The Roman Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist (Mass), affirming the belief that the bread and wine used in the sacrament are converted into the body and blood of Christ, who is therefore truly present. The doctrine, rejected by 16th-c Reformers, was reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.
Transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into that of the body and blood of Christ that, according to the belief of the Roman Catholic Church and some other Christians, occurs in the Eucharist and that is called in Greek μετουσίωσις (see Metousiosis).
When at his Last Supper Jesus said: "This is my body", what he held in his hands had all the appearances of bread. However, the Roman Catholic Church believes that the underlying reality was changed in accordance with what Jesus said, that the "substance" of the bread was converted to that of his body. The Church believes that the same change of the substance of the bread and of the wine occurs at every valid celebration of the Eucharist.
The bread is changed into Jesus' body, but, because Jesus, risen from the dead, is living, not only his body is present, but Jesus as a whole, body and blood, soul and divinity.
The Roman Catholic Church accordingly believes that through transubstantiation Christ is really, truly and substantially present under the remaining appearances of bread and wine, and that the transformation remains as long as the appearances remain. For this reason the consecrated elements are preserved, generally in a church tabernacle, for administering Holy Communion to the sick and dying, and also for the secondary, but still highly prized, purpose of adoring Christ present in the Eucharist.
The Roman Catholic Church considers the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is about what is changed, not about how the change occurs, the best defence against what it sees as the mutually opposed errors of, on the one hand, a merely figurative understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (the change of the substance is real), and, on the other hand, an interpretation that would amount to cannibalistic eating of the flesh and corporal drinking of the blood of Christ (the accidents that remain are real, not an illusion).
Scriptural foundations
As already indicated, the Roman Catholic Church sees as the main basis for this belief the words of Jesus himself at his Last Supper: the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 14:22-24;
The Gospel of John presents Jesus as saying: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you … he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him" (6:53-56), and as then not toning down these sayings, even when many of his disciples thereupon abandoned him (6:66), shocked at the idea, which appeared to be in conflict not only with ordinary human feeling but also with the Mosaic Law's prohibition against consuming the blood even of animals (see Lev 17:10-14, cf.
Saint Paul implied an identity between the apparent bread and wine of the Eucharist and the body and blood of Christ, when he wrote: "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 11:27).
Historical development
In about 106, Saint Ignatius of Antioch criticized those who "abstain from the Eucharist and the public prayer, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same Body of our Savior Jesus Christ, which [flesh] suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up again" (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7). Similarly, St. Ambrose of Milan countered objections to the doctrine, writing "You may perhaps say: 'My bread is ordinary.' But that bread is bread before the words of the Sacraments;
The earliest known use of the term "transubstantiation" to describe the change from bread and wine to body and blood of Christ was by Hildebert de Savardin, Archbishop of Tours (died 1133) in about 1079, long before the Latin West, under the influence especially of Saint Thomas Aquinas (c.
In 1551 the Council of Trent officially defined that "by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.
The attempt by some twentieth-century Roman Catholic theologians to present the Eucharistic change as an alteration of significance (transignification rather than transubstantiation) was rejected by Pope Paul VI in his 1965 encyclical letter Mysterium fidei In his 1968 Credo of the People of God, he reiterated that any theological explanation of the doctrine must hold to the twofold claim that, after the consecration, 1) Christ's body and blood are really present;
Views of other churches on transubstantiation
Eastern Churches
The Eastern Catholic, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox Churches, along with the Assyrian Church of the East, agree that the bread and wine truly and actually become the body and blood of Christ.
Anglicanism
During the reign of Henry VIII, the official teaching of the Anglican Church was identical with the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine, in defence of which the king wrote a book for which the Pope rewarded him with the title of Defender of the Faith. The Articles, declared: "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; In any case, the Articles are not considered binding on any but Church of England clergy, especially for Anglican Churches other than the Church of England.
Theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church has produced common documents that speak of "substantial agreement" about the doctrine of the Eucharist: the ARCIC Windsor Statement of 1971, and its 1979 Elucidation..
Lutheranism
Lutherans believe that within the Eucharistic celebration the body and blood of Jesus Christ are objectively present "in, with, and under the forms" of bread and wine (cf. However, Luther explicitly rejected transubstantiation, believing that the bread and wine remained fully bread and fully wine while also being fully the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Other Protestants
Many Protestant denominations hold that Holy Communion merely symbolically commemorates or memorializes Jesus' Last Supper with the disciples; Protestant churches that hold strong beliefs against the consumption of alcohol go so far as to replace wine with grape juice during symbolic Last Supper commemorations.
Others, such as some Presbyterian denominations, profess belief in the Real Presence, but offer explanations other than transubstantiation. However, when the Presbyterian Church (USA) signed "A Formula for Agreement" with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, both affirmed belief in the Real Presence.
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