Position · 155

Orthodox Eucharistic Mystery

The teaching that the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ through the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy, while the manner of the change is left a mystery.

The Orthodox churches affirm a real change, and some Orthodox texts have used the word transubstantiation. But they generally avoid tying the change to a philosophical account such as Aristotle’s substance and accidents, as Transubstantiation does in Western theology. They also place the moment of change at the epiclesis, the prayer calling down the Spirit, rather than at the words of institution alone. They see the teaching as continuous with early writers such as Justin Martyr (c. 155), who called the Eucharist the flesh and blood of Jesus.