The liturgy of the Early Christian era was about doing rather than saying. This distinction is borrowed from Dom Gregory Dix by Fr. Kyprian Kern, who was responsible for the first major Orthodox investigation of the sources and practices of the Christian ecclesia.
The Jesuit scholar Marcel Jousse reinforces this assertion in writing of the early Christian practice and understanding of “eating and drinking” the word, rooted in a mimesis of gestures passed on through generations. “Do this in remembrance of me,” says Christ at the last gathering with his disciples (Lk. 22:19).