Homily of Archbishop Elpidophoros at the Vesperal Divine Liturgy of Holy and Great Thursday
Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, Today, we gather in the Upper Room, the Ἀνώγαιον on Mount Zion, with our Master and Lord, and we celebrate the foretaste of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. This Mystical Meal is not a so-called, “Last Supper,” as it is known in the West. This designation comes from the desire to reduce the importance of the Eucharist in the early Reformation, by denying the repeatability of the Supper in the Roman Catholic Mass. If the Mystical Supper, as we Orthodox know it, is a “Last Supper,” then the Eucharist is somehow diminished, which is what happened in the Reformed Movement we know as Protestantism. The reality of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist disappeared in Protestantism over the centuries, even if the Roman Catholic Church stood firm with its doctrine of Transubstantiation. Read More
