Eucharist

• 1. Introduction

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  The Eucharist sits at the center of Christian worship, a rite performed in churches from Ethiopian highlands to Scandinavian cities, each time involving bread and a cup. Its name comes from the Greek word eucharistia, meaning simply "thanksgiving". Yet within that simple act of sharing food lies centuries of controversy, theological war, and intimate devotion that no other Christian practice has matched.

  At the Last Supper, the night before his crucifixion, Jesus took bread and wine and said words that would fracture Christendom for two thousand years: "This is my body" and "this is my blood of my covenant, which is poured out for many." He then commanded his followers to repeat the act in memory of him. Christians have been obeying that command ever since, and arguing about what it means.

  Does the bread actually become Christ's body? Does it merely represent it? Is he present spiritually, physically, or not at all? These questions have divided Catholics from Lutherans, Reformed Christians from Anabaptists, and High Church Anglicans from Low. The Eucharist has been, in the words of the World Council of Churches, "a central issue in the discussions and deliberations of the ecumenical movement."

  What follows is a journey through a rite that feeds billions and has also, in darker chapters, fed centuries of persecution.

• 2. A Rite Named Thanksgiving

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  Paul the Apostle wrote the earliest recorded account of the Last Supper in the first epistle to the Corinthians, likely in the early 50s of the 1st century. He quoted Jesus directly: "The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'" The Greek word Paul used for "remembrance" is anamnesis, a term with a far richer theological history than the English word "remember" implies.

  The earliest non-biblical document to call the rite by the name Eucharist is the Didache, a late 1st or early 2nd century church treatise. Ignatius of Antioch, who died between 98 and 117, called it "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ." Justin Martyr, writing his First Apology between 155 and 157, described it as food "blessed by the prayer of His word" from which the worshipper's blood and flesh are "by transmutation nourished."

  The term "Lord's Supper" appeared in Paul's first letter to Corinth. It gained wider currency after the Protestant Reformation and remains the preferred term among many Evangelicals, including Baptists and Pentecostals. "Communion" derives from the Latin communio, meaning "sharing in common", itself a translation of the Greek koinonia found in 1 Corinthians 10:16.

  The word "Mass", used by Catholics and by Lutheran churches in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, derives from the Latin word missa, a dismissal. The final phrase of the Catholic service, "Ite missa est" or "go, it is sent", gave the whole rite its name in the Western church. Syriac Christians call it the Holy Qurbana. Armenians call it the Badarak. Ethiopians and Eritreans call it the Keddase. Each name carries a theology.

• 3. The Question of Real Presence

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  The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 used the word "transubstantiated" for the first time in an official church declaration, stating that the bread and wine are "truly contained in the sacrament of the altar" under their forms, having been changed "by God's power" into Christ's body and blood. The Council of Trent in 1551 went further, declaring that the entire substance of the bread becomes the substance of Christ's body and the entire substance of the wine becomes his blood, while the appearances of bread and wine remain unchanged.

  The Catholic account is precise on every detail: the presence begins at the moment of consecration and endures until the eucharistic species is digested, physically destroyed, or decays naturally. Theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that at that point the substance of the bread and wine cannot return. The body and blood are held to be inseparable, so a communicant who receives only the bread nonetheless receives "Christ, whole and entire."

  Lutherans take a different position, known as the sacramental union. They hold that Christ is "truly and substantially present in, with, and under the forms" of the consecrated bread and wine. The term consubstantiation has been applied to this view, but Lutheran churches and theologians specifically reject it, since they regard it as a distortion that subjects the doctrine to a non-biblical philosophical concept.

  Reformed Christians, following John Calvin, describe the presence as real but spiritual, the work of the Holy Spirit. The Anglican tradition has historically refused to bind itself to any single theory. The Church of England repeatedly declined to make official any definition of the presence of Christ, preferring to leave it a mystery while calling the elements "spiritual food" of "Christ's Most Precious Body and Blood." From the 1840s onward, the Tractarian movement reintroduced the idea of corporeal presence, but both interpretations remain within Anglican bounds.

  For Anabaptists and those who hold to memorialism, no change occurs in the elements at all. The Lord's Supper is a ceremonial remembrance, an act of obedience to Christ's command, nothing more. Plymouth Brethren call it the Breaking of Bread and describe it as a memorial "to remind believers of his body given and his blood shed for their salvation."

• 4. Liturgy Across Traditions

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  Paschasius Radbertus, a Carolingian theologian and abbot of Corbie who lived from 785 to 865, wrote the most influential early medieval treatise on the Eucharist around 831, entitled De Corpore et Sanguine Domini. He argued that because God is truth itself, Christ's words at the Last Supper must be taken literally. His work shaped the Catholic tradition's insistence on the physical reality of the change in the elements.

  In the Byzantine Rite, the service is called the Divine Liturgy and divides into two halves: the Liturgy of the Catechumens and the Liturgy of the Faithful. The central Eucharistic prayer within the latter is called the anaphora, from the Greek word meaning "offering" or "carrying up." Two different anaphoras are currently used in the Rite of Constantinople: one attributed to John Chrysostom, used most days of the year, and one attributed to Basil the Great, offered on the Sundays of Great Lent, the eves of Christmas and Theophany, Holy Thursday, Holy Saturday, and on the first of January. The Byzantine Rite uses leavened bread, with the leaven symbolizing the presence of the Holy Spirit.

  The Syriac liturgies of Addai and Mari, and the West Syrian Liturgy of Saint James, go back at least to the third century. They are among the oldest continuously used liturgies in any Christian tradition.

  Nicolaus Zinzendorf, a bishop of the Moravian Church, described Holy Communion as the "most intimate of all connection with the person of the Saviour." Methodists draw on Charles Wesley, a founder of their movement, who wrote a Eucharistic hymn affirming that Christ "dost e'en now Thy banquet crown" and asking him to "show Thy real presence here."

  Jehovah's Witnesses observe the rite only once each year, on the evening corresponding to Nisan 14 in the ancient Jewish calendar. Most of those who attend do not partake of the bread and wine, since Witnesses believe only 144,000 people will serve as co-rulers with Christ in heaven. For the Latter-day Saints, water is used instead of wine, and the sacrament is administered every Sunday by priesthood holders, who recite specific prayers found in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.

• 5. Who May Receive

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  Justin Martyr wrote around 150 that no one is allowed to partake of the Eucharist except someone who believes the church's teachings, has been baptized, and is "so living as Christ has enjoined." That exclusion has echoed through two thousand years of practice.

  The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches practice closed communion under normal circumstances, though the Catholic Church allows members of certain Eastern churches not in full communion with Rome to receive in cases of genuine need. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America practices open communion to the baptized, while the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod restrict it to members who have received catechetical instruction.

  The United Methodist Church describes its table as an "open table", inviting "all who intend a Christian life, together with their children." Some Progressive Christian congregations offer communion to anyone who wishes to commemorate Christ's life and teachings, regardless of religious affiliation. The Community of Christ, the second-largest Latter-day Saint denomination, practices open communion, making it a notable exception among LDS churches.

  The Salvation Army does not practice communion or baptism at all. Founders William and Catherine Booth believed the sacraments placed too much emphasis on outward ritual at the expense of inward conversion. George Fox, founder of the Quakers, built a movement on personal relationship with God, and the Religious Society of Friends historically does not observe physical communion. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, eventually discouraged physical communion, though the early church she founded had observed it. Christian Scientists now mark two special Sundays each year through silent prayer rather than bread and wine.

  Preparation requirements vary as sharply as access rules. Eastern Orthodox Christians are traditionally expected to fast from food and water from midnight the night before, attend Vespers or an All-Night Vigil, make a recent confession, and hold no grudges against anyone. Catholic members who are aware of having committed a mortal sin must receive sacramental absolution before approaching the altar.

• 6. Health, Harm, and History

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  In medieval times, Jewish people were frequently depicted in Christian imagery as stabbing or otherwise physically harming communion wafers, a practice known as host desecration. These accusations drew direct parallels to the claim that Jews killed Christ, treating an act against the transubstantiated host as a repetition of the crucifixion. Host desecration charges were also linked to blood libel, the accusation that Jews murdered Christians to obtain blood believed to have divine efficacy. These were vehicles for anti-Jewish ideology and violence across Europe.

  On a more medical plane, the gluten present in wheaten bread poses a genuine danger to people with celiac disease and related disorders. The Catholic Church addressed this directly in a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dated the 24th of July 2003, clarifying that fully gluten-free bread cannot be considered true wheaten bread and so cannot be used in the Catholic Eucharist. For people with celiac disease, the church permits low-gluten bread as an exception. Many Protestant churches offer rice-based or other gluten-free wafers as alternatives.

  The shared communion cup raises questions of infectious disease transmission. A study of 681 individuals found that taking communion from a common cup up to daily did not increase infection risk beyond that of people who did not attend services at all. No case of infectious disease transmission from a shared communion cup has ever been formally documented. During influenza epidemics, however, some churches have suspended the sharing of wine. The Church of England took that step in 2009.

  Some churches have responded with mechanical wafer dispensers or sealed "pillow packs" containing both wafer and wine, though these methods are not generally accepted in Catholic parishes. The diversity of solutions mirrors the diversity of theologies: each tradition approaches the same practical problem through its own understanding of what the elements are and what is at stake in how they are handled.