Let us leave these imperfect signs, which, as I have said, are excellently depicted in the vestibules of sanctuaries; there will be enough of them to be nourished by their contemplation. If we are so anxious, let us turn back to the consideration of holy communion, from their effects to their causes, and, thanks to the light which Jesus bestows upon us, we shall be able to contemplate harmoniously the intelligible realities in which the sanctified goodness of the patterns is clearly reflected.

Thus, the Eucharist is only a visible "consequence" of an invisible "model"; and he who performs the Sacrament, "offering Jesus Christ to our eyes, shows us in a tangible way and as if in a certain image, our intelligible life" (498). Therefore, for Dionysius, "the most sublime meaning of the Eucharistic rites and communion in the Sacrament itself consists in the signification of the union of our minds with God and with Christ. … Dionysius never formally presents Eucharistic communion as the transmutation of the Body and Blood of Christ.

Dionysius' symbolism only superficially influenced the Eucharist as such, but it gained great popularity among interpreters of the Liturgy. Thus, the great Maximus the Confessor, who interpreted the concept of "symbol" more realistically than Dionysius, nevertheless consistently uses the terms "symbol" and "image" in relation to the Eucharistic liturgy in general and to such elements of it as bread and wine, in particular.

In the eighth century, this symbolism led to a serious theological controversy over the Eucharist, the only controversy on this subject that Byzantium had ever known. The Iconoclastic Council of 754, condemning the use of religious images, proclaimed that the only permissible "image" of Christ was that which had been established by Christ Himself, the Eucharistic Body and Blood. Such a radical and clear statement was a real challenge to Orthodoxy, and it once again confirmed the ambiguity of the Areopagite and symbolism in general.

Therefore, the defenders of the images, especially Theodore the Studite and Patriarch Nicephorus, resolutely rejected this claim of the council. For Theodore, the Eucharist is not a type, but truth itself; it is the mystery that restores the fullness of [divine] Providence" (502). According to Nicephorus, it is the very "flesh of God," "one and the same thing" with the Body and Blood of Christ,503 who came to save the very reality of man's flesh, and who became and remained "flesh," even after His glorification; therefore, in the Eucharist, "what then is the subject of the sacrament, if the flesh is not real? What, then, do we see the Spirit doing?" 504.

As a result of the iconoclastic strife, Byzantine "Eucharistic realism", clearly separated from the terminology of Dionysius, received a new direction and began to be expounded in the mainstream of Christological and soteriological problems; in the Eucharist, man participates in the glorified humanity of Christ, which is not the "essence of God",505 but a humanity still consubstantial with man and accessible to him as food and drink. In his treatise Against Eusebius and Epiphanius, Patriarch Nicephorus particularly denounces the Origenist idea that in the Eucharist man contemplates or participates in the "essence" of God. For him, as for the later Byzantine theologians, the Eucharist is Christ's transfigured, life-giving, but still human body, hypostasized in the Logos and permeated with divine "energies." It is noteworthy that among Byzantine theologians it is impossible to find a case of the use of the term "essence" (ousia) in a Eucharistic context. And terms such as "transubstantiation" (metousiçsis) were considered inappropriate for the sacrament of the Eucharist, and were usually used to use the concept of metabole 507 found in the canon of John Chrysostom, or such dynamic terms as "re-conception" (metastoichei?sis) or "re-appointment" (metarrhythmisis). Transubstantiation (metousiñsis) appears only in the works of the Latinophrones ("Latin-minded") of the thirteenth century, and this term is nothing more than a direct translation from Latin. The first Orthodox author to use the word was Gennadius Scholarius, but even in his case the direct Latin influence is evident. The Eucharist is not a sign to be "beheld" from without, nor is it an "essence" distinct from humanity, but it is Jesus Himself, the Risen Lord, who "was known... in the breaking of bread" (Luke 24:35); Byzantine theologians seldom went beyond such a realistic and soteriological affirmation of the Eucharistic presence as the presence of the glorified humanity of Christ.

The rejection of the understanding of the Eucharist as an "image" or "symbol" is, on the other hand, very important for the understanding of the entire "perception" of the Eucharist by the Byzantines; for them, the Eucharist always remained a mystery that had to be taken as food and drink and which could not be "seen" with the bodily eyes. These aspects have always remained hidden, except during the recitation of the prayer of consecration and Communion; and, in contrast to Western medieval piety, they were never "venerated" except within the framework of the Eucharistic liturgy proper. The Eucharist could not reveal anything to the mind's eye; it is only the Bread of Heaven. The eye was offered another means of revelation – icons: hence the discovery of the plan of the Byzantine iconostasis with the figures of Christ and the saints, exhibited precisely to be seen and venerated. "Christ is not shown in the Holy Gifts," writes Leonid Uspensky, "He is given in them. He is shown in icons. The visible side of the reality of the Eucharist is an image that cannot be replaced by imagination or contemplation of the Holy Gifts."509

As a result of the iconoclastic contradictions, Byzantine Eucharistic theology preserved and re-emphasized the mystery and hiddenness of this most important liturgical action of the Church. But it also affirmed that the Eucharist is essentially a meal in which it is possible to participate only through eating and drinking, because God has accepted the fullness of our humanity, with all its physical and mental functions, in order to bring it to resurrection.

Byzantine theologians had the opportunity to point out all of the above in their dispute with the Latins, when the Byzantines attacked the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist in the West. The controversy over the azims (unleavened bread), which began in the eleventh century, tended to be bogged down in arguments of a purely symbolic nature (the Greeks, for example, argued that the Eucharistic bread should be leavened to signify the animate humanity of Christ, while the use of unleavened bread by the Latins implies Apollinarianism, that is, the denial that Christ had a human soul), but the arguments also arose because that the Byzantines understood the Eucharistic bread to be necessarily consubstantial with humanity, while Latin medieval piety emphasized the "super-substantiality" of the Eucharist, its otherworldliness. The use of ordinary bread, the same as is eaten daily, was a sign of the true Incarnation. "What is daily bread [from the Lord's Prayer]," asks Nicetas Stifatus, "if not that it is of one essence with us? And the bread that is of one essence with us is none other than the Body of Christ, Who became consubstantial with us through the flesh of His humanity."

Византийцы не считали, что в таинстве Евхаристии субстанция хлеба каким–то образом превращается в иную субстанцию – Тело Христово, – но видели в этом хлебе «тип», то есть «образец» или «отпечаток» человечности: нашей человечности, которая изменилась в преображенную человечность Христову 511. В силу этой причины евхаристическое богословие сыграло столь видную роль в богословских спорах XIV в., основным вопросом которых было противостояние между концепцией самодостаточности человека и защищаемой исихастами концепции «обожения». Великий Николай Кавасила, хотя и сохраняет привязанность к старинному символизму Дионисия, преодолевает опасности номинализма; ясно, что для него, как и для Григория Паламы, Евхаристия есть Таинство, не только «представляющее» жизнь Христову и предлагающее ее для нашего «созерцания»: это время и место, где и когда обоженная человечность Христова становится нашей.

Он не просто облекся в тело. Он также принял душу, разум, волю и все человеческое, так, чтобы Он смог соединиться со всеми нами, проникнуть в нас и растворить нас в Себе, имея во всех отношениях Свое собственное, соединененным с тем, что наше. …Ибо поскольку невозможно для нас возвыситься и участвовать в том, что Его, Он снизошел к нам и участвует в том, что наше. И так точно Он сообразуется с тем, что он принял, что, даруя нам то, что Он получил от нас, Он дает нам Себя. Причащаясь Тела и Крови от Его человечности, мы получаем Бога Самого в души наши – Тело и Кровь Бога, и душу, ум, волю Бога – не менее, чем Его человечность 512.

Последним словом об Евхаристии, произнесенным византийским богословием, стало, таким образом, антропологическое и сотериологическое понимание этого Таинства. «Приступая к Евхаристии, византийцы начинали не с хлеба qua 513 хлеба, но с хлеба qua человека» 514. Хлеб и вино предлагаются лишь потому, что Логос принял человечность, а они – хлеб и вино – изменились и обожились действием Духа, потому что человечность Христова преобразовалась в славу Крестом и Воскресением. Такова мысль Кавасилы в только что приведенной цитате и таков смысл канона Иоанна Златоуста: «Ниспошли Твоего Духа Святого на нас и на эти дары, и сделай этот хлеб драгоценным Телом Христа Твоего, а то, что в этой чаше, драгоценной Кровью Христа Твоего, так, чтобы те, кто причастятся, могли бы иметь очищение души, отпущение грехов, приобщение Твоего Святого Духа, полноту Царства Небесного…»515.

Таинство новой человечности par excellence, Евхаристия, для Кавасилы «единственное из таинств, совершенствующее иные таинства, поскольку они не могут без нее исполнить посвящения» 516. Христиане причащаются «непрерывно», «ибо это есть совершенное Таинство для всех целей и нет ничего, чего не давало бы оно, главным образом тем, которые имеют в нем свое участие» 517. Евхаристия есть еще и «прехвальное бракосочетание, на котором пресвятой Жених сочетается с Церковью, как с невестой» 518; Евхаристия есть истинное Таинство, которое преображает человеческую общину в «Церковь Божию», и которое, как мы увидим позднее, последний критерий и основание церковного устроения.