The Eucharist Essay

When speaking to his disciples about managing sin within the Church, Christ states the following: “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them” (Matthew 18:20). Here and through the rest of his mission, Jesus establishes the importance of a sense of community both in dealing with Church issues and maintaining the original meaning behind his messages. After his death, his disciples continue to embrace the value of intimacy, meeting in small groups and stressing internal as opposed to external growth. As the Church amasses more followers and expands even further by becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, it begins to lose some of its original focus. Although through expansion the Church accumulates a greater number of followers and creates a more standardized religion, it sacrifices the fundamental values of intimacy and internal spirituality at the heart of the early Church. I will prove this by analyzing transformations from the conception of the Church to the early medieval period in certain aspects, focusing mostly on architecture, but including dogmatic, liturgical, and imperial changes. The major architectural transformation that occurs in the beginning of the Church is the change in the place of worship from the House Church to basilica. Before looking directly at the Christian place of worship, it is important to understand how the Jewish identity and means of religious practice provided the context for the first Christians. Immediately after Christ’s resurrection, the fledgling Christian community consisting of an almost entirely former Jewish population had no choice but to practice in similar places as the Jews. This included the temple until its destruction in 70 A.D., the synagogue, and the home. Animosity toward Christians from Jews generally kept them away from the temple for a time, but did not keep them away from the synagogue which functioned as a location of study and sacrifice (10). The home, a place of worship Jesus emphasizes the importance of through events like the Last Supper, centers religious practice on the meal and highlights the value of domestic intimacy. The main aspect the early Christians adapt from the Jews is that God cannot be contained to one specific place. These early followers held meeting anywhere from borrowed public rooms to caves. In fact, originally, the Greek word for church, ekklesia refers to the assembly of people and not the actual house of worship (9-10). As the Church spreads and moves toward more urban centers, this notion and the location of worship begin to change to fit growing needs. As the Christian community begins to include gentiles and emerges in cities through the evangelical efforts of men like Paul, larger gathering places are required to accommodate a growing population. Borrowed rooms public rooms and wealthy believers houses, officially dubbed “House Churches”, functioned as the main places of Christian worship at the end of the first century (43). Some large one-storied Roman houses consisted of four walls with an open space …show more content…
This becomes evident through dogmatic and liturgical changes in the Church. Nothing better exemplifies this than the changing role of the Eucharist. Without much time having been passed since the death and resurrection of Christ, no official doctrine of Eucharistic theology exists for the early Church. Instead, the Eucharist speaks more to the internal fulfillment symbolized by the self-giving nature of Christ through his death. Each day becomes a blessing when God loves his people so dearly and spiritual balance and selflessness are the keys to happiness (31). The bread itself had no literal meaning and usually it was held in baskets and passed around for everyone to break from at the dinner table. The same could be said for the wine. The later church however, focuses more on the attention given to the literal bread and wine as opposed to the spiritual significance behind it. More attention is paid to putting the Eucharist and wine in proper vessels (gold, silver, bone, ivory) rather than the communicative nature the Eucharist should make one think about. (114). The Christian notion of reverence transforms from living life like Christ and attempting to make the Church into this spiritual body, to making sure not to desecrate what was thought of as his literal