Reflections on the Eucharist

By Fr. David McCready

Introduction

When Our Lord Jesus Christ established the mystery of the holy Eucharist, He took bread saying, ‘This is My Body,’ and then took the cup saying, ‘This is My Blood’ (Matthew 26, 26-28; Mark 14, 22-24; Luke 22, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 11, 22-25). For this reason, as well as on account of the Lord’s teaching in the discourse on the Bread of Life (John 6, 22-59), the church has from the very beginning confessed the eucharist ‘to be (εἶναι) the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, that flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father of His goodness raised.’[1] And this is what we confess today. As we say prior to Communion: ‘I believe, O Lord, and I confess … that Thou art truly the Christ … and that this is truly Thine own immaculate Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood.’

Standard Orthodox Teaching

‘Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the Blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the Body of Christ?’ This question of St Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, 16 meets with a firm ‘yes’ in many ‘standard works’ of Orthodox theology. For example, Metropolitan KALLISTOS (Ware) writes in his Orthodox Church, that ‘after the consecration the bread and the wine become in very truth the Body and Blood of Christ: they are not mere symbols, but the reality.’[2] Similarly, Fr Michael Pomazanzky in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology declares:

The Eucharist (literally “thanksgiving”) is the Mystery in which the bread and wine of offering are changed by the Holy Spirit into the true Body and true Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. … The bread and wine actually are changed into the Body and Blood by the coming down of the Holy Spirit. After this moment, although our eyes see bread and wine on the Holy Table, in their very essence, invisibly for sensual eyes, this is the true Body and true Blood of the Lord Jesus, only under the “forms” of bread and wine. Thus the sanctified Gifts 1) are not only signs or symbols, reminding the faithful of the redemption, as the reformer Zwingli taught; and likewise, 2) it is not only by His “activity and power” (“dynamically”) that Jesus Christ is present in them, as Calvin taught; and finally, 3) He is not present in the meaning only of “penetration,” as the Lutherans teach (who recognize the co-presence of Christ “with the bread, under the form of bread, in the bread”); but the sanctified Gifts in the Mystery are changed or (a later term) “transubstantiated.” [3]

The Teaching of the Fathers

What Metropolitan KALLISTOS and Fr Michael assert is the teaching of the Fathers. Let us quote, for example, St John Chrysostom:

You see the Lord sacrificed, and laid upon the altar, and the priest standing and praying over the victim, and all the worshippers empurpled with that precious Blood … Oh! What a marvel! What love of God to man! He who sits on high with the Father is at that hour held in the hands of all, and gives Himself to those who are willing to embrace and grasp Him. [4]

We find a similar teaching in his exegesis of 1 Corinthians 10:

What shall we say of the Body of Him Who is God over all, spotless, pure, associate with the Divine Nature, the Body whereby we are, and live; whereby the gates of hell were broken down and the sanctuaries of heaven opened up? When you see it set before you, say to yourself, Because of this Body am I no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner, but free: because of this I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things therein, immortal life, the portion of angels, converse with Christ; this Body, nailed and scourged, was more than death could stand against; this Body the very sun saw sacrificed, and turned aside his beams; for this both the veil was rent in that moment, and rocks were burst asunder, and all the earth was shaken. This is even that Body, the blood-stained, the pierced, and that out of which gushed the saving fountains, the one of Blood, the other of water, for all the world. [5]

Of course, one might contend that the Golden-Mouthed orator is expressing himself in a hyperbolic way, so let us cite St Cyril of Jerusalem, instructing the newly-illuminated concerning the mysteries that they have received:

Since … He Himself declared and said of the Bread, “This is My Body,” who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since He has Himself affirmed and said, “This is My Blood,” who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not His Blood?

…. Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of bread is given to you His Body, and in the figure of wine His Blood; that you, by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, may be made of the same body and the same blood as Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus, it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.[6]

The same doctrine is found likewise in St Cyril of Alexandria, who in his Third Letter to Nestorius, writes as follows, words approved by the holy ecumenical Council of Ephesus (431):

We are sanctified by having partaken of the holy Flesh and precious Blood of Christ, the Saviour of us all. This we receive not as ordinary flesh, heaven forbid, nor as that of a man who has been made holy and joined to the Word by a union of honour, or who had a divine indwelling, but as truly the life-giving and real Flesh of the Word. For being Life by nature as God, when He became one with His own Flesh, He made it also to be life-giving, as also He said to us: “Amen I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood.” For we must not think that it is the flesh of a man like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?), but as being made the true Flesh of the One who for our sake became the Son of Man and was called so.

Nor is this simply the teaching of the eastern Fathers. We find the same doctrine in the west, as well. St Augustine, for example, also speaking to the newly-baptized, tells them this:

Approach with fear and trembling to partake of this altar. Recognize in the bread what hung on the cross, and in the cup what flowed from His side. … He Himself, you see, as His passion drew near, while He was keeping the Passover with His disciples, took bread and blessed it, and said, “This is My Body which will be handed over for you.” Likewise, He gave them the cup which He had blessed and said, “This is My Blood of the new covenant, which will be shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

You were able to read or to hear this in the gospel before, but you were unaware that this Eucharist is the Son. But now, your hearts sprinkled with a pure conscience, and your bodies washed with pure water, approach Him and be enlightened, and your faces will not blush for shame. Because if you receive this worthily, which means belonging to the new covenant by which you hope for an eternal inheritance, and if you keep the new commandment to love one another, then you have life in yourselves. You are then, after all, receiving that Flesh about which Life Himself says, “The bread which I shall give is My flesh for the life of the world;” and, “Unless people eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, they will not have life in themselves.”[7]

Many more passages from the same doctor could be adduced in the same sense. Let me just cite one:

[Christ] received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because He walked here in true Flesh, and gave that very Flesh to us to eat for our salvation, and because no one eats that Flesh, unless he has first worshipped … not only do we sin not in worshipping It, but we sin if we fail to worship.[8]

This doctrine Augustine doubtless learned from St Ambrose, who baptized him and instructed him in the faith. Ambrose teaches:

The Lord Jesus Himself says, “This is My Body.” Before the blessing of the heavenly words another kind of thing is named, after the consecration it is designated “Body.” He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it is spoken of as something else, after consecration it is named “Blood.” And you say, “Amen,” that is, “It is true.” What the mouth speaks, let the mind confess; what the speech utters, let the affections feel. [9]

In another work, De Sacramentis, the same doctrine is clearly expressed:

“[The bread] was not the Body of Christ before the consecration; but after the consecration, I tell you, it is now the Body of Christ. He spoke, and it was made: He commanded, and it was created.”

As our Lord Jesus Christ is the true Son of God, not after the manner of men, through grace, but as born of the Substance of His Father, so [the eucharist] which we receive is true Flesh, as He Himself said, and His true Blood is our drink.[10]

According to the Fathers a Change in the Elements Occurs

From the above, it is clear that, according to the Fathers, in the eucharist the bread and wine are changed into the Lord’s Body and Blood. As St Irenaeus expresses it:

The bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly.[11]

To quote St Augustine:

Up to now, what you see is bread and wine: the consecration occurs, and the bread will be the Body of Christ and the wine will be the Blood of Christ. The name of Christ does this, the grace of Christ does this, so that it looks the same as it did before, but now it has another power.[12]

How the Fathers Designate the Eucharistic Change

One word used by the Fathers to describe the eucharistic change is metabolē (μεταβολή), together with its cognates. In relation to the eucharist, the word first appears in St Justin Martyr’s Apologia, composed around 150. St Justin does not, in fact, use metabolē here to describe the change of the elements, but rather how we are nourished by them, once consecrated. But he does, nonetheless, speak of the change that occurs. ‘We do not receive [the eucharist] as common bread and common drink,’ he says. ‘We are taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word … is the Flesh and Blood of that Jesus who was made Flesh.’^[13]

It is St Cyril of Jerusalem who first uses the verb metaballein (μεταβάλλειν) to describe the actual change which occurs in the eucharist. ‘Once in Cana of Galilee,’ Cyril writes, ‘the Lord turned (μεταβέβληκεν) the water into wine, akin to blood. Is it incredible, therefore, that He should have turned (μεταβαλών) wine into Blood?[14] He speaks in a similar way concerning the eucharistic liturgy:

We implore the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts … that He may make (ποιήσῃ) the bread the Body of Christ, and the wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Spirit has touched, is surely sanctified and changed (μεταβέβληται).[15]

This invocation corresponds to what we say today in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom:

Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon the gifts here presented, and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ and that which is in this Cup, the precious Blood of Your Christ, changing (μεταβαλὼν) them by Your Holy Spirit.

Perhaps because of this usage in the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (or, perhaps, to distance Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism), metabolē is often touted as the Orthodox term to describe the eucharistic change, but in fact it is but one of many employed during the patristic era. St Irenaeus, for example, writes that the bread and the wine, ‘receiving the Word of God is made (γίνεται/ fit) the eucharist, that is the Body and the Blood of Christ.’[16] St Gregory of Nyssa, for his part, uses the participle μεταποιούμενος when he speaks of the bread ‘being transformed by the word into the Body, according to the saying of the Logos, “This is My Body.”’ This word is, he goes on to say, the blessing by which ‘Christ trans-elements (μεταστοιχειώσας) the nature (φύσιν) of what appears (τῶν φαινομένων).’[17] St John Chrysostom, meanwhile, proclaims that the oblations become (γενέσθαι) the Body and Blood of the Lord. The word of the priest, coupled with the grace and power of God, ‘refashions’ (μεταῤῥυθμίζει) them, he says. Or, rather, as he puts it elsewhere, the priest is only the minister: Christ is the One who truly hallows and ‘alters’ ((μετασκευάζων) the elements.[18] As for St Cyril of Alexandria, he speaks of the offerings being ‘transformed’ (μεταποιείσθαι); God, he says, ‘transmutes’ (μεθίστησιν ) them.[19]

Western Terminology

In the pre-schism Orthodox west, we also find a variety of terms used to describe the change which occurs in the eucharist. St Ambrose, for example, says that ‘through the mystery of the sacred prayer [the oblations] are transformed (transfigurantur) into [the Lord’s] Flesh and Blood.’ The consecration for him is a miracle of divine power which ‘changes the nature of the elements (species mutet elementorum).’ ‘The word of Christ can change and alter the appointed forms of nature,’ he writes (mutare et convertere genera instituta naturae).[20] Similarly, Pseudo-Germanus in his first letter on the liturgy remarks: ‘The bread is truly transformed (transformatur) into [Christ’s] Body and the wine into His blood.’ This is why, Pseudo-Germanus says, the catechumens are dismissed before the eucharistic prayer, because ‘what in all the earth is more holy than the making (confectione) of Christ’s Body and Blood?’

If we look at western liturgies, we find the same variety of language. For example, in the Roman mass, the priest asks that the oblation ‘may become for us (nobis … fiat) the Body and Blood [of Christ].’ In the Missale Francorum, as well as in the Gelasian Sacramentary, we find an ordination prayer that the priest ‘may transform’ (transformet) the Body and Blood of Christ. The Gothic Missal has a prayer for Epiphany, that, as the Lord ‘then changed (mutavit) the water into wine, so now He may convert (convertat) the wine of our oblation into His Blood.’

Transubstantiation

Despite this variety of language, one term came to dominate in the west, the dread word transubstantiation. Although transsubstantiatio comes into use only in the middle of the twelfth century, the idea behind it is much older. For example, the De Sacramentis attributed to St Ambrose speaks of the communicant receiving divinae eius substantiae, of His, Christ’s, divine substance.[21] Similarly, the famous oath of Berengarius (1079) affirms that ‘the bread and wine are substantially changed (substantialiter converti) into the true and proper life-giving Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ.’[22] The actual term transubstantiation, was, however, only officially adopted by the Roman Catholic Church in 1215, at the Fourth Lateran Council.[23]

Transubstantiation Not a Church-Dividing Issue

Was transubstantiation a point of controversy between east and west? Latins and Greeks argued about the ‘moment of consecration;’ they argued about the use of leaven. But they did not argue about either the word transubstantiation or about the doctrine to which it pointed. It was neither a topic of discussion at Lyons nor at Florence, the two great ‘reunion councils.’ Why not? Because, according to St Nicholas Cabasilas (1322-92), the Greeks and Latins held the same doctrine on this point. At the start of his Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, he thus states the Orthodox teaching: ‘The main act of the celebration of the holy mysteries is the transformation (μεταβoλή) of the gifts into the divine Body and Blood.’[24] Later on, he devotes a whole chapter to the thesis that ‘in the church of the Latins, the sacred mystery is celebrated in the same way as among us.’ He sees no difference between east and west. ‘The prayer [of the Latins],’ he writes, ‘works the transformation (μεταβολήν) of the offerings into the Body and Blood of the Lord.’[25]

Transubstantiation is a Term Sanctioned by Orthodox Theologians, Councils, and Confessions

If, despite their different vocabulary, east and west meant the same thing, it is not surprising that Orthodox writers came to use the term metousiōsis (μετουσίωσις), the Greek equivalent of the Latin transsubstantiatio. The word used in this sense first appears in the treatise On the Mystical Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ by Gennadios Scholarios, Patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1464, who defends not only the term but the doctrine which it represents. We find the same thing in the 1549 tract On the Immaculate Mysteries by Meletios Pegas, Patriarch of Alexandria from 1590 to 1601, as well as in the Syntagmation of Metropolitan Gabriel Severos of Philadelphia (1549-1602), a work republished after his death by Chrysanthos Notaras, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 1707-31.

Both Pegas and Severas were close to Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople (c. 1536-1595), and very probably advised him on his 1576 reply to the Lutheran theologians of Tübingen University, who had sounded him out over a possible union between their church and Orthodoxy. To this end they sent him a copy of the Augsburg Confession, a document with whose eucharistic teaching the patriarch was ‘not pleased.’ While not using the word metousiōsis, the patriarch asserted that ‘the catholic church is of the opinion that, after the consecration, the bread is changed (μεταβάλλεται) by the Holy Spirit into the very Body of Christ and the wine into His very Blood.’[26] Using the verbs μεταποιείν and μεταβάλλειν, he affirmed: ‘Changed and altered by the epiclesis and grace of the all-powerful Spirit … the bread is the very Body of the Lord and the wine is the very Blood of the Lord.’[27]

Metousiōsis appears in the Orthodox Confession of St Peter Mogila (c. 1595-1647), a work ratified by the Council of Jassy in 1642, where it received the approbation of the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, as well as of many other bishops and lesser clergy, who ordained that ‘every pious and orthodox Christian, who is a member of the eastern and apostolical church, do attentively, and sedulously, read and receive the said book.’[28] The Confession deals twice with the eucharist. Question 107 treats of the sacrament itself, and says:

The substance (οὐσία) of the bread and the substance of the wine are changed (μεταβάλλεται) into the very substance (οὐσίαν) of the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. By the operation or working of the Holy Ghost…there is wrought a change (μετουσίωσις) and the bread becomes (ἀλλήσει) the very Body of Christ, and the wine His very Blood, the species only remaining, which are perceived by the sight.[29]

Question 56 concerns the Ascension and teaches:

We are hereby taught the Body of Christ is in heaven only, and not on the earth, after the manner it used to be while He conversed among us, but only after a sacramental manner. Thereby, in the holy supper, the same Son of God, God and man, is present on earth by a change of substance (κατά μετουσίωσιν), for the substance (οὐσία) of the bread is changed (μεταβάλλεται) into the substance (οὐσίαν) of His most holy Body, and the substance of the wine into the substance of His most precious Blood. Wherefore we ought to glorify (δοξάζωμεν) and worship (λατρεύωμεν) the holy eucharist as our Savior Jesus Himself.[30]

The version of St Peter’s Confession accepted by the Synod of Jassy was one edited by Meletios Syrigos (1585-1663), ‘one of the most remarkable Greek theologians of the seventeenth century,’ as Fr Florovsky calls him.[31] He was also an ardent defender of transubstantiation. In his refutation of the Confession of Cyril Loukaris, Against the Calvinist Chapters, he upheld the doctrine as that of the Fathers (whom he cites abundantly from Justin to Theophylact of Ochrid). According to him, ‘All the various terms used “by our teachers of old,” whether “making, or changing, or transforming, or transelementation,” are recapitulated and confirmed in the term “transubstantiation,”’ for which reason he sees an attack on transubstantiation ‘as tantamount to an attack on the whole tradition of the church.’[32]

In 1672 two further councils endorsed the doctrine of eucharistic change. One was a rather obscure synod held in Constantinople by Patriarch Dionysius IV (d. 1696): the other, held in Jerusalem, has been described as ‘the most important modern Council in the Orthodox Church.’[33] Promulgating the Confession of Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1669 to 1707, a work which Fr John Meyendorff has termed ‘the most important Orthodox text of this period,’[34] the Synod declared:

In the celebration of this sacrament we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is present, not typologically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other sacraments, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said concerning baptism, nor by impanation, so that the divinity of the Word would be united hypostatically to the bread of the eucharist that is set forth, 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, transubstantiated, converted, and transformed (μεταβάλλεσθαι, μετουσιούσθαι, μεταποιείσθαι, μεταρρυθμίζεσθαι) into the true Body itself of the Lord, which was born in Bethlehem of Mary the Ever-Virgin and Theotokos, was baptized in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received into heaven, sits at the right hand of God and the Father, and is to come again in the clouds of heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated (μεταποιείσθαι και μετουσιούσθαι) into the true Blood itself of the Lord, which, as He hung upon the cross, was poured out for the life of the world.

Further, we believe that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, there no longer remains the substance of the bread and of the wine, but the very Body and Blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine, that is to say, under the accidents of the bread and the wine.[35]

The Synod’s teaching on transubstantiation met with opposition from some Orthodox, but they were condemned by a further council, summoned by Patriarch Callinicus II in Constantinople in 1691, which maintained the proposition that metabolē and metousiōsis are equivalent terms.^[36]

The Orthodox Understanding of Metousiōsis

Is all this just evidence of a ‘western captivity’ of the Orthodox mind? It may well be argued not. As evidence, we might point to one of the most anti-western writers in modern Orthodoxy, St Athanasios Parios (1721-1813), whose Epitome (1806) denounces Thomas Aquinas as being among the greatest enemies of the church, while at the same time affirming the reality of transubstantiation.[37] Rather than being symptomatic of a Latin (i.e. heterodox) phronema, one might better contend that the term transubstantiation/ metousiōsis is simply a convenient way of summing up the tradition which goes back to the Fathers and beyond them to St Paul and to the Lord Himself, a tradition which teaches that what appears in the eucharist is not the reality, that, although what lies on the altar seems to be bread and wine, it is, in fact, the Body and Blood of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ. More than that is not being said. In the words of St Philaret of Moscow (1782-1867), the use of the term metousiōsis by Orthodox:

is to be taken to define the manner in which the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord; for none can understand this but God; but only thus much is signified, that the bread truly, really, and substantially becomes the very true Body of the Lord and the wine the very Blood of the Lord.[38]

The Differences between Orthodox and Roman Catholics

All this being so, in what way does Orthodox teaching on the eucharistic change differ from that of the Roman Catholic Church? It may be contended that since we ‘share the same spiritual Tradition of the first millennium of Christianity,’[39] we share, too, the same faith in the eucharistic transformation. The major doctrinal divergence between us has been not over the change itself, but over the means by which this change is effected, the epiclesis or the dominical words. This issue, however, has probably been resolved by modern scholarship,[40] leaving us now either divided only over secondary issues or, simply, misunderstanding each other’s positions. The Roman Catholics have adopted a single word, transubstantiation, to speak of the eucharistic mystery: Orthodox, following the Fathers, use a wide variety of terms, including metousiōsis. Apart from that, what separates us is not so much doctrine as praxis: the use of unleavened bread; the denial of the chalice to the laity; ‘private masses;’ paraliturgical eucharistic devotions.[41]

Some Orthodox object that Roman Catholics have subjected faith to philosophy, seeking to explain the incomprehensible and to rationalize that which is beyond human understanding. But this, it may be argued, is a mistaken view. One may contend that the term transubstantiation, as used by Roman Catholics, is no more objectionable than the related, and once so-controverted word, homoousios. It is simply a manner of speaking about divine things in a human way, while fully realizing that our reason can never explain or define so great a mystery. To quote John Paul II: ‘Truly the eucharist is a mysterium fidei, a mystery which surpasses our understanding and can only be received in faith.’[42] As Paul VI expresses it:

The Eucharist is a very great mystery … And so we must approach [it] with humility and reverence, not relying on human reasoning, which ought to hold its peace, but rather adhering firmly to divine Revelation.[43]

Conclusion

It seems somehow perverse to quote a pope at the end of a piece on the Orthodox understanding of the eucharist. Yet, what Paul VI writes at the close of the encyclical from which I have just quoted, Mysterium Fidei, really does sum up what I have been seeking to argue, that Roman Catholics and Orthodox share the same faith concerning the nature of the holy eucharist, a faith continually proclaimed by the ancient Fathers, as well as by the more recent saints and doctors of our church:

We also want to address with fraternal affection those who belong to the venerable churches of the east, which have had so many glorious Fathers whose testimony to belief in the eucharist we have been so glad to cite in this present letter of ours. Our soul is filled with great joy as we contemplate your belief in the eucharist, which is ours as well, as we listen to the liturgical prayers you use to celebrate this great mystery, as we behold your eucharistic devotion, as we read your theological works explaining or defending the doctrine of this most sacred sacrament.[44]

[1] St Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 7.

[2] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 283.

[3] Fr Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, http://orthodoxhistory.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Orthodox-Dogmatic-Theology.pdf, p. 181.

[4] St John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, 3.4.

[5] St John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, 24.7.

[6] St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 22.1; 22.9.

[7] St Augustine, Sermon 227.

[8] St Augustine, Exposition of Psalm 99, 8.

[9] St Ambrose, On the Mysteries, 8.54.

[10] St Ambrose, On the Sacraments, 3.4.16; 6.11.

[11] St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.18.5.

[12] St Augustine, Guelferbytanus Sermon 7.

[13] St Justin Martyr, Apology, 1.66.

[14] St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis, 22.2.

[15] Ibid., 23.7.

[16] St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.2.3.

[17] St Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Oration, 37.

[18] St John Chrysostom, Homily on the Betrayal of Judas, 1.6; Homily on Matthew, 82.5.

[19] St Cyril of Alexandria, On Matthew 26.27; On Luke 22, 19.

[20] St Ambrose, On the Faith, 4.124; On the Mysteries, 9.52; On the Sacraments, 6.1.3.

[21] St Ambrose, On the Sacraments, 6.1.4.

[22] Denzinger Enchiridion (1854 edition), n. 34.

[23] Ibid., n. 39

[24] St Nicholas Cabasilas, Explanation of the Divine Liturgy, 1.

[25] Ibid., 30.

[26] Jeremias II, First Answer Concerning the Augsburg Confession, Article 10. English translation from Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss, eds, Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 1, p. 420 (punctuation slightly altered). For the Greek text, see Acta et Scripta Theologorum Wirtembergensium, et Patriarchae Constantinopolitani, (Wittenberg: Crato 1584), p. 86.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Preface, quoted from Pelikan and Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, 1, p. 561 (punctuation slightly altered).

[29] Question 107, quoted from ibid, pp. 604-6 (punctuation slightly altered). For the Greek text, see Confessio Catholicae et Apostolicae Ecclesiae Orientalis, (Bratislava: Korn, 1751), pp. 175-81.

[30] Translation from Pelikan and Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, 1, p. 586. (I have, however, changed ‘reverence’ for ‘worship,’ as I would argue that this reflects more accurately the force of the Greek λατρεύωμεν. I have also modified the punctuation slightly.) For the Greek text, see Confessio, pp. 107-8.

[31] Georges Florovsky, Collected Works, (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1989), 14, p. 88.

[32] Marcus Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, (Oxford: OUP, 2015), p. 154.

[33] Article, ‘Jerusalem, Synod of,’ Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (Oxford: OUP, 1958), p. 722.

[34] John Meyendorff, Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: Historical and Theological Studies, (Crestwood,

N.Y.: SVS Press), p. 86.

[35] Decree 17; translation from Pelikan and Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, 1, pp. 628-29 (slightly altered). For the Greek, see Ernest Kimmel, Libri Symbolici Ecclesiae Orientalis, (Jena: Hockhausen, 1843), pp. 450-63.

[36] For the council, see A Melloni, ed., The Great Councils of the Orthodox Churches, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003).

[37] Plested, Aquinas, p. 167.

[38] Question 340. Translation taken from Ware, Orthodox Church, p. 285. Compare the teaching of Dositheos’s Confession: ‘We believe that the word “transubstantiation” is not intended to

explain the manner by which the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of the Lord; for that is altogether incomprehensible and impossible, except by God Himself, and those who imagine that the catholic church supposes this, are involved in ignorance and impiety. Even so, after the consecration, the bread truly, really, and substantially becomes the true Body of the Lord itself, and the wine the true Blood of the Lord itself, as has been said above. (Translation from Pelikan and Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions, 1, p. 360, slightly modified).

[39] Havana Declaration of Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis, February 12 2016, n. 4.

[40] See, for example, Robert Taft, ‘Ecumenical Scholarship and the Catholic-Orthodox Epiclesis Dispute,’ Ostkirchlische Studien, 45 (1996), pp. 201-226.

[41] The worship due to the eucharist demands a whole other paper!

[42] John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, n. 15. The pope follows his observation by a quotation from St Cyril of Jerusalem. English translation: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/special_features/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_20030417_ecclesia_eucharistia_en.html (slightly modified).

[43] Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei, nn. 16, 17. English translation: http://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_03091965_mysterium.html (slightly modified). For his part, Paul VI cites St John Chrysostom in support of his contention.

[44] Ibid., no. 74.