Real Presence of Christ in The Eucharist - Different Understandings

Different Understandings

All Christians generally maintain that the person of Christ is really present spiritually in the Eucharist. Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians affirm the real presence, not however a physical or "carnal" presence, of the body and blood of Christ as resulting from a change of the elements of bread and wine, a change referred to as transubstantiation or metousiosis. Lutherans agree with them in a real oral eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ except that Lutherans say it is by sacramental union: "in, with and under the forms" of bread and wine. Anglicans generally argue for contentment with the mode of objective presence remaining a mystery. Methodists postulate the par excellence presence as being a "Holy Mystery". Reformed Protestant views instead speak of a spiritual real presence and stress that Holy Communion is a "spiritual feeding". Certain other Protestant traditions (for instance, Baptists and some contemporary evangelicals) simply reject outright the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the Eucharist. These differences stem from how the various traditions view Christ's Words of Institution: whether literally or figuratively.