Is the Eucharist cannibalism?

dzheremi · Apr 15, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Someone could make the same argument from the other side because there were also a lot of people who were in support of it and even to this day some within the apostolic churches actually believe in universal reconciliation based on his interpretations of the scriptures because that was never actually anathematized at the 5th ecumenical council.

"Some people" could make any kind of argument about anything, and "some within" whatever church we look at may believe in anything. This is why we do not believe nor behave according to what "some people" may be able to argue, but according to the texts of our respective liturgies. These are our standard(s) as a body, in the sense that everything that is in them (the texts themselves, and the rubrics) is purposely the way that it is in order to express the pure faith of the Church herself -- e.g., it's not as though the priest's confession before the Eucharist (to point to just one example that we have some idea of the historical evolution of in the Coptic Orthodox Church) somehow accidentally took the form that did, or was 'voted' into existence by powerful people, or any such fantasy that the ahistorical Christian may have about why we pray and affirm this and not that. No, it's deliberately like that, in the same way that it is deliberate that the specific forms and standards of iconography are the way that they are, or of hymnography, or hagiography (e.g., the classical vitas produced throughout the life of the Church, or the form that entries of the synaxarium take), etc.

And it is very weird to read that a particular belief that the Church herself rejects may still somehow be believed by those within it because that belief was not specifically condemned in the fifth ecumenical council. Seeing as there have not been five ecumenical councils in my tradition, you could be making a good point if this is in fact how Chalcedonians view their councils (but I kind of doubt it...), but looking at church governance more generally, I don't think this idea holds, precisely because we can see from the case of Origen (and others, like Pelagius) that how an individual is treated is not necessarily intimately connected with the fate of the heresy that they are connected to. In Pelagius' case, I've read in Chalcedonian sources that he walked away from being questioned by a synod of bishops completely exonerated on a personal level, and yet Pelagianism itself as a thing is still most definitely condemned, having been condemned in 418 AD (which was within Pelagius' lifetime, c. 355-420). Virtually the opposite happened with regard to Origen, as he was initially condemned in his lifetime by a synod held in Alexandria after it became known that he had gotten himself ordained while teaching in Palestine without the consultation much less the approval of his own bishop back home in Alexandria. You are not allowed to do an "end-run" around the ecclesiastical authority that is proper to you in the hierarchy, either back then or now (e.g., I could not simply go 'bishop-shopping' until I find one willing to ordain me XYZ and still expect said ordination to be recognized). Completely separate from this, some centuries later, the Chalcedonians held a council in which Origen was condemned by name in an effort to stop the spread of Origenism, a belief system that had grown out of the excesses to which some of his students had taken his positions after he died.

This does not mean that we are somehow free to believe in Origenism simply because we (and by "we" here, I mean specifically the Coptic Orthodox Church, as Origen was a son of Alexandria through and through) never specifically condemned that belief in dealing with him, as such a thing had yet to materialize at the time. The Church's position is clear enough by looking at the position taken by HH Pope Theophilos, who was Pope of Alexandria at the time that Origenism came to be (in the late 4th century; keep in mind here that Origen departed c. 253), against the heresies that were collected under that label. And HH himself arrived at that position by comparing what we believe to what was being presented as true by the Origenists, the same as happens whenever something comes up that merits investigation. In other words, it is not a positive defense of Origenism (or Pelagianism, or anything) to say that "some people" within a particular Church may hold to it and/or that it was not condemned by name in a council that is held by some church somewhere to be ecumenical, since the way by which a particular belief may come to be condemned may not rise to that level, or even (cf. Pelagius) require the personal condemnation of an individual.

Maybe this comes down to a difference in mindset between Chalcedonians and Orthodox with regard to how we view councils (it wouldn't surprise me, as I do believe that there are such differences, but I'm unwilling to say so with regard to Origen, since he isn't anyone we defend in the first place), but councils aren't some kind of "gold standard" when it comes to condemnation of something, such that "an ecumenical council didn't condemn this by name" means that it's therefore within the range of beliefs that we can hold. We have, to the best of my knowledge, never had an ecumenical council that dealt with the question of whether or not we can sleep through liturgy because we do not feel like getting up early on Sundays, but that obviously does not mean that we can sleep through liturgy because we do not feel like getting up on Sundays. A purposely silly example, sure, but hopefully the point is not lost.

jas3 · Apr 15, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Ok so your argument is that because it was never argued against then it must be true. In answer to your question I don’t know of any such argument from within the apostolic church.

Thank you for the direct answer. My argument is not that a doctrine in the absence of opposition is true because there is an absence of opposition. It is that we have records of opposition to false doctrines for probably every other novel position proposed in the early church, especially for novelties that found widespread adoption like Arianism. If belief in the Real Presence were a heresy, or even if it weren't one but was still controversial, we would find criticisms of it from memorialists at least in the first millennium or so after its widespread adoption, but we don't.

As for your question on Origen, as @The Liturgist said, his doctrines were condemned by individuals before Constantinople II, as early as the fourth century. As for whether the condemnation was official, the first condemnation of his work that came from a council rather than from an individual was at the very end of the fourth century.

But to answer what you're getting at, sure, I would agree that a false doctrine is false even before it's condemned. But if a doctrine finds universal adoption without condemnation for so many centuries, it's much more probable that a latecoming critic is making an error in personal judgment than that the whole church, "the pillar and foundation of truth," was actually celebrating a heresy as the core part of its liturgy all along.

The Liturgist · Apr 15, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Someone could make the same argument from the other side because there were also a lot of people who were in support of it and even to this day some within the apostolic churches actually believe in universal reconciliation based on his interpretations of the scriptures because that was never actually anathematized at the 5th ecumenical council.

I myself am sympathetic to Origen, but concurrently I think that the Origenist monastics St. Epiphanios refers to were at least substantially heterodox, heterodox enough to cause St. Jerome, St. Epiphanios and other figures to oppose them.

Ultimately however the case of Origen really proves the point of @jas3 that the absence of debate on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist before the 16th century is evidence of its Apostolic origin, for this reason:

The anathemas against Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia were controversial, yet we see controversy about Origen as soon as the persecution of the church ended (it is also widely believed that one reason why Canon I of the Council of Nicaea was promulgated was due to rumors that Origen had castrated himself for ascetic reasons, which is not quite correct insofar as he was forced to be castrated if he refused to offer incense to a Pagan deity, and instead of offering the sacrifice, he castrated himself, but if he had not done that, the Roman officials would have). Likewise we see controversy over certain Christological ideas expressed by Theodore of Mopsuestia within a few years of his repose, as the Nestorian controversy heated up. But there was never an issue in the early church about the Eucharist.

And the idea that St. Ignatius was the first to state it just doesn’t add up, since St. Ignatius had contemporaries, including St. Polycarp of Smyrna who would have spoken up if St. Ignatius had included false doctrine in his epistles, and there is extremely strong scriptural support for it, and we also see this doctrine in the first century Didache and various liturgies widely believed to date to the first century, including the Divine Liturgy of Addai and Mari, the Divine Liturgy of the Apostles, and that of Alexandria (known as the Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, the Divine Liturgy of St. Cyril and sometimes the term “The Divine Liturgy of St. Serapion” or of St. Seraphim is used to refer to the version in the aforementioned Euchologion of St. Serapion of Thmuis), and this liturgy has second century attestation.

Markie Boy · Apr 15, 2024

Ignatius is a very early church father. But he also thought that Jesus died at a much older age than we all agree today. Showing that they were very fallible, unlike Scripture.

dzheremi · Apr 15, 2024

Markie Boy said:
Ignatius is a very early church father. But he also thought that Jesus died at a much older age than we all agree today. Showing that they were very fallible, unlike Scripture.

And St. Justin Martyr thought that matter preexisted with God, probably as a result of some vestiges of his pagan background and education. Does that mean that his concept of "seeds of the Word" is somehow not true? No, right?

The problem with this way of looking at things is that it assumes that since someone is incorrect about one thing, therefore whatever else they have to say is at best naturally suspect. This may work as a matter of law (e.g., the Latin maxim "falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" -- "false in one thing, false in everything" -- which provides a basis for rejecting the testimony of a witness on any matter if they can be shown to have lied about one matter), but obviously law is not theology or historiography. The Bible itself also fails this pseudo-test, since by this way of thinking, any error shown to be present in any particular copy of the Bible, no matter how inconsequential it is to the actual message of the faith (say, a semicolon being used in place of a colon or a comma), would mean that we could not trust any bible anywhere.

The Liturgist · Apr 15, 2024

Markie Boy said:
Ignatius is a very early church father. But he also thought that Jesus died at a much older age than we all agree today. Showing that they were very fallible, unlike Scripture.

Firstly, we do not claim that our saints are infallible, in this life at least. But the Eastern Orthodox do regard the Church as being infallible in its ecumenical councils, and this thread has shifted to a discussion of whether or not one can reasonable regard Eastern Orthodoxy as the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic church while rejecting two of its core doctrines, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the perpetual virginity of the Theotokos. And as far as the Eucharist is concerned, as noted, we have no reason to believe that the doctrine of the Real Presence originated with St. Ignatius, particularly given ancient liturgical texts and the Didache which originated from outside his home city of Antioch; indeed Alexandria was a theological rival to Antioch and yet we find in its second-century attested liturgy powerful statements as to the real presence.

And most scholars consider the ancient liturgy of the Church of the East to be of the same age, perhaps older, that being the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Apostles Addai and Mari (who were among the seventy and who were assistants of St. Thomas the Apostle, who evangelized Edessa, Nineveh, Seleucia-Cstesiphon and various points in between before sailing to Kerala, India, where he was martyred by an enraged Hindu Maharajah, the first act of persecution of Christians by Hindus which continues to this day, Hindus having in recent years earning the dubious distinction of being the third worst belief system in terms of violence against Christians after various denominations of Marxist-Leninism, and militant forms of Sunni and Shi’a Islam.

What all of this means is that St. Ignatius is not our only source concerning the doctrine of the Real Presence. Indeed as my excellent and pious friend @MarkRohfrietsch and my dear friend @Ain't Zwinglian can confirm, Martin Luther and many other Christian theologians have determined that the doctrine is clearly established in Scripture, and I agree with them, both based on the Patristic evidence and also since, from a purely Scriptural perspective, since several passages in the New Testament lose internal and external coherence with the rest of the text without a belief in some form of the Real Presence. Martin Luther was right to etch “HOC EST MEUM CORPUS” into the table at the Marburg Colloquy while debating with Zwingli.

What is more, contrary to your assertion, we don’t all agree on what age our Lord was (in terms of his human body, since obviously, being God the Word and the second person of the Trinity, he has always existed, and what is more, since the Resurrection, his glorified body has continued to exist and is immortal), at the time of His glorious Passion and Resurrection.* We do agree however that He did not remain dead, so speaking of His death on the cross without stressing how it was a supreme act of love, a victory over sin and evil which restored humanity and made possible our salvation, and also mentionioning the fact that His Resurrection and His Ascension and His sending of the Holy Spirit.

*While 33 AD is generally accepted as the date of our Lord’s glorious triumph, resurrection, ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit, it has been shown that the year 1 does not work for his birth, since by that time Augustus no longer ruled the world; rather 6 BC seems like a much more probable choice. However, this is by no means certainly established.

I would be interested to know how old you think St. Ignatius believed our Lord’s humanity to be at the time of His passion and resurrection and ascension, and the basis for your assertion, for example, a specific reference to one of his works; I haven’t come across that in my reading of his epistles, but I may have glanced over it by accident, also I have only read those epistles of St. Ignatius known to be authentic. There are a number of bogus epistles attributed to him psuedepigraphically.

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

Xeno.of.athens said:
That message is typed as if personal studies are meritorious. As if one's own efforts are superior to the efforts of the saints over the past two thousand years. I do not share that point of view; rather, I am inclined to think that personal studies are likely inferior to the combined scholarship of Christians over the past two thousand years.

Ok coming from a Roman Catholic that’s pretty ironic since your church is in schism from the rest of the apostolic churches who rejected the theology of your last two “ecumenical councils”. Perhaps more personal study could’ve helped you prevent this erroneous choice of churches.

Furthermore I’ve never said that my theology is superior to that of the church but that there have been those in the church who’ve made numerous theological errors and I’m not the type to be led blindly. Personal studies should be viewed as meritorious because that’s how we detect erroneous teachings. Its personal study the pulled me out of reformed theology.

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
Some people" could make any kind of argument about anything, and "some within" whatever church we look at may believe in anything. This is why we do not believe nor behave according to what "some people" may be able to argue, but according to the texts of our respective liturgies.

Ok I thought the discussion was about the Eucharist being the actual body and blood of Christ, not the Spiritual presence of Him. The liturgy of Mark provides evidence of a Spiritual presence not a physical presence.

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
"Some people" could make any kind of argument about anything, and "some within" whatever church we look at may believe in anything. This is why we do not believe nor behave according to what "some people" may be able to argue, but according to the texts of our respective liturgies. These are our standard(s) as a body, in the sense that everything that is in them (the texts themselves, and the rubrics) is purposely the way that it is in order to express the pure faith of the Church herself -- e.g., it's not as though the priest's confession before the Eucharist (to point to just one example that we have some idea of the historical evolution of in the Coptic Orthodox Church) somehow accidentally took the form that did, or was 'voted' into existence by powerful people, or any such fantasy that the ahistorical Christian may have about why we pray and affirm this and not that. No, it's deliberately like that, in the same way that it is deliberate that the specific forms and standards of iconography are the way that they are, or of hymnography, or hagiography (e.g., the classical vitas produced throughout the life of the Church, or the form that entries of the synaxarium take), etc.

And it is very weird to read that a particular belief that the Church herself rejects may still somehow be believed by those within it because that belief was not specifically condemned in the fifth ecumenical council. Seeing as there have not been five ecumenical councils in my tradition, you could be making a good point if this is in fact how Chalcedonians view their councils (but I kind of doubt it...), but looking at church governance more generally, I don't think this idea holds, precisely because we can see from the case of Origen (and others, like Pelagius) that how an individual is treated is not necessarily intimately connected with the fate of the heresy that they are connected to. In Pelagius' case, I've read in Chalcedonian sources that he walked away from being questioned by a synod of bishops completely exonerated on a personal level, and yet Pelagianism itself as a thing is still most definitely condemned, having been condemned in 418 AD (which was within Pelagius' lifetime, c. 355-420). Virtually the opposite happened with regard to Origen, as he was initially condemned in his lifetime by a synod held in Alexandria after it became known that he had gotten himself ordained while teaching in Palestine without the consultation much less the approval of his own bishop back home in Alexandria. You are not allowed to do an "end-run" around the ecclesiastical authority that is proper to you in the hierarchy, either back then or now (e.g., I could not simply go 'bishop-shopping' until I find one willing to ordain me XYZ and still expect said ordination to be recognized). Completely separate from this, some centuries later, the Chalcedonians held a council in which Origen was condemned by name in an effort to stop the spread of Origenism, a belief system that had grown out of the excesses to which some of his students had taken his positions after he died.

This does not mean that we are somehow free to believe in Origenism simply because we (and by "we" here, I mean specifically the Coptic Orthodox Church, as Origen was a son of Alexandria through and through) never specifically condemned that belief in dealing with him, as such a thing had yet to materialize at the time. The Church's position is clear enough by looking at the position taken by HH Pope Theophilos, who was Pope of Alexandria at the time that Origenism came to be (in the late 4th century; keep in mind here that Origen departed c. 253), against the heresies that were collected under that label. And HH himself arrived at that position by comparing what we believe to what was being presented as true by the Origenists, the same as happens whenever something comes up that merits investigation. In other words, it is not a positive defense of Origenism (or Pelagianism, or anything) to say that "some people" within a particular Church may hold to it and/or that it was not condemned by name in a council that is held by some church somewhere to be ecumenical, since the way by which a particular belief may come to be condemned may not rise to that level, or even (cf. Pelagius) require the personal condemnation of an individual.

Maybe this comes down to a difference in mindset between Chalcedonians and Orthodox with regard to how we view councils (it wouldn't surprise me, as I do believe that there are such differences, but I'm unwilling to say so with regard to Origen, since he isn't anyone we defend in the first place), but councils aren't some kind of "gold standard" when it comes to condemnation of something, such that "an ecumenical council didn't condemn this by name" means that it's therefore within the range of beliefs that we can hold. We have, to the best of my knowledge, never had an ecumenical council that dealt with the question of whether or not we can sleep through liturgy because we do not feel like getting up early on Sundays, but that obviously does not mean that we can sleep through liturgy because we do not feel like getting up on Sundays. A purposely silly example, sure, but hopefully the point is not lost.

Right so basically what I gather from what your saying here is that not all matters warrant an ecumenical council decision because they may already be understood by the majority or so trivial in nature that it’s not important enough to convene a council over. So I could see how this particular doctrine on the Eucharist could fall into one of these categories since it was never actually disputed by anyone.

dzheremi · Apr 16, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Ok I thought the discussion was about the Eucharist being the actual body and blood of Christ, not the Spiritual presence of Him. The liturgy of Mark provides evidence of a Spiritual presence not a physical presence.

I'm not sure where you are getting that idea, but it is very incorrect. The priest's confession before the Eucharist in the liturgy of St. Mark is exactly the same as that found in the most commonly-celebrated liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church (that of St. Basil), and is proclaimed as follows (emphasis added):

"Amen. Amen. Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath, that this is the life-giving flesh that Your Only-Begotten Son, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ took from our Lady, the Lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary. He made It one with His Divinity without mingling, without confusion and without alteration. He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. He gave It up for us upon the holy wood of the Cross, of His own will, for us all. Truly I believe that His Divinity parted not from His Humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye. Given for us for salvation, remission of sins and eternal life to those who partake of Him. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is so in truth. Amen."

The underlined, bolded, and italicized portion above definitively shuts out any kind of memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation. "This IS the life-giving flesh." Not "This is a spiritual representation of the life-giving flesh, understood to be a memorial of some kind" or some such.

And just so that it's out there, the same is proclaimed concerning the holy and precious blood slightly before the confession via the following dialogue (truncated so as to contain only the bits that concern the physical reality of the body and blood):

Priest:
Peace be with all.

People:
And with your spirit.

Priest (while holding aloft the paten before the prostrated worshippers):
The holy Body and the precious, true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest (while holding aloft the chalice...)
The holy precious Body and the true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest:
The Body and the Blood of Emmanuel our God; this is true. Amen.

People:
Amen. I believe.

+++

Again, there is absolutely no room in any of this for a memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation of what we are receiving. We are literally required by the content and structure of our liturgies (all of them) to affirm our belief in the literal reality of the Eucharist several times over before even so much as picking ourselves up from the ground to approach for communion. This is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, our God.

childeye 2 · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
I'm not sure where you are getting that idea, but it is very incorrect. The priest's confession before the Eucharist in the liturgy of St. Mark is exactly the same as that found in the most commonly-celebrated liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church (that of St. Basil), and is proclaimed as follows (emphasis added):

"Amen. Amen. Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath, that this is the life-giving flesh that Your Only-Begotten Son, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ took from our Lady, the Lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary. He made It one with His Divinity without mingling, without confusion and without alteration. He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. He gave It up for us upon the holy wood of the Cross, of His own will, for us all. Truly I believe that His Divinity parted not from His Humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye. Given for us for salvation, remission of sins and eternal life to those who partake of Him. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is so in truth. Amen."

The underlined, bolded, and italicized portion above definitively shuts out any kind of memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation. "This IS the life-giving flesh." Not "This is a spiritual representation of the life-giving flesh, understood to be a memorial of some kind" or some such.

And just so that it's out there, the same is proclaimed concerning the holy and precious blood slightly before the confession via the following dialogue (truncated so as to contain only the bits that concern the physical reality of the body and blood):

Priest:
Peace be with all.

People:
And with your spirit.

Priest (while holding aloft the paten before the prostrated worshippers):
The holy Body and the precious, true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest (while holding aloft the chalice...)
The holy precious Body and the true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest:
The Body and the Blood of Emmanuel our God; this is true. Amen.

People:
Amen. I believe.

+++

Again, there is absolutely no room in any of this for a memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation of what we are receiving. We are literally required by the content and structure of our liturgies (all of them) to affirm our belief in the literal reality of the Eucharist several times over before even so much as picking ourselves up from the ground to approach for communion. This is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, our God.

Let's be careful here in what we say. In parsing semantics there's a such thing as establishing a precept or precedence. In this case, The Word partook of flesh and blood so that we could partake of him as a quickening Spirit. We spiritually eat him when we believe in him as the Christ, the True Image of God sent by God. In the theology of Christianity, the Spirit of God as Creator precedes the existence of flesh and blood. The incorruptible Spirit of God was therefore present in the flesh and blood of His Christ when the Word partook of flesh and blood to become the son of man, Jesus.

Wherefore the same affirmation of belief is also present in the Eucharist (thanksgiving for his Spirit). For Jesus is the Christ who came and sacrificed his own flesh and blood through horrific suffering as a means of salvation for us, which is why we witness to Jesus as the incorruptible Love displayed on a cross. This same sentiment is also conveyed when we acknowledge that the same sacrificed flesh and blood of the lamb of God becomes the bread and wine, because we who partake of this One bread and wine (flesh and blood) that came down from heaven are transformed through the Spiritual Revelation from God contained therein and become his body on Earth. Wherefore we declare it as his real actual flesh and blood in memory of his real actual flesh blood he sacrificed for us.

dzheremi · Apr 16, 2024

childeye 2 said:
Let's be careful here in what we say. In the theology of Christianity, the Spirit of God as Creator precedes the existence of flesh and blood. The incorruptible spirit of God was therefore present in the flesh and blood of His Christ when the Word partook of flesh and became Jesus. In semantics there's a such thing as a precept and precedence. In this case Jesus partook of flesh and blood so that we could partake of him as a quickening Spirit. We spiritually eat him when we believe in him as the Christ.

Wherefore the affirmation of belief in the Eucharist (thanksgiving for his Spirit), is that Jesus is the Christ who came and sacrificed his own flesh and blood through horrific suffering as a means of salvation for us. This same sentiment is also conveyed when we acknowledge that the same flesh and blood of Jesus becomes the bread and wine because we who partake of this one bread that came down from heaven are his body on Earth.

The post to which you are replying concerns what is being claimed about the liturgy of the Egyptian Church by someone who is not a member of it and has expressed some ideas about its contents that are at variance with what is actually proclaimed within it. It is not about your -- or anyone else's -- personal theology concerning the incarnation. In Orthodoxy, the liturgical prayers of the Church are our standard of belief.

Xeno.of.athens · Apr 16, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Ok coming from a Roman Catholic that’s pretty ironic since your church is in schism from the rest of the apostolic churches who rejected the theology of your last two “ecumenical councils”.

The Catholic Church has had twenty-one Oecumenical Councils. Do you think everyone accepts the first nineteen councils?

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
I'm not sure where you are getting that idea, but it is very incorrect. The priest's confession before the Eucharist in the liturgy of St. Mark is exactly the same as that found in the most commonly-celebrated liturgy of the Egyptian Orthodox Church (that of St. Basil), and is proclaimed as follows (emphasis added):

"Amen. Amen. Amen. I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath, that this is the life-giving flesh that Your Only-Begotten Son, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ took from our Lady, the Lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary. He made It one with His Divinity without mingling, without confusion and without alteration. He witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate. He gave It up for us upon the holy wood of the Cross, of His own will, for us all. Truly I believe that His Divinity parted not from His Humanity for a single moment nor a twinkling of an eye. Given for us for salvation, remission of sins and eternal life to those who partake of Him. I believe, I believe, I believe that this is so in truth. Amen."

The underlined, bolded, and italicized portion above definitively shuts out any kind of memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation. "This IS the life-giving flesh." Not "This is a spiritual representation of the life-giving flesh, understood to be a memorial of some kind" or some such.

And just so that it's out there, the same is proclaimed concerning the holy and precious blood slightly before the confession via the following dialogue (truncated so as to contain only the bits that concern the physical reality of the body and blood):

Priest:
Peace be with all.

People:
And with your spirit.

Priest (while holding aloft the paten before the prostrated worshippers):
The holy Body and the precious, true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest (while holding aloft the chalice...)
The holy precious Body and the true Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of our God. Amen.

People:
Amen.

Priest:
The Body and the Blood of Emmanuel our God; this is true. Amen.

People:
Amen. I believe.

+++

Again, there is absolutely no room in any of this for a memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation of what we are receiving. We are literally required by the content and structure of our liturgies (all of them) to affirm our belief in the literal reality of the Eucharist several times over before even so much as picking ourselves up from the ground to approach for communion. This is the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, our God.

is this from the liturgy of Mark? Because I can’t find it.

dzheremi · Apr 16, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
is this from the liturgy of Mark? Because I can’t find it.

Yes. It is in the linked PDF, with the pre-confessional dialogue concerning the precious blood forming part of what is called there "The Prayer of the Congregation" (the text that I have included from it begins on page 53), while the priest's confession before the Eucharist is listed as "The Profession", on page 55.

childeye 2 · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
The post to which you are replying concerns what is being claimed about the liturgy of the Egyptian Church by someone who is not a member of it and has expressed some ideas about its contents that are at variance with what is actually proclaimed within it. It is not about your -- or anyone else's -- personal theology concerning the incarnation. In Orthodoxy, the liturgical prayers of the Church are our standard of belief.

I've read the discourse. The understanding/misunderstanding of terms seems relevant to the issue. The poster @BNR32FAN said: "Ok I thought the discussion was about the Eucharist being the actual body and blood of Christ, not the Spiritual presence of Him. The liturgy of Mark provides evidence of a Spiritual presence not a physical presence.

You stated this: "Again, there is absolutely no room in any of this for a memorialist or otherwise non-physical interpretation of what we are receiving."

And you cite this: this is the life-giving flesh that Your Only-Begotten Son, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ took from our Lady, the Lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary.

Your words as posed indicate that you may disagree with @BNR32FAN about a spiritual presence, and therefore could be taken to mean by any reader that there is no spiritual presence of Christ when commemorating the last supper by giving thanks for God's Spirit come in the flesh.

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

Xeno.of.athens said:
The Catholic Church has had twenty-one Oecumenical Councils. Do you think everyone accepts the first nineteen councils?

Yes I do believe they all accept the first 19.

Xeno.of.athens · Apr 16, 2024

BNR32FAN said:
Furthermore I’ve never said that my theology is superior to that of the church but that there have been those in the church who’ve made numerous theological errors and I’m not the type to be led blindly. Personal studies should be viewed as meritorious because that’s how we detect erroneous teachings. Its personal study the pulled me out of reformed theology.

Two thousand years of meticulous scholarship is more trustworthy than the haphazard opining of CF authors.

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

dzheremi said:
Yes. It is in the linked PDF, with the pre-confessional dialogue concerning the precious blood forming part of what is called there "The Prayer of the Congregation" (the text that I have included from it begins on page 53), while the priest's confession before the Eucharist is listed as "The Profession", on page 55.

Why is that version different from this one? Your’s seems to be quite a bit longer than this version.

CHURCH FATHERS: Divine Liturgy of St. Mark

Featuring the Church Fathers, Catholic Encyclopedia, Summa Theologica and more.

www.newadvent.org

BNR32FAN · Apr 16, 2024

Xeno.of.athens said:
Two thousand years of meticulous scholarship is more trustworthy than the haphazard opining of CF authors.

Yeah I didn’t mean to post that. While I was writing that whole thing out I came to the realization that explaining why it’s important to study the scriptures in order to determine whether or not a teacher is teaching the truth is about as elementary as explaining the importance of breathing so I decided not to waste my time with it which is why it was incomplete.

If I may ask, why did you choose Roman Catholicism? Was it the result of studying its authenticity or was it the result of blind faith in what someone told you?

Is the Eucharist cannibalism?

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