Researchers first Christian communities notice serious differences that meant the sacrament in ranneapostolskie times and in how it is now understood.Another important were and prayers before Communion.For example, well-known church historians Afanasiev and Alexander Schmemann, exploring the Acts and the Epistles of Paul, wrote that the Eucharist is the time of the apostles - a thanksgiving (after all, the word "Eucharist" means thanksgiving) or memorial meal that broke bread "from house to house"believers, where together remembered the Lord's Supper.Senior or more veteran Christian blessed bread, and everybody ate the bread - "communion with the Lord."That is to understand Christ's words that it should be done "in remembrance."
course, Acts sparingly say about this topic, but it can be seen that the faithful, gathered around the apostles were in communion with them, the breaking of bread "with gladness and singleness of heart" and prayers.That is, it is that during these meals were said special prayers for communion.These prayers, which refers to the remembrance of the Last Supper, later became a major part of the canon of the special Eucharistic liturgy - anaphora (in Greek - an offering).Actually, the first service and anaphora, and were such a common meal break bread, which are typically committed in a certain "Lord's Day", that is, the day when we remembered the resurrection of Christ, and therefore began to call him Sunday.The remaining words of the prayers also that the blessed bread and offered to the Lord, and thank him for this meal.
In Acts referred to a case where the apostle Paul, while in Troas, performed a miracle and healed the boy had fallen out of the window.But the apostle came to this city just on Sunday, when all the faithful gathered for the Eucharist, that is, the breaking of bread.And healing the boy, too, the apostle then breaks the bread and talking to Paul until he starts to get light.Thus, in this story, you can see all the main elements of the Eucharistic liturgy of the early Church - a common meal and the breaking of bread and the blessing.However, the text does not mention the prayer before Communion, but they implied.
In early Christianity to such prichastitelnoy meal "agape" (that is, the common love feast) allowed a very pious people who are preparing for this event through a difficult and lengthy penance, in other words, "fasting."The fact is that in the early church baptism was not just water, but by the Holy Spirit, and thus, it was combined with the ordination, and every Christian becomes a kind of priest and had to lead a life dedicated to God.Therefore, the Eucharist was performed eldest of Christians, the Church itself was understood as the Eucharistic assembly (not for nothing that the word "liturgy" means "common cause" and the prayer before Communion were calling for the Holy Spirit and thanksgiving to God, asking not to leave this meeting with His grace.
Prepare for communion cleansing repentance, prayer and fasting persisted in modern traditional church - both Orthodox and Catholic. The prayer before Communion in the Orthodox tradition consists of a home and the church itself. The pious Orthodox home before Communion should read the so-called The Service andand canons (repent to the Virgin and the guardian angel) and hymns. And the day before the sacraments he should attend the evening service. In Catholic prayers prichastitelnyh emphasis is on faith in Preosuschestvlenie, that is the real presence of God and Man in the consecrated wafer.
Interestingly, both the form and the spirit of the Christian prichastitelnoy meal early church for a long time kept exactly the Christian movement that resisted the ecclesiastical communion and denied ritualization Preosuschestvlenie prelozhenie and breaking bread in remembrance of the Last Supper and in thanksgiving.For example, the medieval Cathars, according to the Dominican scholar And Dondo, only read the Lord's Prayer as a prayer before communion, that is, before eating, where their clergy (Christians vowed a holy life) blessed the bread for the believers, "for the meeting."In addition, they spoke words like doxology, that is, thanks to the final, which is the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the Corinthians.
