Section 05: The Eucharist in Cyril
Mystagogical Catechesis 5 gives the earliest detailed running description of an Eastern eucharistic liturgy that survives — the Jerusalem anaphora with its Sursum corda, Sanctus, Spirit-epiclesis, intercessions for the living and the dead, Lord’s Prayer, and communion. Mystagogical Catechesis 4 gives the patristic locus classicus of eucharistic realism: “do not regard them as bare bread and wine.” This section treats both — the ordo and the doctrine of the real presence it enacts.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
Contents
| File | Topic |
|---|---|
| The Jerusalem Anaphora | A walk through the eucharistic ordo of Mystagogical Catechesis 5 in sequence — lavabo, kiss of peace, Sursum corda, preface and Sanctus, the epiclesis of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts, the intercessions and the commemoration of the dead, the Lord’s Prayer expounded clause by clause, the “Holy things for the holy,” and the reverent communion — the earliest detailed Eastern eucharistic ordo, with the famous crux of the missing institution narrative handled as a disputed question |
| Eucharistic Realism | The doctrine of Mystagogical Catechesis 4: the elements, “after the invocation of the Holy Spirit,” are “no longer bread and wine but the Body and Blood of Christ”; the appeal to “This is my Body” and to John 6 and Cana; faith over the testimony of the senses; the parallel to the chrism that is “no longer simple ointment”; Cyril’s place in the patristic witness to the real presence |
How to Use
- Read The Jerusalem Anaphora for the shape of the liturgy, then Eucharistic Realism for the theology of the change it effects; the two are a single mystagogy read from two angles.
- Both note once that the Cyrilline authorship of the Mystagogical Catecheses is debated (see The Authorship Question).
- The anaphora file relates the Jerusalem rite to the later Liturgy of St James; the stational setting of that liturgy is treated in The Jerusalem Liturgy.
Cross-References
- For the developed Eastern eucharistic tradition this rite stands behind, see Divine Liturgy
- For the Holy Spirit invoked in the epiclesis, see Pneumatology
- For the later liturgy that bears his name and its eucharistic preaching, see St. John Chrysostom
- For the chrismation realism that parallels the eucharistic, see Chrismation and the Seal
- For the five lectures this material is drawn from, see Section 03: The Mystagogical Catecheses
References
- See each content file for full bibliographic entries. The primary source is Mystagogical Catechesis 4–5 (PG 33; SC 126, ed. Piédagnel; NPNF Series 2, Vol. 7; McCauley & Stephenson, FOTC 64; Yarnold, Cyril of Jerusalem, Routledge 2000). The institution-narrative question draws on Paul Bradshaw, The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship (2nd ed., Oxford, 2002), and Juliette Day, The Baptismal Liturgy of Jerusalem (Ashgate 2007).