a. [ad. L. commūnicātōri-us, f. commūnicātor: see -ORY.] Tending to the communication or imparting of anything. † Communicatory letters (Eccl. Hist.): letters recommending to the communion of distant churches, or by which ancient churches communicated with each other.
1646. S. Bolton, Arraignm. Err., 294. They writ letters to the churches, which were called literæ communicatoriæ, or Communicatory letters.
1677. Baxter, Lett., in Answ. Dodwell, 102. None should be received … into the Communion of another Church, without due notice of his aptitude … by the Certificates of the Church whence he came, called Communicatory Letters.
1681–6. J. Scott, Chr. Life (1747), III. 298. In the Primitive Churches there were … communicatory Letters, by which the holy Bishops gave an account to each other of the State and Condition of their respective Churches.
1718. Hickes & Nelson, J. Kettlewell, App. 9. He was neither to receive any to Communion on the communicatory Letters of Schismaticks nor to give communicatory Letters to them.
1826. G. S. Faber, Diffic. Rom. (1853), 231. The Patriarch elect did … write letters communicatory to the Patriarch of Rome.
