The central place of the Eucharist in the building up of the Church

This article is the transcript of a homily delivered in 2005 in Brussels on the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Bishop Athénagoras Peckstadt develops a theological reflection on the central role of the Eucharist in the constitution and unity of the Church. Drawing on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he analyzes Christian divisions as a fundamental threat to the very nature of the Church. The main idea is that the Eucharist is not an act of individual piety, but the ecclesial event par excellence, in which the faithful cease to be individuals and form the Body of Christ. The theological contribution of this text lies in the articulation between eucharistic ecclesiology, the mission of the Church and ecumenism, emphasizing that Christian unity can only be restored through a rediscovery of the communal and sacramental dimension of ecclesial life.