Page 40 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
The Eucharistic Experience of the
Church
Through baptism, as we have seen, the Church is revealed
as a new mode of existence—a foretaste of the Kingdom
of God, a life no longer bound by death but defined by com-
munion. Yet this new life is not an abstraction. It is given,
sustained, and fulfilled in the Holy Eucharist.
If baptism is birth, the Eucharist is life itself.
From the earliest centuries, the Eucharist was understood
as the event that gathered the scattered people of God “in the
same place” (ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό), not only to worship, but to become
what they truly are: the eschatological community, the Body
of Christ. In the Eucharistic assembly, the future is revealed
within history. The Kingdom of God is not merely awaited—it
is already tasted.
Thus, one who is baptized is immediately led to the Eucha-
rist, in order to take their place within this community. There,
the faithful receive the privilege of addressing God as Father,
entering into the very sonship of Christ, and at the same time
recognizing one another as brethren, sharing a common and
eternal destiny.
In this way, the Eucharist fulfills what baptism begins. Bap-
tism breaks the bonds of the old, biological identity, freeing us
from a mode of existence governed by necessity and death.
The Eucharist, in turn, gives us a new identity—one grounded
in free and life-giving relationships. These relationships are
not merely human; they are rooted in the eternal relationship
between the Father and the Son, into which the baptized are
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