Having proved the reality and the truth of the sacrament of the Eucharist from the types of the Old Testament and from the words of Christ, we are now about to prove the same thing from the belief of the catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. Paul the Apostle received the mystery of the Eucharist from the Lord, and delivered it to us, and his belief concerning the mystery was imparted to him from Christ. From what Paul writes in his epistles he appears to believe that the bread of the Eucharist is the body of Christ, and the wine blood.
“But let a man examine himself, and thus let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” (1 Cor. 11:28-29).
Again, he says:
“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)
Moreover he calls the celebration of the mystery a sacrifice, for which reason he says,
“We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle.” (Hebrews 13:10)
An altar, of course, is not to be understood without a victim and a sacrifice and an offerer of the sacrifice. Accordingly, if Paul had not believed that the bread of the Eucharist is the body of Christ, and the wine blood, he would not have called the Lord’s table an altar, and the celebration a sacrifice, of which those who still adhered to the forms of the Jewish worship had no right to eat. The belief of Paul is the belief of all the Apostles; and the belief of all the Apostles is the belief of all the Apostolic Church. Apostolic Epistles, liturgical books, the writings of the foremost fathers of the Church, and oral tradition, all things bear witness that those who received directly from Christ the mystery of the Eucharist entertained the same beliefs concerning it that we do. It would have been impossible for the Church that was founded through the preaching of the Apostles to believe a thing which the Apostles themselves did not believe. It would have been impossible for the Apostles to believe a thing which Christ Himself did not believe. It is impossible for the belief of Christ not to result from the reality and truth of the matter. Therefore the mystery of the Eucharist possesses the reality and truth of the body and blood of Christ; for so Christ believed, and such belief He imparted to His disciples, and they to us. It is the nature of a teacher to impart his own convictions to those who he teaches. Did Christ, the professor and teacher, convince Paul and the other disciples that the bread and the wine of the Eucharist are His body and blood, without believing such a thing Himself? Or did He express Himself so vaguely that the Apostles understood Him otherwise than as their teacher meant, and, what is worst of all, after seeing that they believed wrongly, could He have left them in error? In truth, our mind cannot entertain the belief that Christ allowed a thing to be believed which He himself did not believe, or that He would not or could not have disabused of such a gross misbelief any of His disciples that might have entertained it, and that He would not or could not have given them a true understanding of the matter. Such a strange capacity is possessed only by the heads of the Protestants. They think that Christ, though believing otherwise than we do concerning the mystery, did not care or was unable to impart His own belief to His disciples and Apostles, but allowed Paul, the chosen vessel, to be led astray from the truth and to lead astray all whom he taught.
Having in these latter times changed His mind, it would seem, as regards this absurdity, He has revealed to the Protestants alone the meaning of the mystery, which in the night of His betrayal He had not time to interpret to His chosen disciples and Apostles. Such heads ought to have stayed in England and the United States to take care of the iron and copper, instead of coming to Greece to teach theology to true Christianity. To philosophize and to theologize and to have a thorough understanding of the things divine, we have already said elsewhere, has not been given to other nations than that of the Greeks. All those among Greeks who go to educational institutions of the West to get a diploma in theology with the intention, on returning, of obtaining positions as professors and teachers of things which their own teachers were altogether ignorant of. The theologians of the West are ignorant of what theology is, to begin with, and know not by what method this science is learned and taught. For this reason, though entitled theologians, they know nothing about God and things divine, and being filled only with conceit and would-be wisdom, they distort and misinterpret divine matters to their own destruction. We call this brand of theology, imported from the West, Satanology. For theology is full knowledge of notions concerning God gained from the divine words. Satanology, on the other hand, is the suggestion and insinuation of Satanic notions by means of the divine words. Satan suggests notions of his own by means of words of the Bible, as is stated by the Evangelists in their account of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness. They then do not theologize, but Satanologize, because they suggest thoughts of Satan by means of the divine words, and their supposed theologians are in reality Satanologians. What value should the diploma of such a school have in Greece? Let the Minister of Education, the Holy Synod of Greece, and the entire Orthodox people of the Lord judge of this, after taking and into truth account of the the theological proofs by which we have proved the reality and truth of the treasure entrusted to us, which Western Protestant Satanology comes to pillage like a robber, to prevent our souls from living in Christ. But by means of our Theology we kill their Satanology, and keep what we have, that we may receive the crown of eternal life.
Apostolos Makrakis 