“The article by Philip Schaff discusses how the Eucharist moved from a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God had done into a sacrifice for sins. It took roughly 1000 years to develop that idea.”
Not in the East, Mr. R. There are indeed prayers about the Eucharist being celebrated and consumed for the forgiveness of sins, but there is even more regarding thanksgiving and praise. For example:
“It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same; You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You brought us into being out of nothing, and when we fell, You raised us up again. You did not cease doing everything until You led us to heaven and granted us Your kingdom to come. For all these things we thank You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit; for all things that we know and do not know, for blessings seen and unseen that have been bestowed upon us. We also thank You for this liturgy which You are pleased to accept from our hands, even though You are surrounded by thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, by the Cherubim and Seraphim, six-winged, many-eyed, soaring with their wings,...”
The Divine Liturgy is far, far more a liturgy of praise and thanksgiving and supplication than of propitiation and blood sacrifice. Of course, our Divine Liturgies are at the latest from the late 4th, very early 5th centuries so the change to the Anselmian blood atonement sacrifice focus of the West from about 1000 years ago simply isn’t a focus we ever adopted.
BTW, you want to read the Protestant version of the Ante Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers with a grain of salt. The commentary is spun, just as the Roman Catholic version is. Its best just to read what The Fathers say and skip the commentary in the series.
I just posted Schaff’s writings here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2379242/posts
If you don’t mind, I’d like to add your comment to that thread, since it seems quite appropriate. I would like to read the Church Fathers, but even as a retired guy I find myself barely able to read 1/10 of what I want!