No token? No Communion!

There’s something in Edderton’s modern kirkyard that looks rather like a large Punch and Judy box, and I usually sit guests on the nearby benches before explaining what it was for. It’s a preaching ark, built to put a minister where an outdoor congregation could see and hear him. Once you think about the size of some Highland parishes, you begin to understand why he needed it. The old parish of Durness covered about 800 square miles, taking in Tongue and part of what became Eddrachillis, with mountains and rivers between communities and scarcely any roads to connect them.

Communion gave people a reason to make those difficult journeys and gather in numbers that could take worship out of the church and into the open air. It could be an annual occasion lasting several days, with visiting ministers helping to conduct services and people camping nearby after travelling many miles. The preaching ark raised the minister above the crowd, while horses and carts could bring the tables, benches and other furniture needed for the gathering. Edderton’s surviving collection dates from the nineteenth century, and seeing those objects together makes it easier to picture how much had to be arranged before anybody sat down to hear a sermon.

Getting everybody there still left the question of who should be allowed to take communion. A minister responsible for hundreds of square miles could hardly know how each person in front of him had been behaving, so he relied on local elders who knew their neighbours. They assessed religious knowledge and personal conduct, then issued communion tokens to those considered suitable. These were usually small pieces of lead or pewter, marked with something such as parish initials, a date or a biblical text, which the elders collected as people approached the table for bread and wine. You might have made the journey and heard the preaching, but a place at the communion table depended on receiving that token.

I own two and pass them round among guests, because holding one makes that arrangement feel rather more personal. Somebody once needed a piece of metal like the one in your hand to show that their knowledge and conduct had satisfied the people responsible for judging them. The preaching ark explains how the minister could address a large gathering, but the token takes us back to the smaller community the person had travelled from, where an elder knew them well enough to decide whether they should be there. It gives you something else to consider while sitting on those benches, looking at what first appeared to be a rather peculiar wooden box.

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