In her book, The Great Controversy, Mrs. Ellen White mentions that Martin Luther (1482-1546), the first preacher of the Protestant movement, said: “The Mass is a bad thing, and God opposes it, and it must be abolished” (p. 209). Perhaps she wanted to refer to this statement to rely on what would help her spread her deviation. For White - and all the Seventh-day Adventists - hate the Divine Mass with a great hatred, and this is shown, with unparalleled clarity, by her description of it as “a pagan sacrifice” and as “a terrible heresy that offends Heaven” (ibid., pp. 65-66).

It is well known that the Seventh-day Adventists call for “the practice of the Lord’s Supper, as it is written in the Bible.” They undoubtedly mean the supper that Jesus celebrated in the Upper Room of Zion, which was “symbolic” (Basic Beliefs, 15: The Faith of Seventh-day Adventists, pp. 215 and 342), and that the Church included in it a truth that the Holy Books do not say, especially since it neglected the duty of “washing the feet” (which they call “the service of humility”) which, as they claim, constitutes “one service” with the Lord’s Supper (Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, p. 618). They hold this (symbolic) dinner once every three months (The Faith of Seventh-day Adventists, page 349, footnote 19), and they use unleavened bread and unleavened wine, as wine is forbidden to them, and yeast is “a symbol of sin” (from pages 334 and 341; Desire of Generations, pages 129 and 622; Who Are the Seventh-day Adventists?, page 20).

These ideas taught by the Seventh-day Adventists indicate that their celebration of the “Lord’s Supper” has nothing to do with God’s purpose. In this article, we will attempt to respond to two points in their teaching: 1) the symbolism of the bread and wine; and 2) the obligation of washing the feet; and, as we have indicated above, to refute once again the evils of their remaining teachings and their deviation from the truth.  

• In fact and symbol:

The words spoken by Jesus in the Upper Room of Purification confirm that the bread and wine offered in the Eucharist are truly the body and blood of the Lord, for he said of the bread: “This is my body,” and of the wine: “This is my blood.” The symbol (the word was added by the Sabbatarians to the word of foundation) was broken by Jesus, who abolished every ancient symbol (shadow) by appearing in the world as God incarnate, and by his victory he gave us to taste, in this age, true joy and the pledge of “eternal life” (cf. John 6). The Holy Offerings (the Body and Blood of Christ) - not their symbol - which are a taste of the table around which the righteous will recline in the “Kingdom of the Father” (Matthew 8:11-12, 26:29, Mark 14:25 and Luke 22:18; Revelation 19:9) - or as Bishop George (Khader) says in his commentary on (Matthew 26:29), they are “the ecstasy of heavenly joy” (An-Nahar newspaper, Saturday, July 10, 1999) - are what realize the “Church” (1 Corinthians 11:18), and establish believers as “the Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17), and they are what “forgive sins,” and condemn those who were “unworthy of them” (1 Corinthians 11:27). There is no doubt that the Sabbatarians, and all who do not consider that the Lord gives those who participate in the Supper of God, as Tertullian calls it, to taste, in this world, his true body and blood, and holiness (see: the letter of St. Cyril to Nestorius), distort the Holy Scriptures and remain captive to a useless symbol.

• In the duty of washing the feet:

The Seventh-day Adventists practice the custom of “washing the feet” before approaching the Lord’s Supper (…the men separate from the women, and the men gather in a special place, as well as the women, and everyone washes each other’s feet, then returns to the meeting, where the preachers break the bread, and after distributing it, the wine is offered, and the service ends with a hymn), for the purpose of purification. They say in their book “The Faith of Seventh-day Adventists”: “When the washing service is finished, our faith assures us that we are clean because our sins have been washed away” (p. 337; see also: The Desire of Ages, p. 619). Washing the feet is an act performed by the Lord in the last upper room meeting (John 13:1-16), and we are not here to delve into its meanings, or the purpose that the Lord intended for it (as important as this matter is). What concerns us, in this context, is to emphasize that the “ordinance of washing the feet,” as arranged by the Adventists, makes holy baptism a secondary matter, especially since they delude themselves with it of purity, which is the quest of the righteous in this life, and the truth of which is not revealed until the last day. Incidentally, I say that those who have received the grace of God, in their baptism, do not need another grace before they approach “holy communion,” because baptism, whose effects remain forever, and what it presupposes of perpetual love and repentance, is the only thing that guarantees the truthful and always prompts them to advance to “the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).

• In the materials of the supper (bread and wine):

The Seventh-day Adventists say that the Lord Jesus Christ used unleavened bread and unfermented grape juice at His Last Supper (The Faith of Seventh-day Adventists, pp. 334, 341, 348-350). This is quite simply contrary to the Scriptures which speak of Jesus using leavened bread at the New Testament Supper (see: Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; John 6; 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17, 11:23, 26-28). It then speaks of him using fermented wine, for the expression “the juice (or “product”) of the vine” which the Lord pronounced at the Last Supper does not mean “unfermented grape juice,” but rather “wine.” Incidentally, I say that the Lord Jesus (who knew that the law required people to drink wine in moderation and with contentment) blessed wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee (John 2:1-11), used it in his parables as a healing substance (Luke 10:34; see also 1 Timothy 5:23), and was said to have drunk wine (Matthew 11:19). This, no doubt, has its meanings, for every mention of (new) wine in the New Testament is, above all, to remind or lead believers to the Eucharist (as part of the Lord’s Supper).

• In saying that this service is held “four times a year”:

The Divine Service, as understood by the Orthodox tradition, is a single, unrepeatable service, because the Lamb of God offered Himself (sacrifice) “once…for ever” (Hebrews 7:27-28, 9:11-13, 10:11-14). St. John Chrysostom describes the single Divine Service that is held in more than one place, saying: “Are there many Christs, since the Eucharist is held in many places? No…. Just as what is offered in many places is one body, and not many bodies, so too is there only one sacrifice.” The Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov confirms this meaning, saying: “All the Holy Mystical Suppers are but one unique, eternal Mystical Supper, the Supper of Christ in the Upper Room. The same divine act took place once in a specific period of history, and is always revived in the Holy Mystery.” To further clarify the meaning of the Divine Service, I repeat what Father Boris (Bobrinskoy) said: The Divine Sacrifice is not only “a memorial of the unique sacrifice of Christ, but also a passage from this world to the world to come.” The Sacrifice is a mystery that evokes eternity in time, “overcoming and surpassing it” (without canceling it). The Divine Service itself shows this, for it makes clear that in the Mass we remember (i.e., we accept here and now) that the Son of God has fulfilled the Father’s entire saving plan: “the cross, the tomb, the three-day resurrection, the ascension into heaven, and the terrible second coming” (Anaphora of St. John Chrysostom). This has its implications in the Holy Scriptures (see: Matthew 8:11, 26:29, Mark 14:25, Luke 22:11, Revelation 19:9). It goes without saying that we have received the Lord’s Supper whenever it is offered to us: every Sunday (because it is the day of the Resurrection), and on the feasts of salvation (which is the Passover in its many aspects), and on the feasts of the martyrs and saints (because they have shown the continuity of the power of the Resurrection and its action in history), and to receive it, each time, with complete love and devotion, remembering that “Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead” (2 Timothy 2:8), is our Savior now and at all times. We are, then, not before a “work” to which the saying of the number applies, nor before an ancient memory to which we return “in thought and imagination” (Ellen White says in her book The Desire of Ages: “As we partake of the bread and wine….we are in thought and imagination joining in the scene of the supper in the upper room,” p. 629), but before the salvation of God which is accomplished for us “now and here.” This makes us understand the meaning of the words of Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, when he said that he and his disciples receive the divine gifts “four times a week, and we feel that this is little.” He undoubtedly did not want to count the times that his church holds the divine service, but rather to indicate that his life – and the life of his church – stems from this Mass from which the presence and divinity of Christ flow.

The deviation of the Adventists - and those who said their words - distorts the truth that God gives us whenever we come together, and the truth (the true body and blood of the Son of God) whose content we have tried to show, in two successive articles, is what frees the Church from the scattering of existence and death, for it is “the medicine of immortality,” as Saint Ignatius of Antioch (+107) says, and it is: “an offering prepared to preserve us from death and secure for us eternal life in Christ” (see: his letter to the Church Ephesians 20:2).