I'm not prejudiced against R.C.s BUT...

Yes this part goes against catholic doctrine. We eat Christ after a heavenly manner but also we physically chew him, as St John chrysostom puts it.
The Anglican doctrine is styled after Calvin, who did not believe in a change of the elements from bread to the literal historical Christ
I’ve yet to find a single church father that didn’t believe in a literal mastication of the Body

 

For everyone reading this thread:
I recommend the book

Prayers of the Eucharist
Early and Reformed

It’s written by an Anglican and goes through pretty much every single early Christian liturgy, all in the earliest form of the liturgy (no late Middle Ages)


I also recommend the books:

Saints and role models in Judaism and Christianity

And

The cult of Saints among Muslims and jews in medieval Syria


Both are written by just plain old historians I’m pretty sure. They do not set out to prove a point, they just give information.


These books are a testament to even Jews having a cult of venerating their ancestors, as well as several surviving prayers of the ancient Jews to their patriarchs, but especially to angels.

All of these books I can point to how to get free online if you don’t mind using websites like library genesis, etc.

I recommend all here read them because they’re purely historical and prove a very real point about the veneration of religious figures and asking them to pray for you. Also the first one shows how every Christian liturgy offered the consecrated Eucharist to God, as the modern Roman rite does and all of the eastern liturgies, as well as the oriental liturgies, AND the Assyrian church of the East as well.



ive seen some pseudo history posted here. These books are written by credible historians and scholars, and the first one by an Anglican like I said. They don’t set out to prove a point and are extremely informative.

 

It still proves a pope can be deposed.
deem it politics instead of spiritual if you want.
I was trying to prove there ARE checks and balances.
This council shows there are checks and balances.

 

^Just as another perspective on what a sacrifice might be - here is Nicolas Cabasilas’ Commentary on the Divine Liturgy:

Here you see a kind of sacrifice that isn’t propitiation, really. And that’s as late as the latter half of the fourteenth century.


Oooh, later:

 

“Substance” (Gr. ousia) in Aristotle is simply the answer to the question, What is it? The term is epistemological, not metaphysical. A substance, according to Aristotle, is composed of matter and form. The latter is responsible for/the explanation of the particular organization of matter a given substance has, to fulfill the various functions that complete its nature (physis). Medieval philosophers influenced by post-Plotinian Neoplatonism reified the epistemologically oriented “Categories” and turned substance into some sort of metaphysical core of being. Modern physics overthrew Aristotelian accounts of matter and motion. There is no need to postulate the existence of substantial forms in order to explain the behavior of objects in motion; their material existence alone is sufficient to explain this. The assumptions undergirding transubstantiation are based on a misreading of Aristotle, whose writings on physics and on the metaphysical foundations of physics have been decisively superseded. It is meaningless to talk about a thing’s being transformed into a different “substance” while the molecular structure remains unchanged, unless we return to the “everyday” sense of original Aristotelian usage of the Categories. If I take a lump of bronze and form it into a statue, one might say that the “substance” has changed since I have altered its form (and therefore its purpose), but it is still also a lump of bronze. Not even this is believed to occur in the Eucharist by those who favor the dogma of transubstantiation.

 

This council shows that there were checks and balances.

 

Then you’ll also have noticed that the Eastern churches are very wary of the term ‘transubstantiation’

 

I don’t know who he is and I’d have to read other things he says about the sacrifice, because here he doesn’t deny it, he just doesn’t mention it.
I really do recommend you read those books.
The Eucharist is offered directly to God after consecration in all of the liturgies

 

The entailment is that it is not a sacrifice of God’s body. The entailment is that the latter is the result of the sacrifice of the elements.


Even if transubstantiation is an accurate description, the body of Christ is already sacrificed; you cannot sacrifice it again.

 

Nicholas Cabasilas is an extremely highly regarded late Byzantine spiritual and liturgical writer. He’s largely unknown in the West, but quite the opposite in the East. The recent English translations of his writings on the sacraments are some of the finest presentations of the fusion of liturgy and spirituality in the Eastern Christian tradition that can be found. I highly recommend them.

 

And?
They believe the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ.
They don’t need to define it in scholastic terms.
My eastern Catholic Church doesn’t and we damn sure don’t believe we eat the Eucharist in the Calvinist or Anglican sense.


I think you’re dancing between memorialism and literal transformation which is why you try and interpret everyone else into believing what you do except the Catholic Church.
It’s obvious the Assyrians believe it’s a sacrifice, they call it the Holy qurbana, or sacrifice.
And the Eucharist is offered to God.


“They don’t use Aristotelian metaphysics to describe the Eucharist”
Doesn’t prove what you think it does.
They prefer to leave it a mystery.
Consider the fact that all these churches, the oriental and eastern, as well as Assyrian, have parts that came into communion with Rome.
The Eucharist was NOT an issue of contention within any of them.
Idk why Protestants get so caught up with transubstantiation.
Let’s make it simple.
The bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ. Period.


Btw, here is the orthodox “denial” of transubstantiation in the confession of dositheus against Calvinism :

“In the celebration whereof we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not 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, but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, <145> transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin {Mary ELC}, was baptised in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sitteth at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world. {John 6:51}

Further [we believe] that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remaineth 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.”

They don’t believe the same thing as you. Please stop saying they do
Idk how much more of this I can take tbh lmao…
Just baseless claims without actually knowing what other churches believe.

 

Read the book I recommended and then we can talk. I’m doing arguing about sacrifice.
Also try and ask actual orientals, Easterners, and Assyrians about their beliefs, instead of just stating
“They don’t believe XYZ like Rome.”
It’s obvious you don’t really know what they believe and are just using them as an argument against the Catholic Church which you dislike.
I don’t think any of these churches I just mentioned would appreciate anyone saying they believe the Eucharist to be anything but the literal historical body and blood of our Lord and a sacrifice offered to God

 

Honestly, I myself believe it’s a mystery too. You’re probably arguing with three different views rn anyway. I just think that transubstantiation is, as a theory, an impious insertion.


Also, just to make the point, the creed of dositheus doesnt apply to all the Byzantine church; in any case, it was the middle of the aptly named ‘Latin Captivity.’

 

Also, we never said that they believe what ‘we’ (like only one person here actually has the anglican badge) believe. Otherwise, I would be on the Orthodox forum right now. The point is that the Roman doctrine is novel.

 

Says who?
You’re not orthodox, how can you speak for them?
I don’t care if they believe in Aristotelian terms. The point is the believe in a literal transformation. That’s all I need to prove to show it’s different from anglicans

 

Transubstantiation?
It merely describes a change takes place, not how it takes place.
Again, eastern Catholic Churches do not describe the Eucharist in Aristotelian terms and believe the same thing.
What part of the doctrine is “novel” exactly?
Sounds like you just have an axe to grind with Rome. Either that or you don’t understand the Eucharist

 

Whoa there. Calm down. You’re not a Byzantine either.

 

No? It quite literally describes what’s going on; the changing of the substance without changing the accidence. God is absolutely free to do what he wants with the Eucharist without the mediation of Medieval philosophy.
The only axe I have to grind with Rome is that the Reformation was necessary. If the ‘Supreme Pontiff’ had done his job along with his much-indulged curia, he wouldn’t have had to reject literally all of Luther’s and Calvin’s points, and make the unholy nonsense that was Trent, so that we could have a truly reformed church, free of the innovations that arose in a thousand long years (it’s a testament to the truth of the Gospel that we could still find it and that it wasn’t this sort of, syncretic morass like Mahayana buddhism). Think of how the Reformation wouldn’t have had to splinter off into a trillion groups, because if the corrupt papacy were not so obstinate, and, again, actually doing its job, it could have separated the wheat from the chaff, but it failed to do so miserably, and here we are five hundred years later because the reality is, the Roman Church is not the Church(tm).

 

1. Because Anglicans believe it’s idolatry to worship the Eucharist. As a thing in itself
2. I believe the Eucharist is truly and substantially Christ, under the appearance or accidents of bread and wine. Largely Aquinas and a way of thinking that is neither Anglican nor Orthodox simply because it is too definitive
3. I worship Him in the sacrament. As do I and many many Anglicans
4. Anglicans don’t believe the same thing we do at all. I suspect many make too much of the difference and fail to see the significant ground in common.
5. Is your priest obligated to eat a consecrated host if it falls to the floor? Yes, I believe they would be, and in general Anglicans would take such care of the Blessed Sacrament that that would hardly ever happen.
6. Does the Anglican Church view it as a sacrilege of the very body of Christ ( not a symbol) to purposefully throw the Eucharist on the floor, or do some other devious thing with it? I believe most Anglicans would view this as a great sacrilege.
7. The thing is I don’t deny it looks like bread, but I actually believe it’s not bread. If your perception requires an either or view of reality I can see why you would conclude that, however there are others who have no problem saying Yes to Bread and Yes to Body. Given that this Altar is set in this world and the next, uniting Angels Saints and the whole Church living and departed in the unending sacrifice of praise, accepting the sacrament as body and bread seems quite minor.
8. If the Anglican Church was like the orthodox, both East and oriental. as well as the ancient Assyrian church of the East, which handles the Eucharist like it’s the very body of our Lord (because it is) then I would say we believe the same thing. But it’s obvious we don’t. Mode, tradition, ceremonial, may very from place to place and from time to time, I accept that. It seems that which is obvious to you is not so obvious to me.
9. I’ve already been accused of idolatry for worshipping the Eucharist. Anybody that says to worship the Eucharist is idolatry is a memorialist, plain and simple. The issue is objectifying the Holy Sacrament. It is not the Holy Sacrament we worship, but the abiding presence of Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Tanto ergo Sacramentum - Therefore we before him bending, this most holy sacrament revere. The facts are plain, Anglicans are not Memorialists, I urge you to ponder upon the Prayer of Humble Access.
10. Either it’s the body of Christ or it’s not. (see 7 above)
11. Spiritual presence” means nothing. Divinity is everywhere present. Clearly sourced from somewhere with the miscreant quotation open mark. This statement is wrong on sop many scores it is hardly worthy of comment. God is Omnipresent, and the whole creation bears the very imprint of his presence and persistence, and this is not a nothing, how dare you suggest it is. Spiritual Presence is not a term Anglicans use a lot, preferring to speak of real presence, none the less Spiritual is true and real. I believe that this part of your post is beyond the rule of this forum, and was certainly intended to offend Anglicans, and the Anglican Tradition

 

You’re skipping from the Eucharist to the pope.
The Catholic Church will never agree with Lutherans because they refuse to call the Eucharist a sacrifice in the patristic and ancient sense.
It also can never agree with sola scriptura.
Here we go again:
The eastern, oriental, and Assyrian churches ALL deny sola scriptura.
They all pray to Saints, believe in the assumption of Mary, etc etc etc
They just deny sola scriptura.
The axe you’re grinding with Rome you grind with all the other apostolic churches.
Literally none of them would have approved the Protestant reformation
I know you think it “cleansed” the church, but the Roman one isn’t the only one in need of cleansing, according to Protestants all apostolic churches had aberrant practices and beliefs, all denying the core tenant of sola scriptura.
And yes, even In the Anglican “scripture tradition and reason” sense.
The Anglican Church completely excised any mention of offering the Eucharist to God, prayers to Mary or St Michael, etc etc. from its liturgy, as well as the assumption of Mary among other feasts.

All I’m saying is that there is a reason why people like stalwart believe Rome “rewrote” history (despite the fact that, again all apostolic churches believe things he thinks Rome “forged in” and are “aberrations”).
The reason is because it’s obvious history doesn’t line up with Protestantism, so you have to either accept cognitive dissonance and claim it’s ok to bring in novel doctrine, or claim that history has been re written, and the church went through some mass apostasy until Luther et al. Restored it to it’s proper glory.
I’m not attacking you, sorry, it’s just that I feel Protestants don’t look at the whole thing and just focus on Rome.

Put your dislike of the pope aside for a second, and realize how grave it is to claim that the church condoned idolatry in the Middle Ages with Icon veneration and Eucharistic worship. Realize that all churches did these things which you claim to be “aberrations” until the Protestant movement came along.
If you can’t trace your lineage of doctrine to the early church, your church is no more true than mine is. I suggest you ignore the papacy exists and again, read the books I recommended.

The evidence is all there for you to read, you just have to actually read it.