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Doctrine

The Real Presence in the Eucharist

Also Known As Holy Communion · the Lord's Supper · transubstantiation · consubstantiation · Real Presence
Church, Sacraments and Authority
Origin 1215 to 1551

No single question divides the Western churches more sharply, and the divisions are precise rather than vague. At one pole the elements are held to become the body and blood of Christ, their substance changed though their appearance remains; at the other they remain bread and wine and the rite is a remembrance. Between lie a range of real-presence positions that affirm that Christ is truly received while declining, or differing over, any account of how. The sixteenth-century failure of Luther and Zwingli to agree at Marburg in 1529, over the four words "this is my body", fixed a division that persists. The competing positions are set out below, each named to the communion that holds it; none is "the Christian view."

Facts
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 3Tradition: Lutheranism
Confessed as the true body and blood present in, with and under the bread and wine
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 4Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy
The change is confessed and not explained
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 1Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Sourced to the subject's own accountDefined at Trent, Session 13, 1551, as transubstantiation
Status Within the Tradition
Standard teaching, not formally defined 5Tradition: Calvinism (Reformed)
A true spiritual presence received by faith
Status Within the Tradition
The teaching of one school or lineage within the tradition 5Tradition: Calvinism (Reformed)
Status Within the Tradition
A minority position within the tradition 4Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy
Status Within the Tradition
Rejected, or not held, within this tradition 3Tradition: Lutheranism
Transubstantiation is rejected as an explanation
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard analytic category in the study of religion 6
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
The Roman Catholic Church defines the change as transubstantiation, in which the whole substance of bread and wine is converted while the appearances remain; Lutheran teaching holds Christ's body and blood present in, with and under the elements without defining the mechanism; Reformed and many Protestant traditions read the presence as spiritual or symbolic. 2
Position Profile
Principal Proponent
Thomas Aquinas gave transubstantiation its classic scholastic formulation using Aristotelian categories of substance and accident. 2
Principal Critic
Huldrych Zwingli argued for a purely memorial and symbolic reading of the rite, rejecting any bodily presence, a position that split the Reformation at the Marburg Colloquy of 1529, where he could not agree with Martin Luther. 2
Origins
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
1215 to 1551 1
Held By
Roman Catholicism, defined as transubstantiation at Trent; Lutheran teaching holds Christ's body and blood present in, with and under the elements without defining the mechanism; Reformed tradition reads the presence as spiritual, received by faith; Eastern Orthodoxy confesses the change without adopting the scholastic vocabulary of transubstantiation. 2
The Claim
The Claim
That the bread and wine of the Eucharist become, in some real sense, the body and blood of Christ, rather than remaining ordinary bread and wine or serving only as symbols of his presence. 2
Doctrinal category (class)
God and Divine Nature 7
Learn More
Six Answers to Four Words

The whole dispute can be hung on four words of Jesus at the supper: "This is my body." Every Western tradition reads them, and they read them six different ways. The point of this entry is that none of the six is "the Christian view", each is the settled teaching of a major body of Christians, and they are mutually exclusive.

Transubstantiation (Roman Catholic). The bread and wine cease to be bread and wine. Their substance, what they most deeply are, becomes the body and blood of Christ, while the accidents, everything the senses report, remain unchanged. The change is complete at the words of consecration and it lasts, which is why the Catholic Church reserves and adores the host. Trent defined the word in 1551, borrowing Aristotle to state a mystery, not to explain it away.

Sacramental union (Lutheran). Luther kept the realism and threw out the metaphysics. Christ's body and blood are truly present "in, with, and under" bread that stays bread. He would not read "is" as "signifies", at Marburg in 1529 he reportedly chalked hoc est corpus meum on the table and would not be moved. The popular label "consubstantiation" is one Lutherans reject, because it smuggles back the philosophical apparatus Luther refused.

The change as mystery (Orthodox). The East affirms a real change, metabole, brought about above all by the calling-down of the Spirit, the epiclesis. But it declines to say how, and regards the Western itch to specify the mechanism, whether by Aristotle or against him, as the actual error. The affirmation is as strong as Rome's; the refusal to dissect it is the difference.

Real presence, mode undefined (Anglican). The Church of England says Christ is truly present and truly received, and then, deliberately, stops. Article 28 rejects transubstantiation by name as "repugnant to the plain words of Scripture," but the tradition holds together those who mean by "real presence" something nearly Catholic and those who mean something nearly Calvinist. The reticence is the doctrine.

Spiritual real presence (Reformed). Calvin refused both Rome and Zurich. The supper is no bare memorial: Christ is truly given and truly fed upon. But the presence is not local, Christ's body is in heaven, and the feeding is the work of the Holy Spirit, who lifts the believer to Christ rather than bringing Christ down into the bread. Faith receives; the mouth does not.

Memorial (Baptist, Anabaptist, most evangelical). Zwingli read "is" as "signifies." The supper remembers and proclaims a sacrifice finished once on the cross; the bread and wine are signs that point, and Christ is present in the gathered church and by the Spirit, not in the elements. This is now the majority view across the free-church and evangelical world.

The Marburg Colloquy of 1529 is the moment the divisions set. Luther and Zwingli agreed on fourteen articles and broke on the fifteenth, the supper. They parted without communion between them, and the Protestant world has never fully closed the gap that opened over those four words.

Where Ecumenical Dialogue Has Actually Moved the Needle

Article one sets out six mutually exclusive positions and is right to insist that none of them is simply "the Christian view." What it does not cover is the considerable, if partial, convergence recent ecumenical dialogue has achieved between some of those positions without abolishing any of them.

The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission's Windsor Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine (1971) found that Anglicans and Catholics could affirm together that Christ is truly, really and substantially present in the eucharistic elements and that the bread and wine become his body and blood, while explicitly declining to require that Anglicans adopt the Aristotelian vocabulary of transubstantiation to say so. That is a genuine narrowing of the gap between the Catholic and the "real presence, mode undefined" Anglican positions article one describes, achieved by separating the shared substance of the claim from one tradition's preferred philosophical framework for stating it.

The World Council of Churches' Faith and Order text Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982), the Lima document, attempted something broader still, offering language on the Eucharist that participating Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches, including bodies holding the memorial position article one describes, could each recognise their own faith in without abandoning their distinct positions. It has not produced doctrinal agreement in the strict sense and was not designed to, but it demonstrates that a text can be written which each communion can affirm as compatible with what it already teaches, a more modest achievement than resolving the dispute but a considerably larger one than simply restating the six positions side by side.

Connections

Associated With

Pius X, Figures

His decrees of 1905 and 1910 opened frequent Communion to the laity and lowered the age of first Communion to the age of discretion.

Source Saints and Sinners: A History of the PopesEamon Duffy

Attributed To

Thomas Aquinas, Figures
Source Transubstantiation (Wikipedia)

Belongs to Tradition

Anglican Communion, Denominations

Why this is disputed. The Anglican Communion has never itself defined the mode of Christs presence, and the range of belief within it spans the whole debate the doctrines own page describes. Anglo Catholic provinces and parishes hold positions close to the Catholic teaching of a real change in substance; the Thirty Nine Articles affirm a true, heavenly reception of Christ while deliberately declining to explain how; and Reformed leaning parts of the Communion hold positions closer to a memorial reading. All three coexist within one Communion, which is why no single account of the Anglican position is accurate.

Source The Study of AnglicanismStephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (eds.)
Christianity, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)

Held Differently

Church of Cyprus, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Church of Greece, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Church of Ireland, Denominations

Article XXVIII holds that transubstantiation cannot be proved by holy writ and overthrows the nature of a sacrament, while affirming that the body of Christ is given, taken and eaten only after an heavenly and spiritual manner, the mean of receiving being faith. Article XXIX adds that the wicked are in no wise partakers of Christ. That is a receptionist position, nearer Geneva than Wittenberg.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Dutch Reformed Church, Denominations

A true partaking of Christ by the Holy Spirit through faith, defined against both neighbours at once. The Consensus Tigurinus agreed by Calvin and Bullinger in 1549 rules out a bare memorial and equally rules out any enclosing of Christ's body in the bread, and the Heidelberg Catechism denies that the bread becomes the body while teaching a real feeding on the Christ who remains in heaven.

Source The Consensus Tigurinus (the Zurich Consensus)John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger
Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

The Real Presence in the Eucharist is affirmed as sacramental mystery in this tradition, without the scholastic vocabulary of transubstantiation.

Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal ThemesJohn Meyendorff
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Denominations

The tenth article of the Augsburg Confession says the body and blood of Christ are truly present and distributed to those that eat in the supper. The Formula of Concord defines that as a sacramental union, given in, with and under the bread and wine, and rejects transubstantiation on one side and the Reformed spiritual reception on the other. This is where Lutherans and Reformed have never met.

Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Georgian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Greek Orthodox Church, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Roman Catholicism, Denominations

The Real Presence in the Eucharist, defined as transubstantiation, is dogma per the Council of Trent's decree on the Eucharist, Session 13.

Source Canons and Decrees of the Council of TrentCouncil of Trentthe holders' own account
Romanian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Serbian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The gifts are held to be truly the body and blood of Christ. The change is confessed without committing the church to the scholastic account of substance and accident that the Latin term transubstantiation carries.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Anglicanism, Denominations

The Thirty-Nine Articles, Article XXVIII, reject transubstantiation as repugnant to Scripture, while this tradition affirms a spiritual real presence in a different formulation.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

This tradition rejects transubstantiation by name as contrary to Scripture and reason, per the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXIX, Of the Lord's Supper, while affirming its own doctrine of a real spiritual presence in the sacrament.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Lutheranism, Denominations

The Formula of Concord, Article VII, Of the Holy Supper, affirms Christ's true body and blood are truly and substantially present, distributed and received in, with and under the bread and wine, a sacramental union, while explicitly rejecting the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation as an unwarranted philosophical explanation of the mode of that presence.

Source The Formula of ConcordJakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others
Presbyterianism, Denominations

This tradition rejects transubstantiation by name as contrary to Scripture and reason, per the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXIX, while affirming its own doctrine of a real spiritual presence in the sacrament.

Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account
Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends), Denominations

Traditional Quakers observe no outward sacraments at all, neither water baptism nor an outward Eucharist, holding that the realities both signify are received inwardly and directly.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Anglicanism, Denominations

A real presence with the mode left undefined, which is the deliberate settlement of the Articles and the reason the Anglican formularies can be read in more than one direction.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

A spiritual real presence, truly received by faith, with Christ's body in heaven and not locally in the elements.

Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

The change as mystery. The Orthodox churches affirm the change and decline to define its mechanism in the categories the Latin definition uses.

Lutheranism, Denominations

Sacramental union: the body and blood are truly present in, with and under the bread and wine, which remain what they are.

Oriental Orthodoxy, Denominations

The change as mystery, in common with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Presbyterianism, Denominations

A spiritual real presence received by faith, confessed in the Westminster standards.

Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Transubstantiation: the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood, the appearances remaining. Defined at the Fourth Lateran Council and at Trent.

Rejected Here

Anabaptism, Denominations

Anabaptist theology historically holds the Lord's Supper as a memorial and communal act rather than affirming transubstantiation or a sacramental Real Presence.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Baptist, Denominations

Baptists reject the Real Presence and transubstantiation; the Lord's Supper is a symbolic memorial act per the Baptist Faith and Message, Article VII.

Source The Baptist Faith and MessageSouthern Baptist Convention
Jehovah's Witnesses, Denominations

The annual Memorial uses bread and wine as emblems only, and almost all present decline to partake. No real presence is affirmed.

Pentecostalism, Denominations

Classical Pentecostalism generally holds the Lord's Supper as a memorial ordinance rather than affirming transubstantiation or a sacramental Real Presence.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Seventh-day Adventism, Denominations

Seventh-day Adventism holds the Lord's Supper, observed quarterly with footwashing, as a memorial ordinance rather than affirming transubstantiation.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Anabaptism, Denominations

The memorial view, taken from Zwingli and held across the believers' church tradition.

Baptist, Denominations

The memorial view: the supper is an ordinance of remembrance rather than a means of grace conveying a presence.

Evangelicalism, Denominations

The memorial view, the ordinary assumption of evangelical practice.

Pentecostalism, Denominations

The memorial view, inherited with the wider evangelical settlement.

Critiqued By

Mennonites, Denominations
Source The Schleitheim ConfessionMichael Sattler (attributed)
National Baptist Convention of America, Denominations
Source Baptist Confessions of FaithWilliam L. Lumpkin
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Denominations
Source Baptist Confessions of FaithWilliam L. Lumpkin

Depicted In

The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament (Raphael, Stanza della Segnatura), Sacred Art & Iconography

The fresco's entire traditional subject IS the doctrine: the consecrated host on the altar as the point where the earthly Church and the heavenly host it worships are shown as one continuous scene, the most direct visual argument for the real presence in the Western canon rather than a generic Mass or church interior.

Source Vatican Museums, "Room of the Segnatura," official institutional pageVatican Museums

Positions on This Question

Sacramental union (real presence in the Eucharist), Beliefs & Restrictions

Sacramental union holds the bread and wine to remain what they are while Christ is truly present in, with and under them.

Spiritual presence (real presence received by faith), Beliefs & Restrictions

Spiritual real presence holds Christ to be truly received by faith rather than locally present in the elements.

Transubstantiation, Beliefs & Restrictions

Transubstantiation is an account of HOW Christ is present, not a rejection of the presence. The doctrine entry records six competing accounts and this is one of them.

Related To

Memorialism, Beliefs & Restrictions

One of the positions set out on this doctrine.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Open and Closed Communion, Doctrines

The two questions the churches divide on at the table: what is received, and who may receive it. The answers do not line up with each other.

Source Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111World Council of Churches, Commission on Faith and Order
Receptionism, Beliefs & Restrictions

One of the positions set out on this doctrine.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Spiritual presence (real presence received by faith), Beliefs & Restrictions

One of the positions set out on this doctrine.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
The Last Supper, Religious Events
The Lord's Supper, Rituals

The question of what is received at this table.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
The Words of Institution, Rituals

The four words the whole Western argument turns on.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
Council of Trent, 1563Session 13, on the Eucharist and transubstantiation, 1551the holders' own accountView the Source
2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005Quaker rejection of the outward sacraments, entry on the Religious Society of FriendsView the Source
3. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
Jaroslav Pelikan, University of Chicago Press, 1971The Reformation eucharistic controversiesView the Source
4. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source
5. Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin, 1559Book IV.17, the spiritual real presenceView the Source
6. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
7. The Baptist Faith and Message
Southern Baptist Convention, 2000Article VII, Baptism and the Lord's SupperView the Source
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
Church of England, 1571Article XXVIII, Of the Lord's Supperthe holders' own accountView the Source
The Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Assembly, 1646Chapter XXIX, Of the Lord's Supperthe holders' own accountView the Source
The Formula of Concord
Jakob Andreae, Martin Chemnitz, Nikolaus Selnecker and others, 1577Article VII, Of the Holy SupperView the Source
The Orthodox Church
Timothy Ware (Kallistos Ware), Penguin Books, 1993View the Source
Baptist Confessions of Faith
William L. Lumpkin, Judson Press, 1959View the Source
The Schleitheim Confession
Michael Sattler (attributed), 1527
The Consensus Tigurinus (the Zurich Consensus)
John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger, Zurich, 1549
The Study of Anglicanism
Stephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (eds.), SPCK / Fortress Press, 1998
Transubstantiation (Wikipedia)
Attributed To: Thomas Aquinas, Middle Ages section
Quote, Attributed To: Thomas Aquinas, Middle Ages section
which found classic formulation in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas
View the Source

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