A A semiotic look at the protestant sacrament of the Holy Supper: a peircean perspective

Abstract

This article discusses the sacrament of Holy Communion based on Peircean Semiotics. Studies involving the religious field use language as an important analysis method, expanding their action based on semiotic studies, similar to Lotman's Semiotics of Culture. In this article, in particular, we seek to "read" the sacrament of the Holy Supper through the lens of Peirce's theory of signs, which, in theory, provides us a map that has the power to reveal aspects of interest to the scholar in the field of religions. For this purpose, we start from the sacrament of the Reformed churches, focusing more on the symbolic character of the Supper, revealed in Peirce's classification of signs as a representation that provokes reactions in the participants, both ministers and members. Armed with this theory, the researcher has the opportunity to clarify each characteristic of the process: space, gestures, materials, singing, prayers, movements, etc. We seek, therefore, to explore this rich vein.