Transubstantiation

[9] The manner in which the change occurs, the Roman Catholic Church teaches, is a mystery: "The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ.

In Eastern Orthodoxy in general, the Sacred Mystery (Sacrament) of the Eucharist is more commonly discussed using alternative terms such as "trans-elementation" (μεταστοιχείωσις, metastoicheiosis), "re-ordination" (μεταρρύθμισις, metarrhythmisis), or simply "change" (μεταβολή, metabole).

[20]Other fourth-century Christian writers say that in the Eucharist there occurs a "change",[26] "transelementation",[27] "transformation",[28] "transposing",[29] "alteration"[30] of the bread into the body of Christ.

"[31] Clement of Alexandria, who uses the word "symbol" concerning the Eucharist, is quoted as an exception,[32] although this interpretation is disputed on the basis of Alexandrian overlaps of symbology and literalism.

[33] Paschasius Radbertus (785–865) was a Carolingian theologian, and the abbot of Corbie, whose most well-known and influential work is an exposition on the nature of the Eucharist written around 831, entitled De Corpore et Sanguine Domini.

[34][full citation needed] He thus believes that the change of the substances of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ offered in the Eucharist really occurs.

[36] The earliest known use of the term transubstantiation to describe the change from bread and wine to body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist was by Hildebert de Lavardin, Archbishop of Tours, in the 11th century.

During these centuries many other things have been wrongly defined, for example, that the Divine essence neither is begotten nor begets, that the soul is the substantial form of the human body, and the like assertions, which are made without reason or sense, as the Cardinal of Cambray himself admits.

In the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563, the Church of England declared: "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions".

Any aspirant to public office had to repeat the formula set out by the law: "I, N, do declare that I do believe that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, or in the elements of the bread and wine, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever."

[58] As part of its own summary ("In brief") of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the sacrament of the Eucharist, it states: "By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about.

Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf.

"[17] In 2017 Irish Augustinian Gabriel Daly said that the Council of Trent approved use of the term "transubstantiation" as suitable and proper, but did not make it obligatory, and he suggested that its continued use is partly to blame for lack of progress towards sharing of the Eucharist between Protestants and Catholics.

[62] For instance, the document Gaudium et spes refers to the "sacrament of faith where natural elements refined by man are gloriously changed into His Body and Blood, providing a meal of brotherly solidarity and a foretaste of the heavenly banquet" (Chapter 3).

[63] Thomas J. Reese commented that "using Aristotelian concepts to explain Catholic mysteries in the 21st century is a fool's errand", while Timothy O'Malley remarked that "it is possible to teach the doctrine of transubstantiation without using the words 'substance' and 'accidents'.

Among United States Catholics who attend Mass at least once a week, the most observant group, 63% accepted that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ; the other 37% saw the bread and wine as symbols, most of them (23%) not knowing that the Church, so the survey stated, teaches that the elements actually become the body and blood of Christ, while the remaining 14% rejected what was given as the Church's teaching.

Erlandson commented further: "Catholics may not be able to articulately define the 'Real Presence', and the phrase [sic] 'transubstantiation' may be obscure to them, but in their reverence and demeanor, they demonstrate their belief that this is not just a symbol".

[78]: 1374 The Catholic Church holds that the same change of the substance of the bread and of the wine at the Last Supper continues to occur at the consecration of the Eucharist[78]: 1377 [79] when the words are spoken in persona Christi "This is my body ... this is my blood."

[82][83] The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. ...

The debate on the nature of "transubstantiation" in Greek Orthodoxy begins in the 17th century, with Cyril Lucaris, whose The Eastern Confession of the Orthodox Faith was published in Latin in 1629.

He is not present typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said concerning Baptism, or by impanation, so that the Divinity of the Word is united to the set forth bread of the Eucharist hypostatically, as the followers of Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly suppose.

But [he is present] truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin, was baptized in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sits at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world.

However, St Theodore the Studite writes in his treatise "On the Holy Icons": "for we confess that the faithful receive the very body and blood of Christ, according to the voice of God himself.

Thus, it can be argued that by being part of the dogmatic "horos" against the iconoclast heresy, the teaching on the "real presence" of Christ in the eucharist is indeed a dogma of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Articles declared that "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions."

Archbishop John Tillotson decried the "real barbarousness of this Sacrament and Rite of our Religion", considering it a great impiety to believe that people who attend Holy Communion "verily eat and drink the natural flesh and blood of Christ.

It remained "the dominant theological position in the Church of England until the Oxford Movement in the early nineteenth century, with varying degrees of emphasis".

[101] Theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church has produced common documents that speak of "substantial agreement" about the doctrine of the Eucharist: the ARCIC Windsor Statement of 1971,[102] and its 1979 Elucidation.

[106][107][108][109] Lutheran churches instead emphasize the sacramental union[110] (not exactly the consubstantiation, as is often claimed)[111] and believe that within the Eucharistic celebration the body and blood of Jesus Christ are objectively present "in, with, and under the forms" of bread and wine (cf.

[114]Methodists believe in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine (or grape juice) while, like Presbyterians and Lutherans, rejecting transubstantiation.