PYX

A container for the Blessed Sacrament. It was at first a small wooden box, usually round and with a lid. During the Middle Ages it was sometimes of metal or of ivory; when containing the Blessed Sacrament it was kept at first in people's houses, later in the sacristy, then on the altar, then suspended above the altar, sometimes inside a metal dove. When ambries, sacrament-houses, and tabernacles came into use for reserving the Blessed Sacrament, the pyx underwent a twofold development; by enlargement and the acquisition of a foot it developed into the ciborium by diminution in size and the addition of a hinged lid it became the small vessel now used for carrying a few consecrated hosts to the sick. Nowadays this is the meaning usually given to the word "pyx," though the name is used also for a similar vessel, a metal box that contains, inside the tabernacle, the large Host used for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Bibliography: j. braun, Das christliche Altargerät in seinem Sein und in seiner Entwicklung (Munich 1932). c. rohault de fleury, La Messe, 8 v. (Paris 1883–89) v.5.

[c. w. howell/eds.]

pyx / piks/ • n. 1. Christian Church the container in which the consecrated bread of the Eucharist is kept.2. (in the UK) a box at the Royal Mint in which specimen gold and silver coins are deposited to be tested annually at thetrial of the pyx.

pyx in the Christian Church, the container in which the consecrated bread of the Eucharist is kept.
In the UK, a pyx is also a box at the Royal Mint in which specimen gold and silver coins are deposited to be tested annually at the trial of the pyx by members of the Goldsmiths' Company.

pyx, pyxis. Box, casket, shrine or tabernacle to hold the consecrated Host in a church.

Bibliography

Duffy (1992)

Pyx (Gk.). A box used for holding the reserved sacrament, and specifically a small silver box used for carrying the sacrament to the sick, when the pyx is wrapped in a small corporal (linen cloth) and carried in a pyx-bag around the priest's neck.