Unconsecrated communion bread is called "the hosts" and unconsecrated communion wine is called "wine" or "communion wine". After consecration the wine is called "the precious blood" and the hosts are called "the body of Christ". Unused yet consecrated "hosts" are kept in the tabernacle and are consumed at the next mass.
Indeed. In East Orthodoxy before consecration the bread, once selected, is blessed, which can happen twice: at the Vespers the night before if there is a Litiya service, where the faithful bake Eucharistic bread, called
prosphora, and the Priest selects five loaves (or seven in the Russian Old Rite), from which one will be consecrated, and the rest are blessed as antidoron (the blessed bread distributed to everyone after the liturgy in all Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches and the Church of the East, for sustenance on the journey home, back from when people had to walk, sometimes a great distance, to come to church; now it is a sacramental, like Holy Water, which we also do, but we do not have fonts at the entrances to the church, and also brushes are used in the Byzantine Rite to splash the people with it, rather than an
aspergilium, whereas Coptic priests use their hands, and Syriac priests use soaked walnut leaves), and then at the liturgy of Preparation the selected piece of bread is further divided, with the main portion that will be consecrated and broken during the Anaphora (Eucharistic Prayer) being called the Lamb, rather than the host. The Byzantine Liturgy of
Preparation, also known as the
Prothesis or
Proskomide, is quite elaborate, with the Armenian and West Syriac services being simpler, and the Coptic Orthodox preparation even more simple, but in all of them, one loaf of Prosphora is selected, and implements for cutting it such as the liturgical spear are used. Together with the blessed wine, which is put in a covered chalice, which will be uncovered during the Anaphora, the
prosphora is put on a
diskos (which means disk) which is like a paten, except it has a stem and base, like the chalice, with the celebrant carrying them by the stem, and during the Syriac Orthodox anaphora and those of several other Eastern liturgical rites, they are elevated, with the arms of the celebrating presbyer or bishop crossed, while he faces the altar, and this elevation is made possible by the stems of both the chalice and the
diskos; it would be impossible with the paten used in Western churches.
Before the consecration, the Lamb and the blessed wine are referred to as the Offerings, and in the Byzantine Rite (Greek Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches) during the Great Entrance, the Offerings are brought from the Table of Preparations, out the Deacon’s Door, and through the Royal Doors*
*Actually the doors in the center of the Iconostasis are technically called the Holy Doors, with the doors opposite leading to the Narthex called the Royal Doors, but so many people call them the Royal Doors and do not use any special terminology for doors to the Narthex, particularly since the old regulations that limited use of the Royal Doors to the Czars of Bulgaria and Russia and the Voivoides and Kings of Romania and Greece are no longer in effect; due to a perverse set of circumstances there are no countries with an Orthodox monarchy, although Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, memory eternal, was baptized Orthodox and his mother became an Orthodox nun, and King Charles donated large sums of money to Mount Athos to pay for restoration works, and Orthodox icons have been installed in Royal Peculiars such as Westminster Abbey (a Royal Peculiar is a church under the personal control of the Sovereign and not the usual diocesan structure, and they also include the Chapel Royal, the King’s Chapel of the Savoy, the Temple Church at the heart of two of the Inns of Court in the square mile of the City of London where the barristers work, and in many cases, live, and the churches inside the Tower of London complex, and a few other churches throughout the country. They do not include the Presbyterian chapel at Balmoral where the royal family worships while vacationing in Scotland, which is under the control of the Church of Scotland, which in turn is the established church of Scotland, although recently some of its official status was stripped away, but the monarch is not considered its Supreme Governor, unlike the Church of England; all of this of course is a relic of the slightly awkward beginnings of the C of E but my appreciation for Anglicanism began when I realized what it had become, and also when I noticed that it accounted for a disproportionate number of converts to Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and furthermore ,that the Continuing Anglican and traditional High Church Anglican parishes are extremely close to Orthodoxy and also to Roman Catholicism; with Anglicans having sought repeatedly to enter into communion with the Orthodox, while also preserving many features of the traditional Roman Rite and also the four traditional Uses of England (of Sarum, York, Hereford and Durham, with the Sarum Rite being especially well preserved), for example, celebration ad orientem rather than versus populum. Indeed one of the best Traditional Latin Masses in the City of London can be found at the Anglican parish of St. Magnus the Martyr located in the City of London near St. Paul’s and the Thames.
