Transubstantiation

[charsan]

Hello,

In another thread elsewhere there is a discussion of the Eucharist going on. It was posited that the Orthodox believe in Transubstantiation and I said that I believe the Orthodox do no believe in Transubstantiation. I would like to know if I am wrong. The discussion was between me an @Andrewn

 

[ArmyMatt]

we do use it, we just don't limit the change of the Gifts to that term.

 

[HTacianas]

Hello,

In another thread elsewhere there is a discussion of the Eucharist going on. It was posited that the Orthodox believe in Transubstantiation and I said that I believe the Orthodox do no believe in Transubstantiation. I would like to know if I am wrong. The discussion was between me an @Andrewn

The term "transubstantiation" is seldom used in the Orthodox Church. The meaning of the term is. It is sometimes called "the change" and sometimes the "metamorphosis". But in the end there is no real word for it, it simply is.

At the blessing of the bread and wine they become the body and blood of Christ. It is something that is accepted without much discussion. The Roman Church coined the term transubstantiation during the theological debates of the protestant reformation. But while the term itself has only been used since that time, the belief itself has existed since the beginning.

 

[All4Christ]

The important thing to remember with Orthodoxy is that it is a Mystery. We know it changes to become the body and blood of Christ - but we don’t define exactly when, how, etc.

 

[charsan]

we do use it, we just don't limit the change of the Gifts to that term.

Okay, thank you

 

[charsan]

The important thing to remember with Orthodoxy is that it is a Mystery. We know it changes to become the body and blood of Christ - but we don’t define exactly when, how, etc.

That is my Church stance as well

 

[charsan]

The term "transubstantiation" is seldom used in the Orthodox Church. The meaning of the term is. It is sometimes called "the change" and sometimes the "metamorphosis". But in the end there is no real word for it, it simply is.

At the blessing of the bread and wine they become the body and blood of Christ. It is something that is accepted without much discussion. The Roman Church coined the term transubstantiation during the theological debates of the protestant reformation. But while the term itself has only been used since that time, the belief itself has existed since the beginning.

Thank you

 

[~Anastasia~]

A bishop once told me it depends on how you define "transubstantiation". We acknowledge the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. But he told me that we reject all the philosophy that Catholics attach to their understanding. Like others have said - it simply is, and is a mystery.

 

[WanderedHome]

Hello,

In another thread elsewhere there is a discussion of the Eucharist going on. It was posited that the Orthodox believe in Transubstantiation and I said that I believe the Orthodox do no believe in Transubstantiation. I would like to know if I am wrong. The discussion was between me an @Andrewn

Definitely what everyone else said. I would also say, please don't ask us the details of how it is. One who prys too much into the Holy Mysteries always gets distracted from the path of salvation and often falls into heresy.

The temptation is to compete with secular scholasticism to impress people and hopefully gain converts, but we need to know when to say, "let's not go there, brother." (I am hearing this in the voice of my Dogmatic Theology professor- it's hilarious!)

I will say, that in the West, the whole debate began with the Catholic idea of the Real Presence and how the Protestants responded to that. The whole argument became about literal ("real") vs. symbolic ("not real"). I have heard Orthodox priests saying it can be understood as symbolic, but it depends on how you define "symbol". From the Greek it is "joining together"- kind of like dia-bolic is "to separate". So we could say it is taking a spiritual reality (which this world often equates with "not real" because it can't be scientifically verified) and a physical reality (also REAL) and through that, the bread and wine become the real Body and Blood of Christ- truly. Yet, it still appears to be bread and wine to the 5 senses. We should also understand that it is the glorified Body and Blood of Christ, not the crucified.

 

[trulytheone]

The council of Jerusalem of 1672 upheld the usage of "transubstantiation" and condemned the idea that the Eucharist is our Lord and, at the same time, bread & wine.

 

[ArmyMatt]

we don't reject transubstantiation. just certain understandings of it. but I am curious, where is the idea that the bread and wine remaining condemned in Jerusalem?

 

[trulytheone]

we don't reject transubstantiation. just certain understandings of it. but I am curious, where is the idea that the bread and wine remaining condemned in Jerusalem?

Decree 17

"Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remains the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the Body Itself and the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to say, under the accidents of the bread."

The Confession of Dositheus (Eastern Orthodox)

 

[trulytheone]

The passage above what I cited is much clearer on the condemnation:

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.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Decree 17

"Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remains the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the Body Itself and the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to say, under the accidents of the bread."

The Confession of Dositheus (Eastern Orthodox)

yeah, now that you say that I do remember that it was a very Latin Synod

 

[AMM]

Decree 17

"Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remains the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the Body Itself and the Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine; that is to say, under the accidents of the bread."

The Confession of Dositheus (Eastern Orthodox)

that sounds super strongly like aristotelian transubstantiation

is this council binding/seen as ecumenical on Orthodoxy?

 

[trulytheone]

yeah, now that you say that I do remember that it was a very Latin Synod

Was there, at least, a single portion of the Eastern Orthodox Church that consistently did not succumb to using Latin concepts? If there were none, how could one maintain that the Eastern Orthodox Church consistently preserve her doctrines if the doctrines were "temporarily forgotten" or "temporarily used latin concepts that were erroneous", only to be "rediscovered" through neo-patristic scholars of the late c. e. 19th-20th centuries?

 

[trulytheone]

I am asking this because that excuse, used by some Eastern Orthodox, is actually one of the justification of the Protestant Reformers for their doctrines

 

[trulytheone]

that sounds super strongly like aristotelian transubstantiation

is this council binding/seen as ecumenical on Orthodoxy?

To be fair to the Eastern Orthodox, the council may be simply saying: "The Eucharist is literally our Lord, not a bread and wine. But, He looks like a bread and wine. Everything else is a mystery."

The Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy used by the Roman Catholic Church entails more. One example of this is what I had learned, many months ago, through watching online a lecture by a knowledgeable traditional Roman Catholic priest (p. s. my memory of this is unreliable): In my understanding of the doctrine, when the Eucharistic host is moved from one local point to another, it is technically incorrect to say that the Body of Christ also moved from that one local point to another. This is because of the distinction between substance and accidents according to that philosophy.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Was there, at least, a single portion of the Eastern Orthodox Church that consistently did not succumb to using Latin concepts? If there were none, how could one maintain that the Eastern Orthodox Church consistently preserve her doctrines if the doctrines were "temporarily forgotten" or "temporarily used latin concepts that were erroneous", only to be "rediscovered" through neo-patristic scholars of the late c. e. 19th-20th centuries?

using Latin concepts isn't a problem. it's the Latin understanding of those concepts.

 

[trulytheone]

using Latin concepts isn't a problem. it's the Latin understanding of those concepts.

Then what is the Eastern Orthodox definition of Ancestral Sin? Was it removed from an infant during baptism (I ask this because the council of Carthage, which was accepted by the quinisext council of Trullo, anathematized the notion that infant baptism does not removed Ancestral Sin)?