Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos,
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras
On Great Thursday, we do not simply commemorate, but we experience — through the Divine Liturgy — the handing down of the Holy and Dread Mysteries by our Lord Jesus Christ to His Disciples, and through them, successively, to the entire Church. Those, however, who have separated themselves from the ONE Church, the Orthodox Church, by distorting the eternal truth and passing over into heresy, have lost the Apostolic succession and at the same time have been cut off from the Mystery of Mysteries, the Divine Eucharist.
As the God-man Lord was dining with His Disciples, He took bread and, after blessing it, said: “Take, eat; this is My body.” Likewise, He took the cup and said: “Drink of it, all of you; for this is My blood” (Matt. 26:26–28). With these same words, from then until now and until the end of the ages, our Holy Church is nourished through the Divine Eucharist. And through this divine food, every Orthodox Christian is united with the God-man Lord and, therefore, with all the other members of His Church.
We could say without hesitation that this act of our Lord Jesus Christ is among the most important that make up the Mystery of Divine Economy. Without this great Mystery of the Divine Eucharist — which on the one hand constitutes the Body of our Church as the Body of Christ, and on the other gives us the possibility of being united with Him and thus being deified by grace — we would not be able to attain salvation. In this way, the saying becomes a reality: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” This grants us the ability to experience in a real, ontological way the events that make up the Divine Economy: the Incarnation of the Word of God, His Passion, His Crucifixion, His Resurrection, and His Ascension.
The Divine Eucharist is the crown of the Mysteries of our Holy Orthodox Church, since the other Mysteries (Baptism, Confession) are directed toward it. However, our approach to this supreme Mystery must not be merely a custom or a festive habit. The Apostle Paul emphasizes: “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup; for he who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and many have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 11:29–30). If we do not approach with preparation — grounded in sincere confession and the life of the Church, and with firm faith that within the Holy Chalice is truly the Body and Blood of the God-man Lord — then our participation becomes vain and even dangerous.
The Divine Eucharist is the ladder that will lead us into the Kingdom of God the Father. The current scandalous discussion about the supposedly provable transmission of diseases through Holy Communion is, at its root, aiming precisely to extinguish the remembrance and the lived experience of the sacrificial death of the God-man Lord for the salvation of humanity.
But the ontological reality of the sacrifice of the God-man Lord for the salvation of the human race cannot be extinguished. Whoever believes this and lives it through the Divine Eucharist (under the conditions mentioned) truly lives; whoever doubts it and mocks it simply sinks into the mire of unbelief and deadly uncertainty. May we understand this deeply and choose life and not death.
Source: Translated by John Sandopoulos.