Communion and the Early Chuch

Can a Church Service have ritual and still be a Church?

There are more than a few Christians who hold to the idea that a church with ritualistic practices is a dead church; the Holy Spirit can’t work through ritual but only when church services are more or less spontaneously and casually carried on, just as it is thought, they did in the Early Church. The vast majority of Protestant churches insist on an absence of deemed ritual. Often in its place stands would be spontaneity; I remember numerous instances in my background seeing a man or a woman compelled to stand in the midst of the congregation earnestly giving their testimony to the church. In some way it resembled confession mind you. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with heartfelt sincere expression of one’s faith within the assembled faithful. Question here is does that represent all the fullness of the Early Church?

In Shape of Liturgy, Dom Gregory Dix (an Anglican monk no less) details how the Early Church’s core was the Eucharist liturgy, what is commonly called communion. And in fact it wasn’t church unless the re-presenting (re-partaking) of that Last Supper took place with the sharing of His Body and Blood. He dramatically recounts how important this rite was; the early Christians risked their lives to partake in this relatively brief Eucharistic ceremony. (John 6: 53 “….unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”). This ceremony was closed to only professed and baptized Christians, and the Roman authorities and public had wild ideas as to what transpired there. This added to the motivation to suppress it. Here was a group, who was despised at the most visceral level, based on their refusal to give abeyance to the civic gods and thus incur their wrath and most outrageously betray the welfare of the civitas (the civic community) and its authorities.

Very telling was the fact we clearly see this Eucharistic core after 250 some years of Roman persecution when one looks around the Ancient World at in the Roman, Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Syrian and Assyrian rites. Evidently a widespread tradition of Eucharistic worship was transmitted and handed down.

The tradition of the Eucharist was taught as the center of worship. In each case it is this recognizable form of worship as offertory, prayer, fraction (breaking the bread) and communion throughout although wording would vary.

There are many indications in scripture which indicate how important this Eucharistic practice was. Saint Paul admonished the Churches to hold to these traditions.

2 Thess 2:15
So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.

2 Thess 3:6
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.

(Oddly enough the New International Version translates tradition as teachings in contrast to other translations.)

Many Protestant Christians look to the house church as the model of early Christianity. Under Roman persecution and elsewhere there could be no church buildings as such. The church, ecclesia, was ofttimes carried on in a rich nobleman’s villa. Dix goes on to describe the villa designed in a traditional Roman manner; an enclosed atrium open to the sky where the faithful would stand, the short wall at the far end with a walk way behind where the head of the clan would address the paterfamilias in ancient days and behind which the family lived with domestic quarters on each wing along the walls pictures of the ancestors. Was it mere coincidence that this floor plan would be traced out in the Cathedrals with the Narthex, nave, apse and transepts in a vaguely similar outline of the villa?

Note without the Bishop there was no Eucharistic celebration even though the faithful were present. The Bishop retained the charism of the Church and its apostolic inheritance. And likewise no Eucharist without the Faithfull’s gifts brought forward and the Faithfull being present. In Eastern Orthodoxy the Eucharistic bread is brought in by one of the members of the church.

The Early church also had its gathering (synaxis) based on worship in the Jewish synagogue. The synagogue had its opening prayer, psalms reading, comments on the readings and sermons. Only the prayer and sermons are left for many of the modern Protestant churches. At the beginning this synaxis was celebrated separately of the Eucharist. Later the two were fused together.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church one can see these joined together as they have been for some 17 centuries. The first section or the synaxis is composed of several litanies of prayers led by the Priest interspersed with hymns (antiphons) from the choir as well as readings from Scripture from the Epistles then Gospel after which the homily is given. This harkens back to the worship of the Jewish Synagogue. Then the albeit embellished Eucharist is celebrated additionally with Lord ’s Prayer and the Creed and continued Litanies plus a procession of the Holy Elements as well concluded by the sharing of the Cup.

So you can convincingly say worship for the Early Church was a ritual based on the Eucharistic celebration; put another way without the formality of the Eucharist there is no church.

One can look further to J.N.D Kelly’s Early Church Doctrines and Henry Chadwick’s Early Church to see the centrality of the Eucharist. Incidentally, all books referenced here were written by Protestants. (Admittedly, Anglican, who the Puritans felt were in frightful need of reform.)

Beyond Early Church ritual activities, many will ask, is the Eucharist celebration relevant? This is a most basic argument against the formality of the Eucharistic celebration. Most in modern society will find the Eucharistic celebration alien. Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy is meditative, reverential and sacramental but not entertaining to many in this over stimulated society and its content is not meant to grant us sectarian doctrinal insights. I too am a modern and needed time to discover its beauty; initially I knew I simply was doing much like the Early Church did.

Can it a least be said that no claim can be made that these “worship centers” resemble the form of the Early Church worship except in the most tangential way? And frankly, yes, there is a social chasm between modern America and this Ancient Church. Be mindful there was quite the chasm between the Early Church and the Ancient Roman society as well.

And I admit to the fact that the modern Church will have many a reasoned difference philosophically, theologically and doctrinally with that Early Church as well. A forcible argument can be made that the modern day’s representative of that church, the Eastern Orthodox is not relevant to Modern American society. Those issues continue to be addressed in my other blogs.


Plausibly Dix discerns parallels within a Jewish fellowship dinner, the chaburah and the Eucharist. The dinner was led by a president alone, who was given special duties without whom the dinner would not be formally held. St. Justin in the Second century A.D., describing the leader of the Eucharistic feast, and uses the Greek word for president.

The author maintains this is the dinner Jesus and his disciples held on the night before Passover. There would have been a blessing of the food at the beginning and then the meal and then at the conclusion a special thanksgiving, the blessing of the cup.

Once the meal began and hands were washed then no one else could join the meal. The fellowship dinner went this way. “At all jewish meals … the grace took the following form. The head of the household, or host, or leader of the chaburah, took bread and broke it with the words, ‘Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, eternal King….’ He then partook of a fragment himself and gave a piece to each person at the table.” Then they partook of the meal. Afterwards they washed their hands and then a thanksgiving was given over a special cup of wine, the Cup of Blessing, which is shared.

The thanksgiving was formally given thus:

The host would say: “Let us give thanks….”
The guests would answer: “Blessed be the Name of the Lord from this time for evermore.”
The host would say: “With the ascent of those present – we will bless Him of Whose bounty we have partaken”.
The guests once again respond with a blessing.
Then the host gives a rather lengthy thanksgiving.

The author gives a convincing portrayal how Jesus instituted the Eucharist within the context of this supper by giving the words, “This is My Body, do this in re-calling of me” (1 Cor 11: 25), when the bread is broken and distributed, as it is by form in the chaburah. After the meal during the thanksgiving prayer over the Cup of Blessing, He said, “this cup is the New covenant in my Blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, for the re-calling of Me.” (1 Cor 11:25) And the cup is passed.

Confusion in regards to what was this agape meal mentioned by Early Christians, is clarified as well. The author argues this is the chaburah with the Eucharistic parts taken out. Pliny the Younger, a non-Christian Roman thinker, writing to Emperor Trajan in 112 AD says this meal is normally taken separately from the Eucharist. St. Paul’s admonitions to avoid gluttony and drunkenness to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11) during the meal in the process of partaking of the Eucharist is an indication that there were reasons why two were separated fairly soon.