THE EUCHARIST
The Eucharist or Divine Liturgy is the central mystery of the Church. It is at once the source and the summit of her life. In it, the Church is continuously changed from a human community into the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and the People of God. The Eucharist, according to St. Nicholas Cabasilas, is the final and greatest of the mysteries "since it is not possible to go beyond it or add anything to it. After the Eucharist there is nowhere further to go. There all must stand, and try to examine the means by which we may preserve the treasure to the end. For in it we obtain God Himself, and God is united with us in the most perfect union."
Every sacred mystery makes its partakers into members of Christ. But the Eucharist effects this most perfectly:
"By dispensation of His grace, He [Christ] disseminates Himself in every believer through that flesh whose substance comes from bread and wine, blending Himself with the bodies of believers, to secure that, by this union with the Immortal, man too may be a sharer in incorruption" (N. Cabasilas).
A Continuous Pentecost.
Each Divine Liturgy is a continuation of the mystery of Pentecost. It is the renewal and the confirmation of the coming of the Holy Spirit who is ever present in the Church. In a prayer of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, the following is found: "Make us worth to find grace in Your presence so that our sacrifice may be pleasing to You and that Your good and gracious Spirit may abide with us and with the gifts here presented and with all Your people." The worshipping community prays earnestly that it may continue to be Spirit-bearing ("send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented") and that the consecrated gifts may become a communion of the Holy Spirit.
The Messianic Banquet.
In the present age, between the two comings of Jesus Christ our Lord, the Divine Liturgy is always the Messianic banquet, the meal of the kingdom, the time and place in which the heavenly joins and mingles with the earthly. The Eucharist initiates humankind, nature, and time into the mystery of the uncreated Trinity. The Divine Liturgy is not simply a sacred drama or a mere representation of past events. It constitutes the very presence of God's embracing love, which purifies, enlightens, perfects, and deifies (2 Peter 1:4) all "those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. 19:9), i.e., all who through Baptism and Chrismation have been incorporated into the Church and have become Christ-bearers and Spirit-bearers.
In the Divine Liturgy we do not commemorate one or another isolated event of sacred history. We celebrate, in joy and thanksgiving, the whole mystery of the divine economy from creation to incarnation, especially "the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the enthronement at the right hand of the Father and the second glorious coming." Thus, in experiencing the reigning Christ in the Divine Liturgy, the past, present, and future of the history of salvation are lived as one reality in the mystery of the Kingdom of God.
Partakers of Divine Nature.
The Eucharist "is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father in His graciousness raised from the dead" (St. Ignatios of Antioch). In it we are offered Christ's deified flesh, to which we are joined, in order to partake of divine life without confusion or division. In the Eucharist, Christ acts to make us His own Body:
"The Bread of Life Himself changes him who feeds on Him and transforms and assimilates him into Himself" (St. Nicholas Cabasilas).
Thus, eternity penetrates our finitude. Men, women and children are invited to share in the trinitarian life of God:
"... by this flesh [of Christ in the Eucharist] our community is raised to heaven; that is where this Bread truly dwells; and we enter into the Holy of Holies by the pure offering of the Body of Christ" (St. Gregory Palamas).
The life of the Trinity flows and dwells in us through "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 13:14). We become God-bearers.
The Local Church.
The mystery of the Church as the Body of Christ is fully realized in the Divine Liturgy, for the Eucharist is Christ crucified and risen, in his personal presence. Every local Church, living in full the sacramental life, is the:
"... miracle of the new life in Christ lived in community and is built upon and around the Table of the Lord. Whenever and wherever the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, in the context of doctinal unity and canonical norms, the local Church possesses the marks of doctinal unity and canonical norms, the local Church possesses the marks of the true Church of God: unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. These marks cannot belong to any human gathering; they are the eschatological signs given to a community through the Spirit of God" (John Meyendorff).
The Eucharist unites the members of the Church, both Christ and to one another: "because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread: (1 Cor. 10:17). Sharing in the life of Christ and revivified by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Church becomes an epiphany of divine love. "If union is in truth with Christ and with one another, we are assuredly also united voluntarily with all those who partake with us" (St. John of Damascus).
The Term "Divine Liturgy".
The divine Liturgy is the sacred rite by which the Orthodox Church celebrates the mystery of the Eucharist. This title for the Eucharist is derived from two Greek words,
theia and
leitourgia. The word
theia means "pertaining to God," hence divine. The term
leitourgia comes from two words;
leitos (people) and
ergon (work), hence "the work of the people" or "a public service, act or function." The word
leitourgia was used in Greek antiquity to describe those services and acts which were performed for the benefit and common interest of all, including acts of worship. It was in this latter religious sense that the word found its way into the vocabulary of Scripture and the Church. In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament the word was applied to the Temple services and the functions of the priests. In the New Testament, where the word appears infrequently, it describes the saving work of Christ (Heb. 8:6) and Christian worship (Acts 13:21). In the Apostolic Fathers and later tradition the word was applied to worship. By the fourth century, the word
leitourgia, together with adjective
theia (i.e., Divine Liturgy) had become the technical term for the mystery of the Eucharist. The word Eucharist in turn means thanksgiving. It takes its name from the great prayer of consecration (
Anaphora) pronounced by the celebrant of the Divine Liturgy.
The Origins of the Divine Liturgy.
The Divine Liturgy is composed of two parts, the first of which is referred to as the
Synaxis or
Proanaphora (the Liturgy of the Word, or the Liturgy of the Catechumens), and the second as the Eucharist (the offering, the Liturgy of the Mystery (Sacrament) or the Liturgy of the Faithful). The
synaxis or
Proanaphora, in its basic, classical shape, is a christianized version of the synagogue service. The Eucharist is derived from the words and actions of the Lord at the Last (Mystical) Supper.
The connection of the Divine Liturgy to the prayer service of the synagogue and to a Jewish household or fraternal ritual meal must be understood against the backdrop of the nascent Christian community. The Lord and his apostles and the first christians were Jews. It is clear that the Church will be characterized forever by its Semetic origins. It is equally clear that the Church has close ineradicable connections with Hellenism. The Church was born in Jerusalem, but grew up in the Hellenistic world. Her liturgy, art and theology are radiants with the imperishable traces of this double experience.
"It is true that the Christian liturgy, and the Eucharist especially, is one of the most original creations of Christianity. But however original it is, it is not a sort of an ex nihilo creation. To think so is to condemn ourselves to a minimal understanding of it" (Louis Bouyer).
The Eucharist itself was instituted by Christ at the supper on Holy Thursday to perpetuate the remembrance (
anamnesis) of his redemptive work and to establish a continuous intimate communion (
koinonia) between himself and those who believe in Him. The actions and words of the Lord concerning the bread and wine formed the basis for the Eucharist, the chief recurrent liturgical rite of the Church. The nucleus of every eucharistic rite consists in four actions: the offering and the placing of bread and wine on the holy Table; the anaphora or great eucharistic prayer, which includes the words of institution and the invocation of the Holy Spirit to change the gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ; the breaking of the consecrated Bread (i.e., the fraction); and the communion of the consecrated elements by the people of God.
At first the Eucharist was celebrated within the context of an evening community meal, referred to as the agape or love feast. By the end of the first or the beginning of the second century the celebration of the Eucharist was separated from the community meal and transposed to the early morning hours.
continued