to be
diversity in the age of first communion. In the early 1400s, the followers of John Hus (though
not Hus himself apparently) introduced the practice of communing infants along with the
practice of giving lay people the cup as well as the host. The Bohemians continued this practice
in Luther’s day.
In his study, Confirmation in the Lutheran Church, Arthur Repp provides a detailed but succinct
summary of the practices among Lutherans in the sixteenth century:
[T]he usual age of the catechumen who partook of his first Communion was quite
early when compared to present-day [1964] practice. Indeed, age was not
regarded an important criterion. The major criterion was the catechumen’s
readiness to partake of the Sacrament. Almost invariably the church orders used
an expression such as “when the children have come of age.” According to
German law, this was at the age 12; according to Roman canon law, it could be
interpreted variously as from 7 to 12.
Where a reference to confirmation age appears, the age is rarely higher than 12.
Thus Hohenlohe, 1577, and Ansbach, 1564, specify 12. The same age is
suggested by Allstedt, 1533, and Lindow in Pomerania, 1571. The former states
that persons over 12 are to be subject to a personal tax, while the latter requires
12-year-olds to contribute to the pastor’s support. In both instances, it may be
assumed that the age was set at 12 because persons were normally confirmed or
communicants by that time. Lower Austria, 1571, sets a range between 10 and 15.
Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, 1556, indicates that the age for first
Communion was to be 12 or over. Braunschweig, 1542, suggests that the former
custom of confirming at 10 or 11 be retained. The Church Order of Sweden,
drawn up by Laurentius Petri (1499-1573) in 1571, states that no child younger
than 9, or 8 at the least, should attend the Lord’s Supper. “For younger children
can have little exact knowledge of the Sacrament.” During the 16th century the
children in Denmark were often admitted to Communion when they were only 6
or 7.

1

2

This seems to be the limit of verifiable generalizations concerning 16th-century
Lutheran confirmation practice. 4

2. There is clearly no evidence that the communion of infants or very young
children was part of the Lutheran reformers’ practice. This second point, while
not decisive for us, is by no means insignificant. In spite of Luther and the
Lutheran reformers’ confidence that a right reception of the Supper was being
restored, 8 and in spite of their knowledge of the practice of paedocommunion
among many Christians in earlier centuries and among the Bohemians in their
own time, and in spite of passages that, according to some, show Luther as
sympathetic to the practice, Luther and the Lutheran reformers did not introduce
this practice among their congregations.

The situation in nineteenth century North America showed little change, except that the
influences of rationalism and pietism encouraged later rather than earlier confirmation and, thus,
first communion. Repp provides the following excerpt from Löhe’s Agenda:
Admission to the examination should not be determined by a specified age. In fact
few will be mature enough before ten or eleven. One should therefore keep in
mind children of this age and older. But this should not eliminate a younger child
whom the pastor or parents regard as sufficiently mature, so that he is not turned
back simply because of his age… Not age but the required ability of 1 Cor. 11:28
to examine oneself is to be decisive in every case. 5
In his Pastoraltheologie, Walther wrote that “the completion of the twelfth year” is the earliest
age (in most cases) at which a child should be confirmed. 6 The first Constitution of the German
Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States included a quite detailed
description of the requirements for confirmation, although no age (minimum or average) was
given. The Constitution did state: “If possible, up to 100 hours are to be used in confirmation
instruction.” 7
Question 2: What should we learn from this?
It is necessary for an informed consideration of these questions that we know our own history
with regard to paedocommunion. Because the evidence is scattered, people have formed widely
differing conclusions based on the evidence. Some have taken even scattered references to the
practice to indicate widespread communion of infants and children throughout many chapters of
the church’s history; others have seen the absence of regular, widespread references to indicate
that the practice was never well established in the West. No doubt, both proponents and
opponents of communing infants and young children today will continue to find support for their
positions in the historical data. There are two points that are important for us to keep in mind:
1. History alone cannot provide for us a decisive argument for or against
paedocommunion. Though we treasure the traditions of our fathers, these
traditions like everything else must come under the scrutiny of the sole norm of
doctrine and practice among us: the sacred Scriptures.

175

Question 3: What guidance do the Scriptures give us as we consider this practice?
Our Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations has looked carefully at Paul’s
instructions concerning communion in 1 Corinthians 11. Looking at the proposed support for
paedocommunion and then carefully examining Paul’s words, the Commission concluded that
infants are not capable of the kind of conscious reflection “on their readiness to receive the
Lord’s body and blood” that Paul’s instructions require. 9 Gregory Lockwood’s discussion of 1
Corinthians 11:27-32 also provides helpful exegetical insight into Scripture’s instructions
concerning the proper reception of the sacrament. 10
As is already apparent, central to the discussion is the understanding of the self-examination
required by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:28. Contemporary exegesis has supported the view that,
although children may at an early age be able to so examine themselves, infants and very young
children have no way to demonstrate that they can complete the kind of self-examination
required by the passage. It would, however, be wrong to limit the discussion to this one phrase
because there are other significant issues raised by this passage, most notably, the idea of
proclaiming the Lord’s death that Paul mentions in verse 26. Notice how Paul connects the idea
of proclamation with that of remembrance in verses 24 and 25. Anthony Thiselton explains that
the combination here of remembering and proclaiming “witnesses to the participant’s selfinvolving appropriation of the cross both for redemption and lifestyle as those who share

4
Arthur C. Repp, Confirmation in the Lutheran Church (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1964), 56-57.
Although it cannot be taken for granted that confirmation age was always identical with the age of first communion,
Repp’s work shows that the norm would have been for the two ages to be the same.
5
Repp, 125-126. Repp provides the following reference to Löhe’s Agenda für christliche Gemeinden des
lutherischen Bekenntnisses: “Found also in the 2d (1859) and the 3d (1884) ed., but dropped in Iowa’s 4th ed.
(1919).” The original German of the concluding sentence reads: “Nicht das Alter, sondern die 1. Cor. 11,28.
geforderte Prüfungsfähigkeit entscheide in allen Fällen.”
6
C. F. W. Walther, Pastoraltheologie, 5th ed. (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1906), 265. Interestingly,
Walther cites Luke 2:41-42 in connection with this age guideline.
7
“Our First Synodical Constitution,” Concordia Historical Institute Quarterly 16:1 (April 1943): 13-14.

8
Cf., for example, the following passage from “The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord” in the
Instructions for the Visitors of Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony (1528) in Luther’s Works, Volume 40: Church
and Ministry II, ed. J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald, and H. T. Lehmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1958), 289:
“Secondly, the people are to be taught that it is right to receive both bread and wine. For now the holy gospel (God
be praised) has been restored and we have clear witness that both elements are to be offered and received. For Christ
has so ordained, as the three evangelists point out, and St. Paul has so done in the early church, as we see in I Cor.
11[:24f.]. No human being may alter such a divine ordinance. We dare not annul a man’s last will, as St. Paul writes
in Galatians [Gal. 3:15]. Much less is God’s own last testament to be changed.”
9
Commission on Theology and Church Relations, Response to “Concerns of South Wisconsin District Circuits 18
and 19 Regarding Infant Communion (April 29, 1997), 13.
10
Gregory J. Lockwood, 1 Corinthians, Concordia Commentary (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2000),
see especially the excursus on pages 407-408. In his discussion of the passage, George Knight provides a careful
outline of the surrounding context of these verses, providing valuable help in applying them to the question of
paedocommuion. See George W. Knight III, “1 Corinthians 11:17-34: The Lord’s Supper: Abuses, Words of
Institution and Warnings and the Inferences and Deductions with respect to Paedocommunion,” pages 75-95 in
Children and the Lord’s Supper, edited by Guy Waters and Ligon Duncan (Ross-shire, Scotland: Mentor, 2011).

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2016 Convention Workbook