POLL: Does Anglicanism consider the Eucharistic food itself to really be or have Christ's body?

REV. HENRY IGNATIUS DUDLEY RYDER writes in his Essays (published 1911):

This refers to the following article:

In other words, there are offerings as masses, but it's only a bread offering, Christ is not being offered.

In Orthodox theology, we agree that the Atonement was a one time event in history, but still, there is a continuous aspect to it so that we participate in receiving that sacrament. Thus we say in liturgy "We offer under thee, on behalf of all and for all".

The essay by Rev. Ryder says:

Stevenshon, John writes in ‘Wittenberg and Canterbury’.( Concordia Theological Quarterly. V. 48, July 1984):

There is a lot more writing about this.

 

It depends on how you use the word "Reformed", broadly or narrowly. If you mean narrowly, then yes.

This is common in language. Broadly, America is a democracy, narrowly speaking, it's a republic, not actually "mob rule". Words can have different meanings.

Interesting. I heard Catholic opponents were originally called "Protestant".

Anyway, it now looks like common usage.

http://gnesiolutheran.com/the-difference-between-the-lutheran-reformed-church/

Many Reformed criticize Orthodox for bowing in front of religious pictures by saying that we are worshiping the pictures. I would make the same defense that you just did.

It's a known fact that the fathers never lifted or bowed to the sacrament? That sounds like a heavy order considering 300 years of early Church history. I suppose you have some direct quotations for that? In truth they even hold up the sacrament in mainstream PCUSA churches.

OK, so Catholics idolize if they kneel, but Anglicans don't.
Sorry, I went to Catholic school and they didn't teach the kids to idolize. I think they make the same distinctions you did.

Somehow the magic words did not work against the fallacies when I tried to use them, Stalwart.

Yes, like you said, they teach "real" remote "presence" at a remote location whither their souls go by the Holy Spirit's power.

I know that this is not how Lutherans, Orthodox, and Catholics use the words "real presence".

He can, but he says the opposite: "Take eat, this is my body", and hands it to Judas, who ate what was handed to him - what Jesus said was His body.

In Augustine's scheme, cited in the Articles, the unworthy then eats the "visible sacrament", not "within" but only "without", pressing the actual sacrament of the body with his teeth.

 

Big problem is when you are threatened with excommunication for rejecting the articles because you believe in the objective presence in the bread like Bishop Cheney did. At that point there gets to be a big stimulus to reinterpret the Articles to match whatever your beliefs are instead of finding fault with them and risking being cut off from your community. This is a big motive for Bp. Guest to sign it even when he was telling other people he disagreed with them. it reminds me of the Robber Council of Ephesus II where bishops signed in favor of Dioscorus that Jesus didn't have two natures, but later confessed at Chalcedon that they were wrongly pressured into it by the force of the other consensus.

 

Ok..? This doesn't really have to do with either Holy Communion or with unworthy reception. Our sacrifice as Christians is our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, as St. Paul writes.

But as I say it isn't really not really what we are discussing here.

Okay so I'm going to quote the Old Orthodox do you, and you will agree that the Old Orthodox are correct. Yes?

America is in no way a democracy, because the word democracy has a technical meaning. Words have definitions, and by applying definitions you can determine whether something is something.

If we go by your broad meanings, then maybe we can say the Eastern Orthodox too are reformed? After all they took the doctrine of the church fathers which taught sola fide, and which disdained icons, and never used incense; and in the 8th century the Greek churches adopt icons and incense and Byzantine iconography, 'reforming' the original Church. So are you a reformed church? Will you be adopting Calvin as your patron saint at the next OCA synod?

Common use doesn't make it accurate or correct. It is 'common usage' to call the Roman church catholic and the Eastern churches orthodox. Does that mean the eastern orthodox are not catholic? It seems you will say that is so.

When St. Basil said that the one true church is catholic, you must mean he refers to the one in Rome, not to the Greeks, right?

The sacrament is raised in mainstream Anglican churches, or at least exhibited. In fact for many centuries it was raised just so the people could see over the priest's back and that's all. In the middle ages it became an idolatrous practice of eucharistic "Adoration" and that's the error the articles condemn.

He gave his heavenly body along with the elements of bread. He gave them both. "Take, eat, this is my body." Say you hand someone your wallet, and say, "this is my money."

We know for a fact the bread wasn't his physical body because it looked like bread, tasted like bread, and felt like bread. So unless you will say that Jesus's physical body is made from bread, you must posit that the bread is one thing and his Body is another thing, somehow related to the bread.

Anyway I don't really have the time right now to debate eucharistic theology. My only point is that it does not affect the Reality of Christ's presence in holy communion, and has nothing to do with worthy/unworthy reception.

 

Hello, Stalwart.

Ryder writes:

"Calvinists, as Le Quien observes, and as Harding had observed before him, had no difficulty in admitting a sacrifice in some sense propitiatory, provided only it was not a sacrifice of Christ, except so far as He is represented by the substances of bread and wine"
That is, there is a sacrifice that is propitiary in the communion ritual.

That it's only a bread offering and not an offering that involves Christ being in the bread goes along witht he Calvinist view of the Communion food.

I am doubtful that we divide our church into Old Orthodox v New Orthodox, but it's true that we are not strictly beholden to every canon that was ever passed, as we are not as legalistic as RCs are.
If your Articles were our non-Ecumenical Council canons passed by only one region (eg. England or Bulgaria), we would say that they are fallible and not definitive of Orthodoxy per se.

So this raises the question of whether they are definitive Articles of Anglicanism or if someone like an Anglo Catholic could say that they are wrote and his position on this could still be Anglican.

Exactly as to the latter. Applying the definition of democracy in the broad sense of common speech as opposed to the technical meaning, America is a democracy.

The Italian Contribution to American Democracy - Page 206
John Horace Mariano - 1921 DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY— Democracy has been defined by many and the definitions have been as varied as has been the number of people so defining.

As you rightly said: "Words have definitions, and by applying definitions you can determine whether something is something."

I think you better start a new thread asking about that. Here in this thread I am just dealing with the question of Anglicans and their understanding of the Articles and Eucharist bread.

EOs are not Reformed in the common sense of the word as in coming from the Reformed movement founded by Calvin and Zwingli.

If you assert sola scriptura, can you please find a place where Luther defined it explicitly and concisely?
I find the EO and Anglican position of prima scriptura, with tradition being a second source of authority, to be very close, the power of the seven E.Councils being the only potential disagreement..

Can you show that a consensus of fathers rejected religious pictures and incense? This seems a bit strange for consensus if we have religious paintings in 1st-3rd century Christian catacombs and Chriistian churches in both East and West.

This seems like a strange argument we are having. No, the EOs are not Catholic in that sense of the word "Catholic", but only in a different sense of the word catholic.

They are, what do you call them, "homonyms"?

Not sure what we are disagreeing about.

Well, then you have Augustine talking about adoring the flesh that is in the bread, and you have the Articles citing Augustine as an authority figure for Eucharistic theology.

That was Luther's reaction to those who denied this.

Yes. At that moment when you hand it to them and then say it, they have your money in their hands. Whether they succeeded in gaining ownership of it depends on intent, but anyway they did possess it.
As a result, the unworthy eat the bread/body in at least that sense.

No, we don't know that.

Augustine says:
""What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that THE BREAD IS THE BODY OF CHRIST AND THE CHALICE [WINE] THE BLOOD OF CHRIST." (Sermons 272)"

He is drawing a distinction between what you see and sense, and what is reality.

The apostles did not see Jesus' physical body in the room with them in John 20 before he appeared and spoke, but that does not mean that his physical body was not there.

Personally, I don't have a strong opinion on the Lutheran vs Catholic debate on the nature of the real presence. Luther said Jesus' real body was there in transfigured spirit mode, like he was in the door.

Am I arguing too much with you? I basically just wanted to see what Anglicans thought on the Articles and Eucharist, not necessarily to persuade them of the Lutheran/Orthodox/Church Fathers belief, should there be a difference.

I don't see it as a necessary conclusion , due to Jesus' power to transubstantiate water, and due to the
ability for something's outward appearance and qualities to be different than its inward ones.

For example, when Moses saw the burning bush that did not burn, was it actually on fire as a chemical process whereby carbon atoms were being fused with oxygen atoms, or did the process just have the appearance of fire? When God wrestled with Jacob, if God looked like a human, does that mean he physically was a human? This is hard to say.

The Lutheran view feels more realistic to me because of the outward properties of bread, but it is hard for me to exclude the Catholic view based just on outward properties.

When you say "presence in communion", if you mean the presence in the bread itself, then naturally it is related to the question of whether those who eat that bread with the body in it physically have also physically put the bread in their mouths, which Luther and Calvin debated about.

As Fr. Mark said about the unworthy being harmed by eating the bread: " If it was not the Body and Blood, what difference does it make."

 

I'm surprised. You don't know who the Old Orthodox are?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Old-Orthodox_Church
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Believers
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomorian_Old-Orthodox_Church

There are many such examples of different EO churches.

What you've been effective doing is quoting and reading for yourself the Old Believers equivalent in Anglicanism, which has confused your perception of Anglican orthodoxy. That's what I can sum up this whole conversation as.

 

Oh, one of the "Old Believers' " sects.
I thought you were talking about "Old Orthodox" as in chronologically "older". No, I hadn't paid attention to that particular group, which is marginal
Is there a place that I can get a list of all the separate Protestant Churches (eg. "The Episcopal Church"(TEC) vs. Reformed Episcopal)? The Pew list I found was apparently not long enough as unfortunately it doesn't mention the REC:
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/appendix-b-classification-of-protestant-denominations/

In the case of Anglicanism, I am trying to understand the main foundational articles, and it looks to me like on the Eucharist they agree with the 1873 Reformed Episcopal Church interpretation of them, based on the debate the Receptionist/Virtualist Cranmer was having with Bps. Guest and Cheney, who either openly or in correspondence disagreed with Article 29.

Whereas the "Old Orthodox" are extremely marginal in orthodoxy, it looks to be a common debate what the Articles say on this topic in Anglicanism, with the writer Bicknell proposing that they teach the real presence in the bread, and the TEC website and Rev. Ryder saying that they teach Receptionism/Virtualism. This reflects discussions I have had recently with a few Anglicans elsewhere with opposing views.

I don't mean to alienate you, I suppose that one could theoretically argue that the articles are broad enough to include both viewpoints. eg. by claiming that when it says that the wicked don't "eat" the body, by "eat" it means "achieve communion".

It just looks to me like the intent of Article 29 was Virtualism, hence the debate with Bp. Guest and his private dissent. But then again, Bp. Guest was officially alleged to have signed it, and by signing it, maybe that makes him an author? It's a strange situation. Does it mean he signed something that he thought was in opposition to his own views? It looks that way.

 

That it's marginal is frankly a propaganda issued by OCA/ROCOR to try to assure their members that there's nothing to worry about. There are Old Believers, Ukranian Orthodox, Assyrians, Chalcedonians, tons and tons of people not in communion with OCA. Yet you take the OCA at faith value as somehow related to the apostolic church. I'm not here dissuading you of that although I do think the OCA and it's eastern originators aren't of the same faith as St Cyril and St Basil, but rather have the faith of Gregory Palamas and the Byzantine innovators who led the ancient eastern church into very different doctrines.

Okay. So, there are many many different perspectives and understandings of "Orthodoxy" (most of them blissfully distant for the naive Americans), depending on who you ask. The Old Believers will say the entire modern Russian church departed from the faith they received from Cyril and Methodius.

I'm bringing these things up to say that a lot of the people you've read and quoted here were like the Old Believers in Anglicanism. Frequently you have even quoted outright non-Anglican sources like the Lutherans, as your proof of what Anglicans are supposed to be. It's just a wrong methodology, through and through.

I guess I'm still trying to understand what relevance unworthy reception has to the fact of Real Presence. Say I believe in total physical presence and/or transubstantiation; that still in no way obliges me to believe that the wicked can eat the Body of Christ. At the priest's words of Institution, the bread would become the physical Body, but prior to its reception by the wicked, God would change it back into bread. Why couldn't I posit that?

 

Did you know that OCA/ROCOR is Chalcedonian? There are at least one or two Old Believer parishes in ROCOR, and OCA is in communion with Ukrainian Orthodox churches in the US, since the mainstream Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the USA is under Constantinople? And each of the groups you named would disagree with your idea of " the faith as St Cyril and St Basil", considering you are Anglican and consider the OCA not to be of that faith?
St. Isaac of Nineveh played a big role in promoting Gregory Palamas' prayer style, and he belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East:
http://www.blackwellreference.com/p...=g9781405185394_chunk_g978140518539421_ss1-21

I can see how the issue of discerning Jesus in the Eucharist bread can be a crucial issue when Paul instructs to "discern the body" , hence why LCMS says it does not allow those whose churches deny this to commune. The Anglican Church I think is not going to stop someone from communing if the person says that they like Gregory Palamas.

http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/

Let me know what percent of selfidentified Russian Orthodox are "Old Orthodox" sect (0.01%?), and then compare that with the percent of Anglicans who have opposite views on the real presence in the bread.

Again, if you want to discuss whether the Orthodox Churches have the same faith as St Cyril and St Basil, I recommend that you open a new thread.

I am confused. The Episcopal Church (USA) website is Old Believer when it says the Articles are Receptionist?
Since the TEC interpretation of the Articles is shared by other Anglicans - elsewhere an ACNA Anglican told me the same thing as the TEC website says about the articles, then what writings do you recommend to reflect that POV?

The Lutheran quotes are relevant in showing the debates at the time that they were written.

The same thing that Luther said that it did, and the reason why Cheney and Guest rejected Article 29 on not eating the bread.

This reminds me of Calvin's method. Calvin did not want to agree with Luther that Jesus could go into and through tomb walls, closed house doors (Jn 20) and bread, so when it came to Jesus exiting the tomb, Calvin proposed a possibility in his Institutes that Jesus secretly rolled away the stone himself and then rolled it back without anyone knowing - even the Bible writers.

So in your scheme, Jesus gives the bread, says "This is my body", but then secretly removes that truth before Judas swallows it, without telling anybody.

Of course, there are numerous reasons why this is not the case, one which I and Fr. Mark already mentioned:

1. Why would a person be guilty of Jesus' body and blood for failing to discern the body like 1 Cor 10-11 says, if, by failing to discern it, he never made contact with it?

2. Why would it cause sickness to people to eat it like 1 Cor 10-11 says people did, if they never actually ate it? Some people eating this bread get benefited, other people who eat it without discernment get physically ill, in Paul's portrayal of things.

3. Jesus' death in the flesh and physical sacrifice was not taken away just because some people stopped believing in it. Whether a person believes or not does not itself determine physical reality or whether God extends a grace or mercy. The grace through the communion bread, under that logic, would be fully extended, and it's the decision of the believers whether to accept it. That is, Jesus' sacrifice was for everyone, not just the righteous.

4. Augustine is cited as authority in the Articles, and Augustine said that the undiscerning physically clench the sacrament of the body with their teeth and eating it without not within. He did not say that the food stops being the sacrament before they eat it. Augustine's logic makes sense.

5. In the cases of the multiplication of loaves, the transubstantiation of water, and the water spilling from the rock, and the manna in the desert, God did not stop the miracle from completing in the individual cases of people who didn't believe. The Bible even mentions people not caring about the sermon when Jesus multiplied the bread. Either an objective miracle happens or it doesn't. There's no undoing the miracle or take-back from what the miracle-worker says has occurred successfully just because an individual stops believing.

6. The theological disputes on this topic went down along those lines, with Cranmer, Calvin, Zwingli and the promoters of Article 29 disagreeing with the objective presence, and Bp. Guest, Cheney, the Catholics, Orthodox and Lutherans teaching the objective presence along with the idea of unworthy physical reception.

To go down the route of Cranmer in opposition to Bp. Guest, you basically have to do gymnastics through numerous logical hoops and propose alternatives that aren't actually specified in the Bible and weren't promoted when the article was proposed. Anglicanism teaches Scripture, Tradition, and Reason as its three "sources of authority".

But I don't want to alienate you in this thread. If Anglicans say that this is their POV on the Eucharist where there is objective presence that gets secretly withdrawn, then you answered the OP.

 

And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself.

I am the Bread of Life.

Take, eat, this is my body.​

It seems clear to me that the elevation of the Blessed Sacrament is a clear statement of the evangelical purpose of the Church. We are called to lift Jesus higher that the world may see and believe. We are called to participate, not simply in a religious rite, but in the very life of Christ.

 

In the Orthodox Church we have Western Rite Orthodox who basically revive the pre-schism (in practice pre-Norman) rites of England. And they lift up the Eucharistic food.

Here are the instructions:

The first "lifting" at eye level is done in Anglican churches commonly in practice as can be seen in many photos of Anglicans. Personally, even if it's a "only" a symbol of Jesus' body, I see no problem in lifting it up, ie lifting a symbol. We lift up physical flags in national politics. It doesn't mean that we worship flags as idolatry.

But anyway, in the Articles, it is not lifted because the Articles see it as only a symbol and not changed into Jesus' body, as IIRC Beveridge mentioned in his commentary.

 

Anglicanism may well be bewildering, Orthodoxy may well be ineffable, yet God feeds us all the same, and gives for our life the life of his Son. I am certain we need to be much nicer to each other.

 

Pretty much, yes. Or if we are even more precise, he says "this is my body" in an effectual way only to those who will take it. He doesn't need to come unto the bread and the recipient, only to go back again. He knows who will 1) perceive and 2) worthily receive his body ahead of time.

Think of it in terms of salvation: he says he died for the whole world, and yet "narrow is the road and few there are who find it" -- not everyone is saved although he died for everyone. That's because he offers salvation to everyone, but not everyone seizes upon and takes it.

Apart from the clarification of effectual action I just described, yes.

Here is how St. Cyprian describes the Patristic model of the Eucharist on which Anglicanism is based:

 

Please write more on this topic.
Please expand on what you had in mind, Philip. I liked your essay on your site about Guy Fawkes a lot. You made a great insight - there are strange things about that case.
As you wrote about Monteagle's letter:

• it is unsigned and is very vague in its content.
• It says nothing about the details of the planned attack, still the King and his men knew exactly where and when to catch the conspirators;

 

I understand that this is your view, thank you for explaining, Stalwart.
The Lutheran/Orthodox view is that the two statements in bold above are both objectively true and that Jesus did not retract them. As a result, they are true whether the unfaithful benefit or not. It is true that the unfaithful physically eat what is objectively the body, and they lived in a world in whiich he died for them, based on those two statements .

The Calvinist view would say in effect that Jesus only died for the elect. The Lutheran view sees these boldened statements as objectively true.

Have many other Anglicans explicitly taken and written about that same interpretation?

"By this one example it was made manifest that Our Lord removes Himself from one who denies Him, and that what is received brings no blessing to the unworthy, since the Holy One has fled and the saving grace is turned to ashes."

It could be a removal from the person's spirit, rather than from the person's physical body.
Augustine made that distinction - the unfaithful eat the sacrament without but not within, he said.

Alternately, maybe you are right and the fathers had different opinions on that question.

If your interpretation of Cyprian is correct and Jesus completely removes his spirit body from the bread, then there is still the question of at what point the holy one removes himself from he unfaithful - before, during, or after the eating. In Cyprian's two examples it was removed before the physical eating. Yet in other unfaithful people the physical eating still occurs of what Cyprian referred to as the Lord's body, ie the bread.

 

Here's a good, historic writing on the subject: http://anglicanhistory.org/england/enraght/realpresence.html

 

Here's a more modern discussion: http://www.virtueonline.org/classical-anglicanism-and-real-presence-christ-sacrament-communion

 

I was actually discussing this earlier with Stalwart.

 

Good solid article

 

I'm more of a Lutheran on this topic: http://bookofconcord.org/fc-ep.php#VII. The Lord's Supper

"We believe, teach, and confess that the words of the testament of Christ are not to be understood otherwise than as they read, according to the letter, so that the bread does not signify the absent body and the wine the absent blood of Christ, but that, on account of the sacramental union, they [the bread and wine] are truly the body and blood of Christ."