On Communion

I know the Eastern Orthodox Church doesn’t use the term “Transubstantiation”, so it must be a RC term coined in a response to the Reformers.

I’m happy with the Eastern Orthodox stand on the Eucharist as nothing more than a Mystery. I’m sure some of the Fathers wrote about such, but generally we don’t try and pin point at exactly when the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ during the Liturgy or how…we just take the Lord at His word and believe by the power of the Holy Spirit…it happens.

On a side note: My family and I will be Chrismated into the Orthodox Church this Saturday the 14th! So on Pentecost Sunday, we’ll get to experience this Mystery.

ICXC NIKA
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Congratulations on your entry into the church Agnus! I know how much time and effort there is on preparation. I have a wonderful friend who is EO, and I just met another wonderful person (online) who is OO. It is truly an ancient and beautiful faith.

I have been noting with interest how much of Catholic theology is being cross-referenced with Orthodox beliefs in a positive light over recent years. And my heart is warmed when I hear both John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew express the need for the church to breathe with 'two lungs'. I know that is not popular with many of the Orthodox faithful! And I believe many Catholics put an interpretation on that which is to their own liking. Best to let the Holy Spirit work anything out but my prayer will always be that His work will prevail.

I know your heart will be overflowing this weekend.

 

That point is instructive: in any attempt to have a discussion on this matter using Scripture alone, it usually descends into a battle of the proof texts as per your OP. There has to be some method therefore of adjudicating between these competing interpretations of Scripture. At the very least, the ECFs such as Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr can provide that interpretation, together with many other ECFs writing on the same subject*; indeed, it is the case that nearly all the patristic writings of the first few centuries of the Church affirm the Real Presence (I can only think of two in the 4th and 5th centuries who are on record as espousing a mere memorialist or symbolic view of the Eucharist, and their names elude me - actually I think one was Evagrius of Pontus - but they're not normally counted as ECFs). Not even proto-Reformers like Wycliffe or Hus denied the Real Presence (in fact one of the Hussite objections to the Mass was not the Real Presence but that fact that the laity were denied the cup and thus denied, as the Utraquist wing of the Hussites believed, reception of the Blood of Christ). Only with Zwingli do you first get memorialism rearing its head significantly.

*See next post.

 

For example, in addition to the ECFs you quoted:

 

Hi Thinkingstuff

Good question, but there’s no way one or two posts could do justice to my answer. Only that over the past 4 years, I’ve been reading not only Scripture, but history of the Early Church, the Apostolic, Early and Desert Fathers of the Church. I’ve taken both the Catholic RCIA classes and Orthodox Catechesis Classes.

In the end after being a Baptist my whole life, a Methodist a few years and having attended both Roman Catholic and Orthodox Liturgies, it just seemed that after I took all that I’ve learned and have experienced, the Orthodox Church is the one true Church of the Apostles.

As the U2 song “I Still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” goes, I thought for a long time that the plot of the song was true, but…I’m a living testimony with patience and prayer, by asking and seeking, God will lead you...IF, you let Him.

ICXC NIKA
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Thank you mrtumnus…it’s been a long time coming and I’m truly blessed and thankful that my whole family will be entering the Church at the same time and our two youngest kids will be baptized (that should be interesting, since the EO immerse).

In XC
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