The Lord Jesus, at the Last Supper that he held for his disciples before his crucifixion and resurrection, established the mystery of the Eucharist (a Greek word meaning thanksgiving). It is the mystery that the Church fulfills in every Divine Liturgy through the believers receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, in order to unite with him. We will present here some patristic testimonies about the real presence of Christ in the mystery of the Eucharist and about the importance of participating in it to obtain eternal life.
The idea of union is not absent from the Fathers when they discuss the subject of the Eucharist, union with Christ and the union of believers with each other. Saint Ignatius of Antioch (+107) advises the people of Philadelphia (in present-day Turkey): “Try your best to have one Eucharist, because the body of our Lord Jesus Christ is one. One is the cup for the unity of His blood, one is the altar also, and one is the bishop with his priests and deacons.” Hence, the Orthodox Church’s emphasis on not celebrating more than one Mass a day, because a single parish is called to be one and not several separate units. The same saint attacks those who do not believe in the reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. In response to the heretics who said that Christ only took a human body in an apparent way, suffered in an apparent way, and died in an apparent way, he says: “They abstain from communion and from prayer because they do not acknowledge that the Eucharist is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Therefore, not believing in the reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist falls within the category of those who deny the reality of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Based on the reality of the incarnation, Saint Justin Martyr (+167) defends the reality of the Eucharist, saying: “In the same way that the Word of God became incarnate and by which Christ took on body and blood, the holy food becomes, through the prayer that he taught us, the body and blood of this incarnate Christ.”
Saint Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (+202), denounces the position of those who do not believe in the resurrection of the body, asking: “How can they say that the body decays and is corruptible, and that it has no share in life, even though this body has been nourished by the body and blood of the Lord?” He then notes that our faith coincides with the Eucharist and the Eucharist confirms our faith. The Lyonian saint then draws a comparison between the Eucharist and the Resurrection, saying: “Just as the bread that comes from the earth and has been sanctified is no longer ordinary bread, so our bodies, after receiving the Eucharist, are no longer subject to corruption but have the hope of eternity.” Faith in the Resurrection, then, is inseparable from faith in the Eucharist, for the bread and wine that have become the body and blood of the Lord are what make our bodies incorruptible.
For Irenaeus, the Eucharist is the body of Christ, and it is not a dead body, but a living body. Our bodies, as soon as they receive it in the Eucharist, receive life and are connected with immortality. In this, our saint says: “How can we declare that the body nourished by the body and blood of Christ is not worthy of the grace of God, which is eternal life?” Irenaeus continues his explanation, saying: “Just as a grapevine planted in the ground bears fruit in its season, and just as a grain of wheat, falling into the earth and dying, multiplies and grows by the all-encompassing Spirit of God, and just as these things are transformed by the wisdom of God into the service of man, and just as by the word of God they are transformed into the Eucharist, that is, into the body and blood of Christ, so our bodies, which are nourished by it and are placed in the earth and dissolved in it, will rise in their season because the word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father.”
St. Athanasius the Great (+373) is clear when speaking about the Eucharist, saying: “You will see the priests preparing bread and wine and placing them on the altar. As long as the prayers and supplications have not begun, the bread remains just bread and the wine just wine. However, when the prayers and supplications are offered, then the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of the Lord.” St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+386) repeats the same words, saying: “Before the invocation of the Holy Trinity upon them, the bread and wine were just ordinary bread and wine. But as soon as this invocation and supplication were made, the bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of Christ.” St. Cyril is surprised at how some deny the truth of the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, saying: “When Christ declared and said about the bread, ‘This is my body,’ who would have the audacity to doubt after that?” And when he declared and said, “This is my blood,” who else dares to say that this is not his blood?” To prove the truth of what he says, the Jerusalemite saint relies on the miracle of Cana of Galilee when the Lord Christ turned water into wine, “so how can we not believe and trust him when he turns wine into blood?”
Finally, we quote this text by Saint Gregory of Nyssa (+394) which best expresses the importance of the Eucharist for man’s eternal life. He states: “Just as a little leaven leavens the whole dough, so this body (the body of Christ) changes our body and transforms us into his image when it enters this body.” The Church believes that eternal life begins here in this world, and that it is not something that believers await and will come only in the future. The Lord has made it possible for us to share in his life by his resurrection, and the Eucharist is nothing but this space in which we are united to him from the moment we say yes to him and forever.
From my parish bulletin 2001
