Annual Lay-Led Eucharist?

In a comment to an earlier post, a Gottesblog reader asks:

The Eucharist was established as part of an annual observance over which the head of the household presided, and in which children took part. About 130 years later it had become an observance over which only an ordained minister was allowed to preside, one which was observed weekly and even more frequently, and from which children, at least in the West, were banned. Could anyone point me to a book which documents how these changes came about?

I can’t find in either the Scriptures or the Apostolic Fathers any evidence of annual lay-led communion, let alone any indication that this practice at some point, suddenly or gradually, became the celebration of the Eucharist every Sunday led by a presbyter/bishop. If this were the original practice, and if it were changed across the universal church - one would think that there would be some evidence of this - especially given how something like the method for determining the date of Easter created such a disruption in the unity of the church. But we see no evidence of debate, no decrees from on high mandating a radical change, nor would a gradual evolution result in the practice of the weekly celebration of the Eucharist led by the clergy become universal without some kind of top-down order.

In the Didache (which most scholars date to the first century AD), we see the Sunday (“Lord’s Day”) worship with the Eucharist (“the breaking of the bread”) as normative:

But every Lord's day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, says the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations. (Didache 14)

In the very next chapter after addressing Christian worship, the author of the Didache addresses the office of the ministry:

Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, (1 Timothy 3:4) and truthful and proven; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. Despise them not therefore, for they are your honoured ones, together with the prophets and teachers. And reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as you have it in the Gospel; (Matthew 18:15-17) but to every one that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear anything from you until he repents. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds so do, as you have it in the Gospel of our Lord. (Didache 15)

The apostolic father Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch - whom Eusebius argues died as a martyr around the year 108 AD, and who according to tradition was a contemporary of Polycarp (and both were disciples of John the Apostle) - writes to the Philadelphians (shortly before his martyrdom):

Therefore, appoint for yourselves bishops and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, and not lovers of money, (1 Timothy 3:4) and truthful and proven; for they also render to you the service of prophets and teachers. Despise them not therefore, for they are your honoured ones, together with the prophets and teachers. And reprove one another, not in anger, but in peace, as you have it in the Gospel; (Matthew 18:15-17) but to every one that acts amiss against another, let no one speak, nor let him hear anything from you until he repents. But your prayers and alms and all your deeds so do, as you have it in the Gospel of our Lord. [I] exhort you to have… one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ; and His blood which was shed for us is one; one loaf also is broken to all [the communicants], and one cup is distributed among them all: there is but one altar for the whole Church, and one bishop, with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow servants." (Philadelphians 4)

St. Ignatius also writes to the Smyrnaeans:

Let that be a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it…. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize, or to offer, or to present sacrifice, or to celebrate a love-feast. (Smyrnaeans 8).

In his First Apology, St. Justin Martyr (100-165 AD), writes concerning the Eucharistic practice of his day - shortly after the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John, circa 155 AD:

And this food is called among us Εὐχαριστία [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, This do in remembrance of Me, (Luke 22:19) this is My body; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, This is My blood; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn. (1 Apology 66)

And far from indicating that the Lord’s Supper was an annual practice, St. Justin speaks of the weekly Sunday worship of Christians at this time:

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succours the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration. (1 Apology 67)

While Justin makes no mention of the “president” being a presbyter, neither does he say that this was done by laymen. Nor do we see this being done in the private home, but at a “gathering together” of people from both city and country. We do see a delegation of authority from the “president” to the “deacons” (who in the Scriptures and the Apostolic Fathers rank below the bishop/presbyters) who distribute the Holy Sacrament to those whom we today style “shut-ins.”

The practice of the Apostolic Fathers indicates continuity with the New Testament church, which gathered on the first day of the week (e.g. Acts 20:17, 1 Cor 16:2) in a liturgical and Eucharistic pattern of worship (e.g. Acts 2:42).

As far as children being “banned,” the practice of infant communion seems to have been more prevalent in the East, with the Latin Rite prohibiting it outright (I have read different years/councils as to when) at some point from the 12th to 15th centuries. Interestingly, there are Eastern Rite churches in full communion with the pope and the Roman Catholic Church that do practice infant communion. So the Roman Catholic Church is divided on this issue. Infant communion is practiced in some Lutheran churches, but in general, it has never been part of our Lutheran tradition, and has proven to be a bitter and contentious issue whenever it has been raised.