Basil the Great on the Lord's Supper
Truly the body and blood, with no account of the mode
It is good and beneficial to communicate every day, and to partake of the holy body and blood of Christ.
THE POSITION
Letter 93 treats the elements realistically and without qualification: communicating every day is good and beneficial because it is partaking of the holy body and blood of Christ, grounded on John 6:54. He reports communicating four times a week, and records that the solitaries in the desert, and most of the laity in Alexandria and Egypt, keep the sacrament at home and take it themselves, "participating in it each time as entire" — which presupposes that what is reserved is still what it was when the priest gave it. He offers no account of how that is so, and gives no sign of thinking one is owed.
54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
2 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Bishop of Caesarea and monastic legislator. Supplied the Trinitarian vocabulary the church still uses — one ousia, three hypostases — and argued the Spirit's deity in De Spiritu Sancto while deliberately never calling him God outright.
Cite this page
"Basil the Great on the Lord's Supper", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/basil/lords-supper (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/basil/lords-supper).