[The_Reader_David]

Of course, as an Orthodox Christian, I find the notion of communing anyone who is not in complete unity of faith outrageous.

It is amusing, though, one of those East/West ritual differences, that in the East, those who are to receive communion approach the chalice with their arms crossed on their chest, while those who are not Orthodox or are not prepared*, but wish to receive a blessing, approach with arms at their side.

*Preparation for communion properly consists of having confessed and receiving absolution a) at least once in the past year, b) since the commission of any grevious sin and c) since any absence from the synaxis of three or more weeks; keeping the fasts appointed for the previous week; fasting from all food and drink at least from the hour of rising (properly from midnight); abstaining from marital relations from the hour of Vespers the previous evening; some manner of prepartory prayer; and arriving before the Gospel. (The last sounds lax, but I think it arose because in the Great Church of Constantinople, the part of the Litugy before the Gospel was sometime done in procession through the City, and folks would join up when the clergy and faithful passed closest to their home.)

(The Slavs, who commune infrequently, generally fast the week before, confess the night before and attend the 'All Night Vigil' (= Vespers, Compline and Matins done all in a row the evening before), but this is folk piety, or (in the case of the Russian Synod) a local canon, rather than a universal canon.)

[Kolokotronis]

"It is amusing, though, one of those East/West ritual differences, that in the East, those who are to receive communion approach the chalice with their arms crossed on their chest, while those who are not Orthodox or are not prepared*, but wish to receive a blessing, approach with arms at their side."

I think, TRD, you'll find this is a Slavic tradition. In our Greek Orthodox parish, the only people who approach with their arms crossed come out of the Slavic churches. Our tip off of a non-Orthodox is when a stranger doesn't announce his/her name to the priest just before receiving. Never fails!

[ichabod1]

abstaining from marital relations from the hour of Vespers the previous evening;

No relations on Saturday night? I didn't know about that one. Bet that's honored more in the breach.