Welcome to five minutes in church history hosted by Dr Stephen Nichols, where we take a little

break from the present to go exploring the past. Travel back in time as we look at the people,

events, and even the places that have shaped the story of Christianity.

This is our story, our family history.

Let's get started.

On this episode of five minutes in church history we are going to be talking

about a controversy, the communion controversy. You well remember don't you in the pages of the New Testament that communion right

there in the first century church right in the era of the Apostles was itself a

source of controversy and so the Apostle Paul pens his

letter to the church at Corinth and in that letter he needs to remind them of how

they should be practicing this ordinance, this sacrament that comes

to us directly from Christ himself of the Lord's Supper.

And so we have Paul's correction of the way this was

practice among the Corinthians and his instruction to us in First Corinthians

chapter 11. But as we move through the pages of church history, one of the things

we find is that the communion, the Lord's Supper and the communion table, becomes again a

source of controversy. This happens in the

reformation itself. In fact, in the reformation we have a significant break

between the churches in Germany, largely under the leadership of course of Martin Luther,

and the churches in the various cities in Switzerland, the primary city at this point, being

Zurich and the leader being Oldrich Zwingley.

And so in 1529 in order to bring the Reform Churches of Switzerland together with the Reformation and

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