What is meant by Holy Communion?
“Holy Communion” refers to the act of partaking of the Holy Eucharist as the consecrated Bread (Body) and Wine (Blood) of the Lord Jesus Christ, accomplished in the Divine Liturgy of the Church:
When you assemble as church… as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let everyone examine himself and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup; for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. (1Co 11:18, 26–29)
Communion is therefore a great and awesome Mystery, uniting the believer to Jesus Christ and to his Body, the Church: it brings the Lord’s disciples into oneness with the Savior and with one another, in a supernatural unity, “one body and one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all” (Eph 4:4–6; see Q258, Q283).
Immediately before his passion, Jesus Christ established the sacred rite called the Eucharist (“thanksgiving”), the Lord’s Supper, and Holy Communion: “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, ‘Take this and divide it among yourselves…’ Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body which is given for you: do this in memory of me.’ And likewise, the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’” (Luk 22:17–20).
It was, by anticipation, a true image and participation of his sufferings for our salvation; and having administered it to the Apostles, the Lord gave them at the same time the commandment to perpetuate this Mystery always. The Eucharist holds a unique place in the Church because, when we speak of the “Body of Christ,” both the Eucharist and the Church are equally signified: “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in memory of me” (Luk 22:19; see Q537); “Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the savior of the body. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph 5:23; cf. Col 1:18; see Q272, Q368). Indeed, it is the proper celebration of the Eucharist that constitutes and manifests the Church, as in St Paul’s expression, “when you come together as Church” (1Co 11:18; see Q252, Q321).
Because Holy Communion unites the believer both to Christ and to all who are in Christ, it is where the Church is most fully what she is. Many who are separate by nature become one Body, and each receives the whole Christ without his being divided. St Ignatius of Antioch writes to the Ephesians of the one bread and the one cup and of the assembly gathered with the bishop, and St Cyril of Alexandria teaches that we are joined to one another in the measure that we are joined to Christ in the one Body. This is the primary sense in which the Church is called catholic (Q270, and the Study on Person, Nature, and Communion).
The Liturgy is therefore also an image of what is to come, for what unites us here is what will unite us in the Kingdom (Q319):
The Divine Liturgy is an image of the Kingdom of God. (Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon, The Eucharistic Communion and the World, p. 39)
