The True Christ

TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD RE THE EUCHARIST

OR HOLY COMMUNION

     In the Mystery of holy Communion or the Eucharist there is a vast difference in the Church from those outside, which verifies our unique identity as the Body of Christ. In the papacy the server does not pray and ask the Lord to send down the Holy Spirit upon the gifts so as to transform them. Protestants either believe similarly to the Papacy or do not believe in the divine nature of the Eucharist. The general Protestant view regarding the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is that it was done just once and forever on Golgotha, which is a blasphemous assertion, for it is continual unto the ages.

     Only in the Orthodox Church is the historical and biblical tradition of the Eucharist preserved as Christ had established. Also the papacy introduced their own ideas, first in the use of unleavened wafers, and second by their claim that the change is accomplished by the words of the celebrant quoriunf Christ’s words: “Take eat . . . ”. The Protestants follow their distorted view relying on  a serious mistranslation of Holy Scripture, the epistle of St. Paul to the  Hebrews, as follows.

St. Paul says concerning Christ: “He after He had offered a sacrifice f o r e v e r  sat down at the right hand of God. For by one offering He has perfected f o r e v e r those being sanctified.”  (Heb. 10:14) 

     These grossly mistranslated verses are quoted by Protestants to support their denial that the Eucharist is bread, wine and water which is essentially changed by the Holy Spirit into the true Body and Blood of Christ. The mistranslated word is thi-nekes and appears three times in one paragraph with the translated improperly as “f o r e v e r”, but “thi nekes” in the original Bible  means  “continual”, not forever. 

Corrected translation:

 “He, after He had offered one c o n t i n u al sacrifice for sins,  sat down at the right hand of God. For by one offering He perfects c o n t i n u a l l y  those being sanctified.”  (Heb. 10:14)

There can be no worse distortion of these pure words of Christ who means what He says.  And He said: “I am the bread of life; he that comes to me shall never hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst . . . This is the bread which came down from heaven that a man may eat of it and never die.   I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the light of the world” (John 6:50-51).

     The words of Christ always have been and always will be understood correctly by the Church, but the words of Christ will always be subject to the distortion of the heretics. In the end heresy will and go into oblivion while truth will prevail.

    What Christ means about the Eucharist, is clarifies even more by His institution of the Mystery of the Eucharist on the night in which He was betrayed:

“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, (Bible word in Greek artos, which is leavened bread) and blessed and broke it and gave it to them, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them; and they all drank of it. And He said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many” (Mark 14:22-25). Christ did not say: This represents my body, bit this is my body and this is my blood which is an error of the Protestants.  If anyone approaches with fear of God, faith and love, keeping His commandments, they approach properly, but otherwise they partake without proper preparation. 

     Everything concerning Christ is holy and pure. In baptism, going down into the water,  we really die spiritually to the old man Adam, and, coming up out of the water we rise into Christ resurrection. This is real and if it was not, we would all be in our sins and without hope. For if we do not put the old man to death in baptism, we cannot put on the new man Christ.

   The word concerning the continuous sacrifice of Christ is crucial, for only in the Orthodox Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ eaten by all the faithful. This is the purpose of the Church.

“Upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it.” From hades come the powers of evil acting through men, who wage continuous war against the Church. Those powers crucified Christ and in doing so, heaped woes upon themselves. They led western Christians far away from the Church built upon the rock, and established churches of sand.

     There is one God, Father Son and Holy Spirit, oneLord Jesus Christ, one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, one Baptism, one Priesthood, and one Eucharist. For this reason recognizing any sacrament outside of the Church is uncanonical, unscriptural and illicit for they cannot possible exist. Christians outside of the Church who have not been properly baptized by the triune immersion, have not put away their own sins and cannot baptize and put away another’s sin. Nor is it possible for  the existence of another Priesthood or Eucharist. The unity of the Church is preserved by the Head which is Christ and the Holy Spirit who guides the faithful to all truth. The glory of the Church is the glory of God, and the exclusive oneness of the Church is the oneness of Christ the Godman, for the Church is His body.