The answer
“The Archdeacon says: He who is pure, let him approach the mysteries, but he who is not pure, let him not approach lest the divine fire consumes him. He who offended his friend, he who has thoughts of fornication, and he who is drunk and is unstable, let him not approach and let him stay away from Communion. This is how people should prepare themselves for Communion, which is given for healing …”1562
In the Liturgy of St. Basil in the Coptic Church, the priest warns the people before the confession, saying, “The Holies for the holy,” and the people respond by asking the Holy Trinity to sanctify and purify them, saying, “One is the All-Holy Father, One is the All-Holy Son, One the All-Holy Spirit, amen.” Perhaps this is what St. Basil meant when he said, “people should prepare themselves for communion, which is given for healing,” healing a person spiritually through pure repentance. If the believer offends someone else, is overcome by unclean thoughts or whose actions are out of control, he needs the grace of God who is the heavenly physician and is the only one capable of healing, cleansing, and purifying us.
St. Jacob of Sarug says, “The Holies proceed forth from God to the holy. Therefore, the priest repeats, ‘Let the holies come down and dwell in the holy. No one should approach except him who is pure and holy.’”1563
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
1562 Monastery of the Syrians, St. Basil the Great: His Life, Asceticism, and Church Canons (Arabic) (St. Mary’s Monastery (Deir al-Sourian), 2003): pp. 544–545.
1563 St. Jacob of Sarug, see mimrō 42 “On the Partaking of the Holy Mysteries—for the Week of White,” in Homiliae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis, ed., Paul Bedjan (Paris-Leipzig 1905, 2nd ed. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006).