How does the Orthodox Church view the sacraments, specifically Communion?

Question

Some teach that Communion of the Lord's Supper (which Orthodox call "the Eucharist") us only a sign or symbol. Most of Chirstendom, however, believes it is far more. The Orthodox Church has always believed that we, in a mystery, receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eurcharist. Jesus saud at the Last Supper:"This is My body" and This cup is...My blood" (Luke 22:19,20) The Lord states clearly that His gifts to us are more then just a sign or a mere memorial, and all of ancient Christendom took Him at His word. The skeptic might say, "But Jesus also said, 'I am the door.' Certainly He did not mean He was a seven-foot wooden plank." No, and Christians have never interpreted His statement that way. But the Church does teach that He is our entrence into the Kingdom of God and that the bread and wine becomes, in a mystery, His Body and Blood. In 1 Corinthians 11:29, we read people who became sick and even died through receiving Communion hypocritically.

Answer 1

It is mystertion (a Mystery). The key word is "anamnesis" - which is weakly translated as "remembrance" in the KJV....but means so much more!!

The mainstay, which the Orthodox steadily keep, remains the anamnesis of Christ's redemptive work which permeates our existence and continuously transforms it. The anamnesis is not a simple intellectual function; it is an action. It has an incomparably wider spectrum, which includes the element of thought and makes it an existential, personal event.

As members of the eucharistic community we recall again to consciousness the economy of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection of Christ, his ascension, and Pentecost. We live them. We share in them. We do this not through our own human abilities but through the grace of the Holy Spirit, through the uncreated energy of God which accomplishes the sacraments.

"Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor.11:24), the Lord ordered "on the night when he was betrayed" (1 Cor. 11:23). The continuously proceeding divine energy culminates in the sacrament of the eucharist which has for twenty centuries formed the pivot of a Christian's worship. In liturgical language, the term "anamnesis" defines the core of the eucharistic anaphora, the consecrated offering.

Anamnesis is even broader. Beginning with Christ's words, "take, eat; this is my body" (Matt. 26:26; cf. Mark 14:23, 1 Cor. 11:24) and "drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant" (Matt. 26:27), it proceeds to the offering, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, culminates in the sanctification of the holy gifts and their sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, and is completed through holy communion, becoming a personal event. Thus, anamnesis becomes an incessant dynamic turning to the Triune God, the source of being; a grafting into Christ, a receiving of the Holy Spirit, an orientation that gives meaning to our life and to our march within space and time. Through the renewal of anamnesis the church maintains her vitality and truth.