CHAPTER 3
What Is “Remembrance” (anámnēsis)?
At the Last Supper, while distributing communion to the disciples, the Lord explained this communion as an entry into a sacrificial offering. The words of Christ themselves, “broken for you,” “poured out for you and for many,” which He spoke about His Body and Blood, establish this sacrificial character. They establish a link between the Last Supper, as communion, and the sacrifice that Christ Himself accomplished on the Cross once and for all. At that time, they were commanded to do this in His remembrance, repeatedly and unendingly, “until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26), that is, until the end of the age, or, the Second Coming of Christ in glory. The correspondence between the communion at the Last Supper and its repetition until the end of the age is defined as a “remembrance.” What does such an anamnesis mean? Is it just a normal recollection, a reminder about the past that happened at one time but no longer exists, a subjective reflection in the soul and nothing more? Obviously, this interpretation of the words of Christ is completely unacceptable. The a postle Paul’s completely serious strictness when speaking of worthiness for communion contradicts it [this interpretation]: “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment upon themselves” (1 Cor. 11:28–29). What also contradicts it is that the communion itself is explained not as a remembrance of the Last Supper, as the event that instituted the Eucharist, but as a proclamation (katangéllete) of the death of the Lord: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). In this way, “remembrance” is defined much more broadly according 11
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