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Being "Biblical" Is not Enough.

FireDragon76

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Actual Orthodox theologians, like Fr. Alexander Schmemann, would not agree that it was a mere triviality. Fr. Alexander Schmemann's Eucharistic theology was somewhere between the Lutherans and Reformed Anglicans, seeing mystical significance in ordinary bread and wine becoming the sacramental body and blood of Christ. Not by abolishing their realities, but by divinizing them, uniting them sacramentally to the body and blood of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. In that sense, the Eucharist becomes a sign of the New Creation.

I would argue that Fr. Schmemann's theology is closer to how Augustine actually understood the sacrament, than Trent. Augustine doesn't speak of the sacramental signs as illusions or accidents.
 
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Erose

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Yeah, well concerning the veneration of Mary and the Saints, that dates back to prior to Christianity (in the case of the Saints or the Righteous). There is not doubt that the Patriarchs and Prophets and some of the kings were highly venerated by the Jews. Praying for the dead is a Jewish practice that also predates Christianity, and Jews still today pray for their dead.

Concerning prayer to the Saints, well we don’t consider prayer as worship. Prayer is used to worship God and Him alone, but prayer itself is us talking to someone else. Prior to recent times the word prayer, ask, beseech, etc. were synonyms. It is only fairly recent that English separated the word “prayer” for communication with God and the Saints.

But there are many instances in the OT and the NT, where men have talked to, asked, beseeched, prayed to angels, and even Saints. Jesus Himself prayed to or spoke to Moses and Elijah at His transfiguration. So you have that.

And concerning your linchpin, well that is heterodox, so no we won’t do that.
 
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Erose

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When you ask an Orthodox the question: “Does the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ?” They will always answer yes.
 
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MarkRohfrietsch

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Actually, confessional Lutherans are in many ways similar to the Orthodos regarding the Eucharist; it is a mystery; it is both Christ's crucified and risin body and blook, in, with and uner the Bread and wine. Scripture calls it both, so we accept it as both... but don't try to define how, why, what ratio or quantity. It simply is what it is... That is what Christ says it is.
 
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MarkRohfrietsch

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When you ask an Orthodox the question: “Does the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ?” They will always answer yes.
You will also get the same anser from Confessional Lutherans.
 
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Erose

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Yeah ask an Orthodox if they believe the in, with and under part. About five or six years ago on this forum, we had this discussion, and the Orthodox ran from that. Maybe, some of our Orthodox brethren can chime in here. It isn’t my job to represent their faith.

By the way, the Catholic Church also calls it a mystery.
 
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FireDragon76

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When you ask an Orthodox the question: “Does the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ?” They will always answer yes.

The real pertiment question is... "does the bread and wine in the Eucharist cease to be bread and wine?"
 
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Erose

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The real pertiment question is... "does the bread and wine in the Eucharist cease to be bread and wine?"
I’ll concede to the wisdom of St. Ambrose in his catechism on the Sacraments of Initiation called ”The Mysteries:

The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: “This is My Body.”(3) Before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood. And you say, Amen, that is, It is true. Let the heart within confess what the mouth utters, let the soul feel what the voice speaks.
 
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ozso

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That can be said of pretty much all of Protestantism. Just saying. Now are you referring to Adventists being heterodox to main line Protestantism? Or Evangelicalism? What are they heterodox to?
I was referring to an article by Walter Martin on SDA since Bob brought him up as a supportive source for SDA. Did you read the part in the article I posted where Dr. Martin listed what he considered heterodox doctrine of the SDA?
 
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ozso

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It's not my linchpin. None of what I said in that post is mine. It existed before I was born. There's an old saying: Don't shoot the messenger. You seem to have a problem with separating the person from what they're talking about.
 
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MarkRohfrietsch

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You are correct, but Scripture also states:

From Bible Gateway​

1 Corinthians 11:25-27​
New King James Version​

25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”​
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and [a]blood of the Lord.​
Hard to refute "in, with and under"; but an easy refutation of Transubstantiation. That is what happens when you us pagan logic to try and explan a Christian Mystery.​
Regardless, the Eucharist is still a means of grace where both Christ's divinity and humanity come to us as His Body and Blood; regardless of "accidents". or "Sacramental union".​
 
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FireDragon76

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That's ambiguous enough to be open to a variety of interpretations.

Even in mainline Protestant churches heavily influenced by the Reformed tradition (The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church - USA, Reformed Church in America, UCC, etc.), the Host is given with the words "the Body of Christ", and the Chalice with "the Blood of Christ".
 
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Erose

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Well no where in Scripture nor in this passage does it use the language of ”in, with and under”; nor does it ever refer to the Eucharist as some type of spiritual meatloaf. AND do not forget that while Jesus was still performing His earthly ministry, He referred to Himself as the Bread from Heaven, and that His flesh is the bread from heaven. See John Ch 6.

AND the doctrine of Transubstantiation does not require Aristotelian philosophy to understand. In fact even the term Transubstantiation predates the reintroduction of Aristotle to Europe. Have there been theologians to apply AP to the definition of Transubstantiation? Yes, and they are not wrong in their application; but AP isn’t needed and hasn’t been used in any of the Ecumenical Councils teachings of the Dogma.
 
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Erose

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There is nothing ambiguous in what St. Ambrose is saying here, nor in the rest of the passage on the matter in his catechetical work ”On the Mysteries”. Which he uses examples in his explanation: Moses staff turning into a snake, the water of the Jordan at Israel‘s passage, etc. But like he said in this passage given, before there was one element, and afterwards it was something else.

Here is my question… No I don’t want to fully derail this thread, which is not on this subject.
 
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Erose

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It's not my linchpin. None of what I said in that post is mine. It existed before I was born. There's an old saying: Don't shoot the messenger. You seem to have a problem with separating the person from what they're talking about.
So post 9 and 19 are not your words? Then you need to give credit where credit is due.
 
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The Liturgist

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The Orthodox do reject that our Lord is in, with and under the species of bread and wine. Indeed I would say this is regarded as a more serious error than transubstantiation, which actually is not so much an error as not doctrine, an unpopular theolougoumemnon (theological opinion) which once held sway in some Orthodox churches due to Jesuit and pre-Jesuit contact with the Roman Catholics.

Where the Orthodox tend to agree with Lutherans rather is in the idea that the Eucharist is a sacred mystery that cannot be fully comprehended. “in with and under” falls into the same category as transubstantiation, as being inadequete, but also seems to clash with, for example, the reservation of the presanctified Eucharist.

@MarkRohfrietsch is correct that Martin Luther actually improved Eucharistic piety in tne communities he converted, as opposed to the Calvinists and early Anglicans, who were opposed to it (recall the destruction of altars and the iconoclasm under Archbishop Thomas Cranmer). Happily this has changed; we can say that Dom Gregory Dix, who controversially regards as Zwinglian the Eucharistic theology of the 1552 BCP (and by extension, the 1662, but not the Scottish books like the 1929 BCP, or the American books of 1786, 1892, 1928 and 1979 which were by them, and also to a lesser extent the 1962 Canadian BCP).

The Eucharistic piety of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox has never been questioned, nor has any serious question been posed of Assyrian Eucharistic piety, except by polemicists, although one could argue that since Assyrians will communicate anyone who believes in the Real Presence, this marks a reduction in piety vs. the Russians and Ukrainians, who will not communicate anyone who has not confessed recently or in some cases, immediately before the liturgy, let alone the non-Orthodox, but I would dismiss such an argument as nonsensical, since the Eastern Orthodox have occasionally communicated Oriental Orthodox; and indeed the Antiochian Orthodox in Syria and the Greek Orthodox of Alexandria give the Eucharist to Suroye and Coptic Orthodox as a matter of course (in the latter case, primarily if the Copt is married to an Alexandrian Greek) and I have seen reports of the monks of St. Catharine’s Monastery, the seat of the autonomous Eastern Orthodox Church of Sinai, under the omophorion (great stole, but basically, think of it as equivalent to an umbrella) of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, giving communion to Coptic pilgrims, which would be unthinkable in the mother church in Jerusalem due to the sectarian rivalries at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre between the Greeks, Catholics and Armenians (and by extension, the other Oriental Orthodox, who tend to worship in chapels subdivided from the Armenian precincts of the basillica).

There is no doubt however that Lutherans have always as Mark has said believed in the Real Presence and to quote Luther “celebrated the Mass with the greatest reverence.” Much of the work of Bach is liturgical music for the Lutheran mass, with his famous Mass in B Minor being an exquisite, if impractical, setting for the mass.
 
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FireDragon76

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It seems to me, it is ambiguous: when you are dealing with a mystery, Aristotle's logic is a poor tool. Fr. Schmemann even goes further, agreeing with the Anglicans and Reformed that transubstantiation actually abolishes sacramental theology, since the bread and wine no longer participate in the Body and Blood of Christ as bread and wine, because they no longer exist.

 
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The Liturgist

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The real pertiment question is... "does the bread and wine in the Eucharist cease to be bread and wine?"

My private speculation is that the answer to that question is yes.
 
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ozso

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So post 9 and 19 are not your words? Then you need to give credit where credit is due.
Well think about it. Either what I wrote was based on accumulated knowledge of things I've learned about over the decades, that were already known and had already been talked about. Or what I said was based on things that only I know about that's never been talked about by anyone except me. You respond to me as though it's the latter, but actually the former is the case.

I apologize for not being able to cite all the sources of what I've learned about over the last 50 years.
 
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FireDragon76

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There is no contradiction between Lutheran Eucharistic theology, and reserving the sacrament. Reserving the sacrament is done in churches when the pastor must be away to attend to some business (or is sick), or the sacrament must be brought to the sick.

Another interesting bit about Lutheran theology, at least in the ELCA, is that we do not practice re-consecration. If bread and wine run out, more can be brought in from the sacristy. That implies the validity of the sacrament is not necessarily limited to a particular time or place. Indeed, receptionism is considered an acceptable confessional Lutheran viewpoint, though it tended to be a minority viewpoint after the 19th century revival in High Church sacramentalism.

The Lutheran doctrine, at least as I understand it, does not emphasize a change in the elements themselves specifically at the moment of consecration, but that at the words of consecration, the bread and wine are revealed to be the body and blood of Christ. It's far more ambiguous and mysterious than simply some kind of "magic" done by a priest on the altar, because after all we believe it is a divine mystery, and not an act done by a human being that can be understood through human science or reason.
 
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