Tag Archives: Eucharist

Keep Quiet?

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This fresco in the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom (St. Sophia) in Kiev shows the apostles receiving Holy Communion from Christ. Although visitors and non-believers could attend Christian dinners and other activities, they were not allowed to attend the Eucharist. Only believers who had been properly instructed and baptized could attend the Eucharist because non-believers would not understand what was going on.


If the whole church comes together and everyone is speaking in tongues, and if then outsiders and unbelievers come in, won’t they say that you are all crazy? If, however, you are all prophesying …. the visitors will fall on their faces and worship God saying, “God is really in your midst!” (1 Cor. 14:23-25)

St. Paul is still dealing with the troublemakers at Corinth who boast that they are the spiritual elite because they can speak in tongues. The apostle points out that anyone visiting the Christian dinners will think the Christians are all crazy if they are all babbling in some way that no one can understand. But if they hear people prophesying, i.e. preaching well, that is more likely to bring them to conversion.

The unbelievers will think the Christians are just crazy people if they hear the Christians babbling on and on in tongues because they won’t understand anything that the tongue-speakers are saying.

This is the same reason that non-believers were not allowed to attend the celebration of the Eucharist: because they won’t understand what the Christians are saying, even if the Christians are saying words in a language that the non-Christians speak. Unless a person has been properly instructed and baptized before coming to the Eucharist for the first time, nothing they hear or see will make sense. The words “Body of Christ” and “Blood of Christ” will sound like cannibalism. The love of each Christian for the “brothers” and “sisters” will sound like incest. The exchange of a Kiss of Peace will underscore the appearance of incest because only family members were allowed to kiss each other.

None of these words and behaviors make sense without prior instruction, i.e. catechism. Therefore non-believers should be kept out of the celebrations of the Eucharist. (Besides, non-believers might be there as spies for the government, in order to arrest the Christians they see at the Eucharist.)

Addendum, based on a thoughtful question (see “replies” below):

How does this carry over into our contemporary situation? I think the question of who understands what is very complicated now. We live in the remnants of Christendom and presume people have a grasp of basic Christianity but I think that is not true—-many people have no understanding of even the most basic Christian teachings and no familiarity with even the most fundamental Biblical stories. We must redouble and even triple our efforts to teach and proclaim the whole Gospel, from its beginning in Genesis to its conclusion in the Apocalypse. I think we should refer to the great apologists of the second and third centuries: what did they think was of first importance in explaining to the non-Christian world and how did they proclaim it in a way the world could understand?

We have to have a better grasp of contemporary culture as well as contemporary language to do this. But we should not wait until we have the “perfect” message to share. We must begin now and do the best we can with what we have. What we cannot do is sit on our hands and expect someone else to do all the work!

One Goes Hungry While Another Gets Drunk

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The cathedral in Monreale, Sicily has many beautiful mosaics of Bible episodes, including this depiction of Noah growing grapes after the flood and getting drunk (Genesis 9:24-25). This was evidently the first time in human history that anyone had gotten drunk and passed out. Noah’s sons are shown covering him with a cloak as he is asleep; his pose is very similar to that as Adam when God put him to sleep and then took a rib to fashion Eve.

When, however, you come together in the same place it is not to eat the supper of the Lord. For in eating each one by preference takes his or her own meal; and one goes hungry while another gets drunk. Don’t you have houses for eating and drinking? Do you despise the church of God and dishonor those who have not? What shall I tell you? Shall I commend you? (1 Cor. 11:20-22)

St. Paul tells the Corinthians several times, “I do not commend you.” There were several practices that the parish was evidently proud of–or at least, practices that several prominent people in the parish were proud of. St. Paul, however, is not proud of these practices and tells the Corinthians exactly what he thinks.

We know that early Christians met for several sorts of community meals. Some were called agapes, or “love feasts,” and were fellowship dinners that began with prayers. People brought food to share with others. People generally brought enough that there would be enough to share with the poor after the dinner or the next day.

We also know that the Eucharist was celebrated in the context of a festive community meal. The celebration began with the sharing of the Holy Bread, the Body of Christ. The meal followed, during which there might be reading and preaching. The “cup of blessing,” the Blood of Christ, was shared at the conclusion. Although a wealthy church member might host the meal sometimes, these meals were also a “potluck” and people brought food to eat themselves and to share. (We know this from early Christian writings like the Didache and the Apostolic Tradition of St. Hippolytus.)

We are not sure whether St. Paul is criticizing the behavior at either an agape or at the celebration of the Eucharist, although the reference to “the supper of the Lord” suggests that it was probably the Eucharist that he was talking about.

The parish met in the home of a community member. Most Greek and Roman homes were built around a central courtyard; the rooms opened onto the courtyard and guests might circulate between the rooms that were open. Most of the Christians in Corinth were not wealthy so their homes would not be large. Even the homes of wealthy parishioners might not have a single room that was large enough for the whole parish to gather in at one time.

At these parish meals–either agape or Eucharist–the people were probably not all in the same room. The wealthier members were evidently in a grander room while the poorer members were in smaller rooms off to the side. Because they were not in the same room, it was easy for the richer people to eat and drink among themselves–even gorging themselves and getting drunk–and let the poorer members have less to eat and drink.

Even though they had “come together in the same place,” i.e. one house, they were not all in one room. In one room, people were going hungry. In another room, people were getting drunk. St. Paul saw nothing commendable in this. Such behavior despises the Church and dishonors the members gathered in fellowship, in communion. St. Clement of Alexandria wrote,

If a person is wealthy and eats without restraint or is insatiable, he disgraces himself in a special way and does wrong on two accounts. First, he adds to the burden of those who do not have, and second, he lays his own intemperance bare in front of those who do have.

St. Clement of Alexandria, in “Christ the Educator,” 2.13

There is so much other background to what St. Paul is talking about in this passage, we will continue with it next week.

The Cup of Blessing That We Bless

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On the left, a Russian bishop prepares the one Bread and one Cup, adequate for a large number of communicants, who will all receive from the same loaf and chalice. On the right, a priest places the “fermentum” in the chalice, signifying the unity of the Eucharist which he celebrates with the Eucharist which the bishop celebrates elsewhere that day.


Judge what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not communion in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not communion in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread we, the many, are one body, for we all share in one and the same bread. (1 Cor. 10:15-17)

Because the parish in Corinth–wealthy members, poor members, Gentile Christians, Jewish Christians, the “weak”, the “strong”–all partake of the one bread and the one cup at the Eucharist, they are one body. One fellowship. One community united in faith against the temptations and allurement of the fallen world. Although many, they are one–manifesting and revealing the Kingdom of God to all those willing to look and see.

That chalice, or rather, what the chalice holds, consecrated by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. Through these elements the Lord wished to entrust to us his body and the blood which he poured out for the remission of sins. If you have received worthily, you are what you have received.

St, Augustine of Hippo, Easter Sermon

St. Augustine reminds his congregation of what St. Paul told the Corinthians: they must partake of the bread and cup worthily. If they do not partake in a worthy manner, the Holy Gifts will destroy them rather than enliven them.

But St. Paul didn’t say the Corinthians had to be pure or sinless. He said they had to be worthy. Worthiness is a very different thing. To be worthy to touch, to be worthy to consume the Body of Christ does not mean to be sinless. As several English theologians in the 1600s and 1700s pointed out, to be worthy is to be committed to self-examination, committed to repentance, committed to always turning around, changing direction, re-orienting myself towards Christ. So I must always prepare to approach the Table by examining myself, reviewing what I have done and who I have been during the time since I last approached the Holy Table. Examine myself, measure myself against our standard—which is Christ—and determine how I might, in perhaps some single small way, turn my back on that person that I do not want to be and take some small step closer to being the person I was made to be in Christ.

To be worthy of receiving Holy Communion, to dare to touch the Corpus Christi, I must be committed to self-examination and repentance. One of those English theologians, Simon Patrick[1] in 1660, suggested using a phrase from the Gospel that Greek and Russian Christians use as they approach the chalice: “Lord, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” The thief crucified with Christ acknowledged Jesus as Lord and reoriented his life—turning his back on his image of himself as a victim who was owed whatever he could take from other people—and he asked Jesus to make a place for him in the Kingdom. What was Jesus’ answer? “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” If we approach the chalice with the self-examination, the reorientation of our lives, the words of the thief—Remember me in your kingdom—Christ makes the same promise to us: Today you will be with me in paradise. Today you will begin to live forever.

[1] Bishop of Ely, Mensa Mystica, or a Discourse concerning the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. (Prayer Book Spirituality, p. 283)