page_title: Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
section_title: Orthodox view: Objective Change
hierarchical_section_title: Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist / Views / Orthodox view: Objective Change
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Архиепископ Лонгин Клинский правит Литургию в честь бессребренников Космы и Дамиана 14.11.2008 English: Archbishop Longin of Klinsky celebrates Divine Liturgy in honor of Saints Cosmas and Damian.
context_page_description: The real presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a term used in Christian theology to express the doctrine that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, not merely symbolically or metaphorically.
  There are a number of different views in the understanding of the meaning of the term "real presence" among Christian confessions which accept it, including Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East, the Moravian Church, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Methodism and Reformed Christianity. These differences primarily concern "the mode of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper." Efforts at mutual understanding of the range of beliefs by these Churches led in the 1980s to consultations on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry by the World Council of Churches.
  By contrast, the term is rejected or interpreted in light of "remembrance" stated in the New Testament by General Baptists, Anabaptists, the Plymouth Brethren, some non-denominational Churches, as well as those identifying with liberal Christianity, and segments of the Restoration Movement, such as Jehovah's Witnesses.
context_section_description: The Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, as well as the Church of the East, believe that in the Eucharist the bread and wine are objectively changed and become in a real sense the Body and Blood of Christ. The theologians Brad Harper and Paul Louis Metzger state that:
  While the Orthodox Church has often employed the term transubstantiation, Kallistos Ware claims the term "enjoys no unique or decisive authority" in the Orthodox Church. Nor does its use in the Orthodox Church "commit theologians to the acceptance of Aristotelian philosophical concepts". ...Ware also notes that while the Orthodox have always "insisted on the reality of the change" from bread and wine into the body and the blood of Christ at the consecration of the elements, the Orthodox have "never attempted to explain the manner of the change."
  The Greek term metousiosis (μετουσίωσις) is sometimes used by Eastern Orthodox Christians to describe the change since this term "is not bound up with the scholastic theory of substance and accidents", but it does not have official status as "a dogma of the Orthodox Communion. Similarly, Coptic Orthodox Christians "are fearful of using philosophical terms concerning the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, preferring uncritical appeals to biblical passages like 1 Cor. 10.16; 11.23-29 or the discourse in John 6.26-58."
  While the Roman Catholic Church believes that the change "takes place at the words of institution or consecration", the Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that the "change takes place anywhere between the Proskomedia (the Liturgy of Preparation)" and "the Epiklesis ('calling down'), or invocation of the Holy Spirit 'upon us and upon these gifts here set forth'". Therefore, it teaches that "the gifts should be treated with reverence throughout the entirety of the service. We don't know the exact time in which the change takes place, and this is left to mystery."
  The words of the Ethiopic liturgy are representative of the faith of Oriental Orthodoxy: "I believe, I believe, I believe and profess to the last breath that this is the body and the blood of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ, which he took from our Lady, the holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God."
  The Eastern Orthodox Church Synod of Jerusalem declared: "We believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, ... but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin Mary, 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."
caption: Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy.
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