Eucharist

The Eucharist (from Greek eucharistia, thanksgiving) is the Christian sacramental meal of bread and wine commemorating Christ's body and blood given in his atoning death, instituted at the Last Supper and celebrated by Christians from the apostolic era onward. The term appears in early Christian literature: the Didache (c. 100 A.D.) uses it for the Lord's Supper, and Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107 A.D.) employs it to describe the church's central gathering. The Eucharist's institution is narrated in the Synoptics and 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, where Paul records the tradition he received: "This is my body... This cup is the new covenant in my blood." The eschatological dimension is explicit: "You proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26), making each celebration both a memorial of the past redemption and a foretaste of the messianic banquet (Matt. 26:29; Rev. 19:9). The Eucharist functions as: proclamation of the gospel (1 Cor. 11:26), participation in Christ's body and blood (1 Cor. 10:16), expression of the church's unity as one body (1 Cor. 10:17), and the covenant renewal meal of the new covenant (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25). Different traditions (Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, memorialist) understand Christ's mode of presence in the elements differently, making this one of Christian theology's most disputed doctrinal points.