Your Cart

Your cart is empty.

The Lord's Supper as a Sign of Unity: Eucharistic Ecclesiology and the Unity Creed

Rev. C•D•F• Warrington, M.Div.
By Rev. C•D•F• Warrington, M.Div.

Ordained Minister, M.Div.

July 20, 2026

3 min read

christian unity
Ecumenical communion gathering around a table with bread and cup representing the Lord's Supper as a sign of Christian unity

The Lord's Supper is simultaneously the most powerful sign of Christian unity and the most contested point of division. Christians who confess the same creed, share the same baptism, and use the same Bible have often refused to share a table because of unresolved eucharistic disagreements. How does the Unity Creed's vision of Christian unity navigate this reality?

The Supper as Eschatological Sign

The Lord's Supper is an eschatological meal — a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the final banquet of the kingdom. At the table, Christians anticipate the unity that will be fully realized only when Christ returns and all his people are gathered. This eschatological dimension means that table fellowship carries a weight beyond its immediate occasion: to share the supper is to enact, however imperfectly, the union of all believers in Christ.

Why Eucharistic Division Is Painful

The pain of eucharistic division is proportionate to what the supper signifies. When Christians who are genuinely united in Christ cannot commune together because of ecclesial or doctrinal barriers, they enact a contradiction — the sign of unity becomes a sign of division. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist, and charismatic Christians all celebrate the Lord's Supper, yet rarely together. The table that should unite becomes a boundary marker.

Eucharistic Ecclesiology

Eucharistic ecclesiology — the view that the church is most fully itself in the eucharistic assembly — has been a major theme in twentieth-century ecumenical theology, particularly in Eastern Orthodox and Catholic thought. On this view, to be in eucharistic communion is to be in ecclesial communion. Division at the table reflects and reinforces division in the body. Unity at the table requires, on this account, a visible unity of the church that makes shared communion theologically coherent.

Evangelical Approaches to Eucharistic Unity

Evangelical traditions have typically understood the supper's unifying significance more pneumatologically: all who are spiritually united to Christ by faith are united to each other at the table, regardless of ecclesial structures. Open communion practices — inviting all baptized believers to the table — express this theological conviction. The Unity Creed's vision aligns more closely with this evangelical instinct, locating unity in shared faith rather than in institutional eucharistic communion.

A Goal Worth Pursuing

Whatever one's ecclesiology, the Lord's Supper stands as both a goal and a judgment. As a goal: the Unity Creed envisions a church whose visible unity eventually permits shared eucharistic fellowship across the traditions that are already spiritually one. As a judgment: every excluded table communion is a reminder of how far the church falls short of its own confession. The supper is both a foretaste of what will be and an indictment of what is not yet.

Tags:christian unityecumenismtheology

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the Lord's Supper function as a sign of Christian unity?

The Lord's Supper is described in 1 Corinthians 10:16–17 as a participation in Christ's body and blood that constitutes the church as one body: 'Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.' This eucharistic ecclesiology — the idea that the church is constituted and expressed in the act of communion — makes the Lord's Supper not merely a memorial but a sign and instrument of the church's unity. The Unity Creed draws on this tradition to affirm that shared participation in Christ's death and resurrection is the deepest basis of Christian fellowship across denominational lines.

What is eucharistic ecclesiology and who are its key theologians?

Eucharistic ecclesiology is the theological position that the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) is constitutive of the church's being and unity — that the church is most fully herself when gathered around the table of the Lord. Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983) and Catholic theologian Henri de Lubac (1896–1991) were influential modern proponents, the latter's 'Corpus Mysticum' (1944) tracing how the church and the Eucharist define each other. Protestant theologians such as Geoffrey Wainwright and the Lima Document (BEM, 1982) of the Faith and Order Commission brought eucharistic ecclesiology into ecumenical conversation.

Why do Christians from different traditions disagree about sharing communion with each other?

Disagreements about intercommunion stem from different understandings of what the Eucharist is and what it signifies. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox restrict communion to members of their own communion partly because they understand the Eucharist as expressing full visible unity in faith, governance, and sacramental life — a unity not yet achieved with other bodies. Many Protestant traditions practice 'open communion,' welcoming all baptized believers, based on the conviction that Christ is the host and that sharing the table expresses a unity in Christ that transcends institutional boundaries. These differences reflect deep ecclesiological disagreements about the nature of the church itself.

How does the Unity Creed address the Lord's Supper in the context of Christian unity?

The Unity Creed acknowledges the Lord's Supper as a central act of Christian worship that both expresses and deepens the unity believers share in Christ, without prescribing a specific eucharistic theology that would exclude any orthodox Christian tradition. By grounding unity in Christ's person and saving work rather than in sacramental or ecclesiological uniformity, the creed aims to articulate a basis for fellowship that can embrace Baptist, Reformed, Catholic, Orthodox, and charismatic Christians. The table thus becomes a goal and a sign of the unity the creed calls believers to pursue.

What biblical basis exists for calling the Lord's Supper a sign of the church's unity?

Paul's treatment in 1 Corinthians 10–11 is the primary New Testament locus for eucharistic ecclesiology: he rebukes divisions at the Corinthian table as a denial of the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:29) and insists that 'the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?' (10:16). Jesus' prayer in John 17 for his disciples to 'be one as we are one' has historically been interpreted in relation to the Supper, since the discourse follows the Last Supper narrative. The Acts 2:42 summary of early church life lists 'the breaking of bread' alongside teaching, fellowship, and prayer as a constitutive practice of the united community.

← Back to all articles