Holy Communion
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50 free Holy Communion trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Holy Communion is the oldest ritual meal in Christianity and still its most widely shared act of worship. Catholics call it the Eucharist or the Mass, Orthodox Christians have their own name for it, and many Protestants know it as the Lord's Supper. Behind the bread and the wine sit two thousand years of stories, arguments, art and odd facts. This quiz covers the Last Supper in the Gospels, the words and gestures of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the vessels and furnishings a church uses, and the ways different denominations celebrate. There are questions on first communions, saints, reformers and painters, plus a few surprises from well outside church walls. It is written for churchgoers, first communion and confirmation classes, families and quiz hosts who want accurate questions. The opening rounds are gentle enough for children preparing for their first communion, while later rounds reward anyone who knows the liturgy well. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which astronaut privately took Communion on the Moon in 1969, using a kit from his Presbyterian pastor?
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin, a church elder, made bread and wine the first food and drink ever consumed on the Moon. It was also the first religious ceremony held there.
Q 02Which fruit juice brand began in 1869 when a Methodist dentist made unfermented wine for Communion?
Welch's
Welch's began as a grape juice pasteurised to stop it turning alcoholic, because its maker's church opposed intoxicating drink of any kind. His son Charles helped found the company.
Q 03Which conjuror's phrase may have begun as a parody of the Latin words of consecration in the Catholic Mass?
Hocus pocus
Hocus pocus, on one old theory, mocks the Latin for 'this is my body', spoken by the priest over the bread. An Anglican archbishop proposed the link in 1694, though the phrase's true origin is uncertain.
Q 04Leonardo da Vinci's mural The Last Supper covers a wall of a convent dining hall in which Italian city?
Milan
Milan's convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie has held the mural since Leonardo painted it in the 1490s. The work was commissioned by his patron Ludovico Sforza, the city's duke.
Q 05Three of the four Gospels describe the Last Supper as a meal for which Jewish festival?
Passover
Passover is why Roman Catholic Communion bread is unleavened, copying the flat bread of the Jewish feast. Eastern Orthodox churches use a risen loaf instead.
Q 06Which Christian denomination, like the Quakers, practises neither Communion nor baptism in its worship?
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army dropped both rites because its founders, William and Catherine Booth, feared Christians were leaning on outward signs rather than the grace behind them.
Q 07Which bird, once thought to feed its chicks its own blood, became a medieval symbol of the Eucharist?
Pelican
Pelican mothers, medieval bestiaries claimed, wounded their own breasts to feed or revive their young. The image, known as a pelican in her piety, still turns up in church carvings and heraldry.
Q 08In Arthurian legend, which relic sought by the Knights of the Round Table came to be linked with the Last Supper?
The Holy Grail
The Holy Grail got that identity from the poet Robert de Boron, who had Joseph of Arimathea catch Christ's blood in it. In the first Grail romance, from about 1190, the object was left unexplained.
Q 09The word Eucharist comes from the Greek eucharistia, a noun with which everyday meaning?
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is the root sense because Jesus gave thanks over the bread and cup at the Last Supper. Within about a century the Greek word for that act had become the name of the whole rite.
Q 10Eastern Orthodox priests usually give Communion to laypeople, bread and wine together, using which utensil?
A spoon
A spoon lets worshippers receive bread soaked in wine without touching either, and it also serves infants. Tradition says it should be made of gold, or at least gold-plated.
Q 11Which disciple, paid thirty pieces of silver, is named as the betrayer of Jesus during the Last Supper?
Judas Iscariot
Judas Iscariot is singled out as the traitor during the meal itself in two of the four Gospels. Leonardo da Vinci reportedly struggled to find a villainous enough face for him in his famous mural.
Q 12Which day in the Christian calendar, named from the Latin for 'commandment', commemorates the Last Supper?
Maundy Thursday
Maundy Thursday takes its name from mandatum, the first word of Jesus's instruction to love one another. In Britain the monarch marks the day by handing out specially minted coins.
Q 13Under Catholic rules, children must receive which sacrament for the first time before their First Communion?
Q 21Which of the two main parts of a Catholic Mass centres on Bible readings and precedes the Eucharistic one?
Liturgy of the Word
Liturgy of the Word is the first half, building up to the Gospel reading and ending with the Prayer of the Faithful. Only then are bread and wine brought forward.
Q 22Which part of the Mass sees bread and wine carried forward in procession, often while a collection is taken?
Offertory
Offertory gifts can include offerings for the poor as well as the bread and wine. Catholics also call this opening of the Liturgy of the Eucharist the Preparation of the Gifts.
Q 23Which hymn within the Eucharistic Prayer borrows the cry of the angels in the prophet Isaiah's vision?
Sanctus
Confession
Confession, formally the sacrament of penance, has to come first under Catholic rules. Eastern Orthodox churches differ, giving the Eucharist even to infants.
Q 14Which church furnishing, often holding a saint's relics, is where a Catholic priest consecrates bread and wine?
The altar
The altar is greeted with a kiss by the priest as Mass begins. In the Roman catacombs, the Eucharist could be celebrated on a stone slab laid over a martyr's grave.
Q 15When a Catholic minister offers the host with the words 'The Body of Christ', what does the receiver reply?
Amen
Amen is a Hebrew word usually rendered 'so be it', which makes the one-word reply a statement of belief. The same answer is given when the cup is offered.
Q 16At a Catholic Mass, the Communion Rite opens with the congregation saying or singing which text?
The Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer earns its place partly through its plea for daily bread, which some early Christian writers read as a reference to the Eucharist.
Q 17Which stemmed cup, often made of gold or silver, holds the wine at a Catholic Mass or Anglican Communion?
Chalice
Chalice comes from calix, the everyday Latin word for a cup. Church examples have outlasted household silver because secular cups were usually melted down when fashions changed.
Q 18Which Catholic doctrine, affirmed by a council in 1215, says bread and wine truly become Christ's body and blood?
Transubstantiation
Transubstantiation holds that the whole substance changes while the look and taste of bread and wine stay exactly as they were. The Fourth Lateran Council used the term in 1215, though theologians had coined it over a century earlier.
Q 19When Jesus called himself the Bread of Life, he was comparing himself with which food from the Exodus story?
Manna
Manna fed the Israelites in the desert, lying on the ground each morning like frost. Jesus told his listeners that he, unlike it, was a bread from heaven that gives lasting life.
Q 20In John's Gospel, which act does Jesus perform at the Last Supper in place of blessing bread and wine?
Washing his disciples' feet
Washing his disciples' feet was so lowly a task that Peter at first objects to Jesus doing it. Many churches repeat the gesture every Holy Week.
Sanctus is Latin for 'holy', the word the angels call out three times in Isaiah. In the United States and some other countries, worshippers kneel as soon as it ends.
Q 24Which chant is sung at a Catholic Mass while the priest breaks the consecrated host before Communion?
Agnus Dei
Agnus Dei means Lamb of God, and the chant began as a Syrian custom. Pope Sergius I brought it into the Roman Mass around the year 700.
Q 25Which term names the words of praise closing the Eucharistic Prayer, said as the priest lifts bread and cup?
Doxology
Doxology comes from Greek words meaning 'glory' and 'saying'. The one at Mass gives all honour to God the Father through Christ, and it is preferably sung rather than spoken.
Q 26Which locked fixture in a Catholic church holds consecrated hosts kept back after Mass for the sick?
Tabernacle
Tabernacle means 'dwelling place', and a lamp is kept burning in front of it whenever the Eucharist is inside. Until the late 20th century it also had to be draped in a tent-like veil.
Q 27Which small plate, known in Eastern churches as a diskos, holds the bread at a Communion service?
Paten
Paten rules call for gilding on the inside when the plate is made of a metal less precious than gold. In the Byzantine Rite the diskos stands on a foot fixed underneath.
Q 28Which vessel, named from the Latin for 'to show', displays a consecrated host for Eucharistic adoration?
Monstrance
Monstrance blessings are given at the service of Benediction, when the priest lifts the vessel over the people. The blessing is seen as coming from Christ rather than from the priest himself.
Q 29Catholic law says valid Communion bread must be made from which grain, ruling out fully gluten-free hosts?
Wheat
Wheat flour and water are the only ingredients Latin canon law allows. In 1995 a letter from the future Pope Benedict XVI accepted low-gluten hosts as valid.
Q 30The word Mass is generally traced to Latin words the priest speaks at which point in the service?
The dismissal
The dismissal in Latin is 'Ite, missa est', and missa at first meant simply a sending away. The closing formula ended up lending its name to the whole rite.