Bryan Spinks is one of the world’s leading scholars in the field of liturgy and to have a comprehensive work by him on the Eucharist is a major catch for SCM. Like the author’s previous work on Baptism, this will become a standard work about the Eucharist and Eucharistic theology worldwide. The book, a study of the history and theology of the Eucharist, is the fifth volume in the SCM Studies in Worship and Liturgy series and will help to establish the series as a place for landmark books of liturgical scholarship. This book will be aimed at undergraduate and graduate theology students, clergy and theologically literate laity. It will assume some technical knowledge (i. e. it is not an introduction to liturgy or introduction to sacraments), but will attempt to outline what the evidence is, and what current scholars think. On occasions it will advance or argue for why one interpretation is preferable to another.

“Bryan Spinks’s book is an outstanding new manual on the historical development of the Eucharist. It is excellent not only because it connects liturgical texts and rituals with Eucharistic theologies, but also because of its wide range, varying from the New Testament data to current practice in East and West; from the early Anaphoras to present-day Dutch Table Prayers and internet liturgies; and from the ancient Ethio-Eritrean tradition to contemporaneous Pentecostalism. Bryan Spinks displays great scholarship, investigating the primary sources in many regions, languages, and eras. This will be a ‘classic’, a standard work on Eucharistic liturgies and theologies for many years to come.” -- Prof. Dr. Basilius J. Groen

Bryan D. Spinks is Bishop F. Percy Goddard Professor of Liturgical Studies and Pastoral Theology at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School, and a priest of the Church of England. From 1986 to 2000 he served as a member of and consultant to the Church of England Liturgical Commission, helping to prepare Common Worship.