"A Bible Study Followed by a Meal": Ephrem Lash on the Eucharist

More than a decade ago now, in a graduate class on Byzantine liturgical translations, I was first introduced to the Orthodox liturgical scholar and translator Archimandrite Ephrem Lash. Most of his work has been freely available on his very useful website, which I check regularly. Some of his other printed translations are linked here on the right and left.

I've watched a number of his videos more recently, and he has long struck me as embodying a unique kind of English Orthodoxy seemingly without pretense (which cannot always be said): English because marked by dry wit (calling the Divine Liturgy structurally "a Bible study followed by a meal") and unromantic reflection on human nature; Orthodox because of a commitment to beauty and truth.

He died yesterday in London. We pray that his memory be eternal, and that his soul be placed where all the righteous dwell in (to use his translation) "a place of light, a place of green pasture, a place of refreshment, whence pain, grief and sighing have fled away."