In a previous post, I discussed The Eastern Orthodox Affirmation of the Eucharistic Sacrifice being a propitiatory sacrifice, not a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving merely. Michael Pomazansky, before his death a Protopresbyter in the Eastern Orthodox Church, wrote the following about EO theology of the Eucharist in his one-volume discussion of EO systematic theology:
The Orthodox Church confesses that the sacrifice of the Eucharist is a real sacrifice, and at the same time that Christ was sacrificed once only, for all time, when He was crucified on Golgotha to bear the sins of many (Heb. 9:28). St. Nicholas Cabasilas explains this seeming paradox as follows:
“The sacrificing of a sheep consists in a changing o its state; it is changed from an unsacrificed sheep to a sacrificed one. The same is true here; [during the Divine Liturgy] the bread is changed from unsacrificed bread into the very Body of Christ which was truly sacrificed. Through this transformation the sacrifice is truly accomplished, just as that of the sheep was when it was changed from one state to another. For there has been in the sacrifice a transformation not in a symbol but in reality; a transformation into the sacrificed Body of the Lord . . . .
“Not it is clear that, under these conditions, it is not necessary that there should be numerous oblations of the Lord’s body. Since the sacrifice [of the Eucharist] consists, not in the real and bloody immolation of the Lamb, but in the transformation of the bread into the sacrificed Lamb, it is obvious that the transformation takes place without the bloody immolation. Thus, though that which is changed is many, and the transformation takes place many times, yet nothing prevents the reality into which it is transformed from being one and the same thing always—a single Body, and the unique sacrifice of that Body.” (A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, pp. 81-82). (Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [trans. Hieromonk Seraphim Rose; 3d ed.; Platina, Calif.: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2015], 288 n. 14)
For more articles on the topic of the Eucharist being a propitiatory sacrifice and other related topics, see, for instance:
