Non-Chalcedonian hagiographies like John Rufus' Plerophoriae,
compiled when Severus was patriarch in Antioch (512–18), demonstrated to the
average non-Chalcedonian how he should deal with the Eucharist. It was better
for a non-Chalcedonian to receive a non-Chalcedonian Eucharist only once a year
than regularly a Chalcedonian Eucharist from a Chalcedonian priest. The true
believer who stayed away from the Chalcedonian service received communion from
heaven itself. The Chalcedonian John Moschus records the story of a
non-Chalcedonian who caught his wife taking the Chalcedonian Eucharist,
‘grabbed her by the throat and forced her to emit the [according to the
Chalcedonian author:] holy portion’. For the non-Chalcedonian husband salvation
was only possible through communion and community with the non-Chalcedonians.
In the Life of Peter the Iberian from the end of the fifth century,
eucharistic miracles, in which blood burst forth from the Eucharist and Christ
appeared next to the celebrant, provided proof to the non-Chalcedonian that God
was on their side. If non-Chalcedonians were slaughtered for their conviction,
Christ appeared, brought them to the altar, and gave ‘them of my body and blood
before I take them to heaven with me’. (Volker L. Menze, Justinian and the
Making of the Syrian Orthodox Church [Oxford Early Christian Studies; Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2008], 160)
