Facts about Eucharist
To Latter Day Saints (or Mormons), the Eucharist (in LDS theology it is "The Sacrament") is viewed as a renewal of the covenant made at baptism.
John 6 is also interpreted in connection with the Eucharist: "For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed.
According to the Roman Catholic Church, when the bread and wine are consecrated in the Eucharist, they cease to be bread and wine, and become instead the body and blood of Christ.
Anglicans generally and officially believe in the "Real Presence" of Christ in the Eucharist, but the specifics of that belief range from transubstantiation to something akin to a belief in a "pneumatic" presence.
Some open communion communities adhere to a symbolic or spiritual understanding of the Eucharist, so that they have no fear of sacrilege against the literal body and blood of Christ if someone receives inappropriately.
Elements of the Greek thanksgiving (eucharistia) may also have been adopted in the early centuries of the Christian era for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Christian denominations differ in their understanding of whether they may receive the Eucharist together with those not in full communion with them.
The Eucharistic celebrations of the early Christians were embedded in, or simply took the form of, a literal meal.
Differences in Eucharistic theology tend to be related to differences in understanding of these areas.
Calvin specifically rejected adoration of the Eucharistic bread and wine as "idolatry," however.
Many Reformed Christians hold that Christ's body and blood are not locally or literally present in the Eucharist, but to the faithful believer Christ is indeed present.
The Eucharist proper was detached from the Agape meal between the first and third centuries for such reasons, and the Agape was definitively dropped by the Church between the sixth and eighth centuries.
Precursors to the Eucharist are found in a Jewish holy day and pagan rites.