The Greatest of the Sacraments
Of all the seven sacraments of the Orthodox Church, the Holy Eucharist holds the central place — not because the others are unimportant, but because the Eucharist is the fullest expression of the Church's identity and life. Every other sacrament is oriented toward the Eucharist. Baptism and Chrismation prepare the soul for communion. Marriage and Holy Orders are celebrated in the context of the Liturgy. Confession restores communion. Holy Unction prepares the sick for their final journey to the eternal Eucharist of the Kingdom.
The Eucharist is also the most contested doctrine in Christian history. What exactly happens to the bread and wine? The Orthodox answer is clear and confident: they truly become the Body and Blood of Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit, invoked by the priest in the epiclesis. This is not a metaphor. Not a symbol. Not a mental re-calling of a past event. It is a real, present transformation — what the Eastern Fathers call metousiosis (the Greek equivalent of transubstantiation): the substance of the bread and wine become the substance of the Body and Blood.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, in the year 107 AD, just one generation after the Apostles, called the Eucharist "the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, and the food that makes us live forever in Jesus Christ."
Do This in Remembrance of Me
At the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples saying, "Take, eat; this is My Body." Then He took the cup and said, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is My Blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:26-28). The word translated "remembrance" (anamnesis in Greek) does not mean merely a mental memory. It means a living memorial that makes the past event present again. The Eucharist does not commemorate the Last Supper from a distance — it makes the sacrifice of Christ present in our midst.
Receiving Worthily
The Apostle Paul gives the solemn warning: "Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27). This is why the Orthodox Church asks communicants to prepare through fasting, prayer, and confession. Holy Communion is not a right to be demanded or a consolation to be offered on the cheap — it is union with the living God, and it demands the whole person.
The Eucharist is the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, and the food which makes us live forever in Jesus Christ.
— St. Ignatius of Antioch