  For commutative rings, we introduce the notion of a {\em universal grading},
which can be viewed as the "largest possible grading". While not every
commutative ring (or order) has a universal grading, we prove that every {\em
reduced order} has a universal grading, and this grading is by a {\em finite}
group. Examples of graded orders are provided by group rings of finite abelian
groups over rings of integers in number fields. We generalize known properties
of nilpotents, idempotents, and roots of unity in such group rings to the case
of graded orders; this has applications to cryptography. Lattices play an
important role in this paper; a novel aspect is that our proofs use that the
additive group of any reduced order can in a natural way be equipped with a
lattice structure.
