Definition of "communion" [com•mun•ion]

• The act or an instance of sharing, as of thoughts or feelings. (noun)
• Religious or spiritual fellowship. (noun)
• A body of Christians with a common religious faith who practice the same rites; a denomination. (noun)
• Ecclesiastical The sacrament of the Eucharist received by a congregation. (noun)
• Ecclesiastical The consecrated elements of the Eucharist. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "By its immense lever of association it alone is able to realize by a productive communion (_communion génératrice_) that great and beautiful social unity conceived by Jaurez, Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier."
• "_time_ when communion is to be received, while they themselves must acknowledge, that they have _abolished communion_ itself as well as"
• "This being done, we proceed unto the communion, if any communicants be to receive the Eucharist; if not, we read the Decalogue, Epistle, and Gospel, with the Nicene Creed (of some in derision called the “dry communion”), and then proceed unto an homily or sermon, which hath a psalm before and after it, and finally unto the baptism of such infants as on every Sabbath day (if occasion so require) are brought unto the churches; and thus is the forenoon bestowed."