A communicant is someone who has been confirmed, which is something done by the bishop. I was told (by a bishop) when questioning why there were so many bishops nowadays when two centuries ago there were half as many (approx), not to mention the assistant bishops we now have, that the Bishop of Lincoln confirmed 30,000 people in one year. I suppose these days that for one diocese to have 1,000 confirmations in a year would be a big deal, but the time spent going around doing these confirmations must have been enormously onerous.
This is all to do with the CofE practice of infant baptisms and means that when the person has reached the age whereby they can say for themselves that they want to be practising members of the church, that they get confirmed in their faith. It requires prior baptism and at most confirmation services, one or more candidates will get baptised as that has not been done before.
I do know that in my own parish 200 years ago, when the congregation numbered 250 or more, communion was only taken by 10% of this number, so clearly there were distinctions in those days and I'd be very interested if anyone can explain the whys and wherefores. I always thought it was because attendance was compulsory at the time, but I may be wrong.
