Stercoranism (from stercus, "dung") is a supposed belief or doctrine attributed reciprocally to the other side by those who in the eleventh century upheld and those who denied the Christian doctrine of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine offered in the Eucharist become in substance, but not in form, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Adherents of transubstantiation accused those who believed in a solely spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist of asserting that what is presented as the body and blood of Christ is no more than what subsequently is subject to the normal digestive processes after ingestion, eventually passing through the intestines and being excreted through defecation.
On this, see the explanation given by the Protestant theologian and historian Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, who calls it an "imaginary heresy".
[4] Karl August von Hase said that early Church theologians, such as Origen (184–253), were willing to allow that the consecrated elements of Christ's body were digested and excreted in the manner of typical food.
"[7] Thus, in the judgment of the Catholic Church, when the sacramental signs of bread and wine are changed out of existence, the body and blood of Christ that they point to is no longer there: "The Sacrament of the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ really present under the appearances of bread and wine; if the appearances cease to be present, then the sacrament no longer exists, and so the Real Presence ceases.