Eucharist wafer

page type::article thing type::food thing type::ceremonial object religion::Catholicism

About
A Eucharist wafer, also known as a "Communion wafer", "a Eucharist" or even "the Eucharist" (as if there were only one of them), is a circular edible cracker used in the Catholic ceremony of the Eucharist.

Catholic churches typically purchase the crackers from mass producers at a few pennies each. Prior to the ceremony, the wafer is ritually blessed (consecrated) by a Catholic priest, at which point the wafer is referred to as a consecrated host. Catholic doctrine makes a number of claims about the nature of crackers subjected to this blessing and how they must be handled; see consecrated host.