Origin of the Eucharist Origin of the Eucharist Church teaching places the origin of the Eucharist in the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, at which he is believed to have taken bread and given it to his disciples, telling them to eat of it, because it was his body, and to have taken a cup and given it to his disciples, telling them to drink of it because it was the cup of the covenant in his blood. The earliest extant written account of a Christian "eucharistia" (Greek: thanksgiving) is that in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (around AD 55), in
Origin of the Eucharist 'received from the Lord' (1 Corinthians 11:23), through Cephas (Galatians 1:18), what he 'handed over' (1 Corinthians 11:23) to his hearers. … He reminds his hearers of what he already had taught as authoritative, a teaching 'from the Lord' and presumably warranted by the earliest 'pillars': in that sense, what he hands on is not his own, but derives from his highest authority, 'the Lord' (11:23)." Eugene LaVerdiere wrote: "That is how Paul introduced the tradition, presenting himself as a link in the chain of Eucharistic tradition. He received ("paralambano") the tradition of Eucharist in the early 40s while in