His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros Homily for the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Holy and Great Thursday

April 16, 2020

Archdiocese Chapel of Saint Paul, New York, New York

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

Today – in the midst of this crisis that separates you from the Divine Liturgies throughout the Nation and the world – we celebrate the Institution of this very same Liturgy.

The Upper Room, the Ἀνώγαιον as it called in Greek,[*] where our Lord gathered His Disciples for the Mystical Supper, could really be called the first Christian Ναός, the first church building. And the preparations for the Passover that the Lord instructed the Disciples to make,[†] were more a symbolic setting for the radical and transformative Meal that He prepared, in order to establish His Kingdom upon earth, as it is in Heaven.[‡]

In this first Divine Liturgy, the Lord transfigured the Feast of Passover, the commemoration of the liberation of the Jewish People from Egypt through the death of the Egyptian first-born. The freedom of the Jewish Passover extended only to this world, not to the world to come.

In its place, our Lord Jesus Christ became Himself the Passover, Who is sacrificed for the life of the world. As the Apostle Paul says:

For truly, Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the Feast – not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of wickedness and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.[§]

In this Sacred Meal He shared with His Disciples, the Lord Jesus Christ completely reversed the use of Leavened and Unleavened, ἂρτος and ἂζυμος. The former becomes the bread of the Eucharist, leaving behind the unleavened bread of the Passover. The latter becomes the symbol of the sincerity and truth with which we must approach the Eucharist, even as the image of the “leaven of wickedness and evil” is a symbol for a heart unprepared to receive Holy Communion.

My beloved Christians, many of you during this time have had many questions about the Eucharist and the pandemic. You have asked, “Can we become sick from Holy Communion?” “Will the λαβίδα, the Holy Spoon, make us ill?”

But what does the Scripture teach? Listen to what Saint Paul says about receiving the Body and Blood when we are unworthy, when the leaven of our souls is full of “wickedness and evil.”

Therefore, whoever eats This Bread or drinks of the Cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let each person do a rigorous self-examination, and then – in this way, eat of the Bread and drink of the Cup. For if you eat and drink unworthily, you eat and drink to the condemnation of your own selves, because you do not discern the Body of the Lord. This is the reason why many among you have become sick, as well as a number of you have died.[**]  

At first, this seems shocking to us, but you must listen carefully to what he is saying. Saint Paul does not say that the Body and Blood of the Lord can make anyone sick, much less cause their death. The Body and Blood of the Lord are for our health and salvation.

What Saint Paul does say is how we receive Holy Communion makes a difference. And this is not a matter of custom or belief; it is a matter of understanding and spiritual practice.

Do we discern the Body of the Lord? Discerning the “Body of the Lord” is much more about recognizing your interdependence and interconnectedness with your fellow members of the Body, your brothers and sisters in Christ. It is not just about believing that the Bread and Wine are indeed the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, which is an immutable truth, declared by the Lord Himself.[††]

The questions we should be asking are: How do we esteem others? How do we value them? Are we critical and judgmental of others, and their motivations, intentions, and actions?

Consider these words of the Lord:

Μὴ κρίνετε, ἵνα μὴ κριθῆτε.

Judge not that you not be judged.[‡‡]

Or Saint Paul again:

Σὺ τίς εἶ ὁ κρίνων ἀλλότριον οἰκέτην;  

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?[§§]

We must be attentive not only to how we, as individuals, accept the beliefs of the Church. We must look deeply into the Mystery of the Faith, and behold the Body of Christ which is His Church, and embrace all its members with love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.

This is the meaning of the true passing over from a mortal life to an immortal life. This is the liberation that comes only from the Firstborn of the dead – τόν Πρωτότοκον ἐκ τῶννεκρῶν, as Saint Pauls says.[***] The Firstborn of the dead saves not only the firstborn who were cursed, but all the children of humankind. 

Thus, we see that in every way, Pascha surpasses the Passover. And the Lamb of God liberates humanity from the barbarism of animal sacrifice and the spilling of blood. 

But the Blood of the Lord is shed for our sakes, not as a substitution for our punishment. Saint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople says that His blood was shed on the Cross:

on account of the Incarnation, and because Humanity must be sanctified by the Humanity of God, that He might deliver us Himself, overcome the tyrant, and draw us to Himself.[†††]

My beloved Christians, we receive the Body that was broken for us, and the Blood that was shed for us, in order to remake our shared humanity by the Divine Humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Pascha, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.[‡‡‡] Who takes away our sins. And the sins of all our brothers and sisters. In them we behold the Body of Christ, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church we confess every time we recite the Creed.

Every Divine Liturgy partakes of the Mystical Supper, whereby we receive the re-creation of our being by the Humanity of God.

May God grant that we always receive Holy Communion worthily, discerning His Body, and seeing the face of His Beloved Son in the face of every person, receiving the least as we receive the greatest – with humility, respect, forgiveness, and love. Amen.