EULOGIA. - Originally this term indicated the bread offered by the faithful for the Eucharistic Sacrifice but not used for that purpose, and therefore, once blessed, it was distributed to those who had attended the rite but had not received communion, or to the catechumens, who could not receive communion, as a sign of fraternal communion (Council of Antioch of 341; St. Augustine, De peccatorum remissione, ch. 26).

Subsequently the term came to indicate any meal blessed by a bishop or a priest, or any voluntary gift made by priests to their respective bishops when visiting them (Council of Meaux, can. 14).

A broader use of our term arose to indicate with it contact relics, taken from the Holy Places, or from the tombs of the most venerated saints.

Indeed, pilgrims who traveled from distant regions to visit the tombs of the most celebrated martyrs, in order to venerate their remains and implore their help, were not accustomed to return home without some token of the blessing of the martyr they had visited, taken from his tomb. Such a token consisted for the most part of a little oil taken from the lamps burning before the martyr and poured into suitable ampullae (v.).

The most sought-after oil of this origin was certainly that which had been made to flow directly over the martyr's relics (Gregory of Tours, De vita s. Martini, I, 2-32; MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, I, 559; Paulinus of Périgueux, Vita Martini V: CSEL, XVI, 111-12, vv. 125-8).

With this oil the sick were often anointed (John Chrysostom, Hom. in Martyres: PG 50, 664;

Vita Boniti episc. Averni, ch. 27: MGH, Script. rer. Merov., VI, 133).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: R. Le Blanc, Etude sur les sarcophages chrétiens de la Ville d'Arles, Paris 1878, p. 60; P.-L. Janssens, Les Eulogies, in Revue bouddictive, 7 (1800), pp. 515-20; S (1801), pp. 28-41; H. Leclercq, Eulogie, in DACL, V, 2, coll. 733-34; B. Bagatti, E. palestinesi, in Orient. Christ. period., 15 (1949), pp. 126-66.

Giuseppe Gagnon

@incollection{ec5_eulogia, author = {Gagov, Giuseppe}, title = {Eulogia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {807--808}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/eulogia} }

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