Eucharist

The Eucharist is the rite that Christians perform in fulfillment of Jesus's instruction, as recounted in the New Testament (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25), to do in memory of him what at his Last Supper he did when he gave his disciples bread, saying: "This is my body", and wine saying:"This is my blood." The rite is classified as one of the Christian sacraments. The word Eucharist is also applied to the bread and wine consecrated in the course of the rite and in which Christians in general recognize a special presence of Christ, though they differ about the mode, locus and time of that presence.

Terminology

• "Eucharist", from Greek {{polytonic|??????????}} eucharistia, meaning thanksgiving, is the term with the earliest established historical use. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who was martyred in Rome in about 110, uses the term "Eucharist" three times in his letter to the Smyrnaeans and once in his letter to the Philadelphians. In his Apology (written in about 150), St Justin Martyr said it was the name that Christians then used: "This food is called among us the Eucharist..." (Apology, 66). It is still today the term that Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans normally use to refer both to the rite and to the consecrated bread and wine. More minimalist Protestant traditions use this term rarely, but do not reject it entirely.
• "Communion", from Latin communio, meaning sharing in common, is a term that Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians apply to partaking of the consecrated bread and wine, not to the Eucharistic rite as a whole. However, groups that originated in the Protestant Reformation do use this term of their whole rite, sometimes to indicate that in their view there is really nothing more to the rite than this partaking. Since the term Communion also often refers to the relationship of Christians, as individuals or as a Church, with God and with other Christians (see Communion, Christian meaning), they (especially Anglicans) generally prefer for the Eucharist the fuller term "Holy Communion". Some may also avoid the term sacrament, preferring ordinance: not a channel of grace but an expression of faith and obedience of the Christian community.
• "The Lord's Supper" and "the Breaking of Bread" are terms that the New Testament (1 Corinthians 11:20; Acts 2:42, 46) applies to celebration of the Eucharistic rite. The first of these terms tends to be preferred by minimalist traditions, especially those strongly influenced by Huldrych (or Ulrich) Zwingli and the Restoration Movement. Other Churches too use each of these terms when speaking of the rite, but generally not as their basic everyday term.
• Still other terms tend to be associated with one particular Christian tradition, such as "the Divine Liturgy" (the Eastern Orthodox and the associated Eastern Catholic Churches). Roman Catholics use at times, as well as all the terms above, many others, including: "the Mass", "the Memorial of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of the Lord", "the Holy Sacrifice", "the Holy Mysteries", "the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar" (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 275; cf. also Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1328-1332http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a3.htm#1328).