This article uses the methods of historical anthropology to look at the evolution of practices associated with the Eucharist in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era. Beglov shows that during the Soviet period the frequency of individual communion increased by 5 – 10 times in comparison with the pre-revolutionary period, when most Orthodox Christians took communion no more than once a year. This evolution can be accounted for by exploring three processes associated with the rise of the USSR: 1) an “emancipation” of the ritual from functions related to state control; 2) the believers’ sense of existential fragility and insecurity under the new Soviet regime, which allowed for the same relaxation of pre-communion requirements that is permissible in the case of possibly imminent death; and 3) the blurring of the boundaries between the more intensive monastic practice and the ordinary lay practice that developed under the old regime.