communion

is a transliterated form of the Greek word , which refers to concepts such as fellowship, joint participation, partnership, the share which one has in anything, a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution. In the Politics of Aristotle it is used to mean a community of any size from a single family to a polis. As a polis, it is the Greek for republic or commonwealth. In later Christianity it identifies the idealized state of fellowship and unity that should exist within the Christian church, the Body of Christ. This usage may have been borrowed from the early Epicureans—as it is used by Epicurus' Principal Doctrines 37–38. The term communion, derived from Latin communio ('sharing in common'), is related. The term "Holy Communion" normally refers to the Christian rite also called the Eucharist. New Testament The essential meaning of the embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. can therefore refer in some contexts to a jointly contributed gift. The word appears 19 times in most editions of the Greek New Testament. In the New American Standard Bible, it is translated "fellowship" twelve times, "sharing" three times, and "participation" and "contribution" twice each. appears once in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint, in Leviticus 6:2