Priesthood of some plebs

Karant-Nunn again, remarking on the hierarchy among the saints that was embodied in certain Protestant eucharistic practices: “The Lord’s Supper itself was not only administered within this ranks milieu but it also set apart, usually as a small group, those who communed. In Lutheran congregations, which . . . kept auricular confession, the few who gained admission to the Lord’s Table sat in the choir and remained there until the end of the service. They were singled out and visible to their nonparticipatory acquaintances.”

In Reformed churches, the whole congregation communed, but Karant-Nunn suggests that the emphasis was on “the state of one’s soul” and the relation “between that individual and God,” rather than on the corporate character of the action.