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Greek Orthodox Catechism
Constantine Callinicos, London, 1926
Part I. Dogmatical, 14. The Eucharist and Penance
What do you know about the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist?
The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament at which, under the form of bread and wine, we truly communicate the very Body and Blood of Him, Who became incarnate and was sacrificed for our salvation. This Sacrament was founded by the Saviour, when, going to death for us, He celebrated, on the night before, in the upper chamber the Last Supper. There He offered to His disciples the bread with the words:—“Take, eat, this is my Body.” There He offered the cup with the words:—“Drink ye all of it; for this is my Blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many unto the remission of sins.” And there He recommended them never to cease from celebrating this divine service in remembrance of Him, until His second Return. (Matt. xxvi. 27—28; 1 Cor. xi. 24—26.) The essence then of the Eucharist is this: that whoever approaches it in faith, reverence and purity, really partakes of the life of Christ, and becomes one in body and blood with Him, like a living branch joined to the True Vine in which he is nourished and flourishes. (John xv. 1—7.) Wherefore every true believer must take the Holy Communion as often as he can, in order to rekindle the flame of divine life in himself. For, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it remains in the vine, likewise we cannot bear fruit if we do not remain in Christ. The material elements for celebrating the Holy Eucharist are the bread and the wine. Its solemn words are those contained in the “Invocation,” by which the Holy Ghost is asked to descend upon the Holy Gifts and convert the bread into the Body of Christ, and the wine into His Blood. Clergy as well as laity communicate in both elements; not the clergy in both, and the laity in one only, as practised by Rome. Such a practice is opposed to the general custom of the ancient and once undivided Church, and rejects the expressed command of Christ, Who said:—“Drink ye of this all.” Whether those who approach the Sacrament are clergy or laity, however, they must all approach it after proper preparation, after fasting, and after having subjected themselves previously to an examination before the confessional and asked God for forgiveness. “Let a man,” St. Paul advises us, “prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup; for he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation unto himself, if he discern not the Lord’s Body.” (1 Cor. xi. 28—29.) For this reason, from the earliest times of Christianity, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has been always inseparable from the Sacrament of Penance.
And what is the Sacrament of Penance?
The Sacrament of Penance is the Sacrament by which, while we confess our sins in sorrow, contrition and humbleness to the spiritual Father, the divine grace descends upon us and gives us absolution through Him. This Sacrament also was instituted by our Lord, Who gave to His disciples and, by them, to their successors, the authority to bind and loose, saying:—“What things soever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven.” (Matt. xviii. 18; John xx. 23.) Penance is an admirable institution of Psychotherapy. It raises us after our spiritual falls in the past, and offers to us new opportunities for the future; only it must be done with a sincere self-examination of the individual before the mirror of the divine law, with an abhorrence of all evil, and with a change of mind towards better thoughts and resolves. Penance in Greek is called “metanoia”; and metanoia means change of mind. Together with Penance are connected sometimes the so-called epitimia (such as fasting, praying, giving alms, reading sacred books, etc.), which the confessor imposes on the great sinner, not in order to satisfy, through them, the divine Justice, which has been satisfied once and for all by the Redemptory Sacrifice upon the Cross, but in order to assist the fallen towards his quicker recovery, as by a medical diet.