Eucharistic Praying in Ritual Context

Early Christian Eucharistic celebrations and the Eucharistic prayers of the first through sixth centuries were shaped by their social, economic, and theological contexts. This study looks in detail at each of these contexts and how they related to one another in order to highlight the key influences that led to changes in early Eucharistic praying and the structure and context of the classical anaphoras (Eucharistic prayers). In so doing, this work provides a summary of scholarship on the Eucharistic celebration in this period in a way that is accessible to non-specialists and useful to scholars.

Nathan P. Chase is Assistant Professor of Liturgical and Sacramental Theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology at St. Louis, MO. He has contributed a number of articles to the field of liturgical studies, including pieces on liturgy in the early Church, initiation, the Eucharist, inculturation, and the Western Non-Roman Rites, in particular the Hispano-Mozarabic tradition. His first book The Homiliae Toletanae and the Theoloogy of Lent and Easter appeared in 2020. His second monograph, published in 2023, is titled The Anaphoral Tradition in the ‘Barcelona Papyrus.’