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Two major churches -- Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic -- hold that the Eucharistic bread and wine are physically (not just symbolically) the flesh and blood of Jesus. The Orthodox Church offers communion with both; the Catholics offer only bread.

Some Protestant churches consider the bread and wine symbolic of Jesus' blood and flesh. Nonetheless, Jesus made it clear that even symbolic sin is sin.(Matthew 5:28)

"Mystically" is a better word. Nothing wrong with "symbols" except the way it has been interpreted. From the OCA site below....

"One of the most unfortunate developments took place when men began to debate the reality of Christ's Body and Blood in the eucharist. While some said that the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine were the real Body and Blood of Christ, others said that the gifts were not real, but merely the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood. The tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical.

The Orthodox Church denies the doctrine that the Body and the Blood of the eucharist are merely intellectual or psychological symbols of Christ's Body and Blood. If this doctrine were true, when the liturgy is celebrated and holy communion is given, the people would be called merely to think about Jesus and to commune with him "in their hearts." In this way, the eucharist would be reduced to a simple memorial meal of the Lord's last supper, and the union with God through its reception would come only on the level of thought or psychological recollection.

On the other hand, however, the Orthodox tradition does use the term "symbols" for the eucharistic gifts. It calls, the service a "mystery" and the sacrifice of the liturgy a "spiritual and bloodless sacrifice." These terms are used by the holy fathers and the liturgy itself." The Orthodox Church uses such expressions because in Orthodoxy what is real is not opposed to what is symbolical or mystical or spiritual. On the contrary! In the Orthodox view, all of reality -- the world and man himself -- is real to the extent that it is symbolical and mystical, to the extent that reality itself must reveal and manifest God to us. Thus, the eucharist in the Orthodox Church is understood to be the genuine Body and Blood of Christ precisely because bread and wine are the mysteries and symbols of God's true and genuine presence and manifestation to us in Christ. Thus, by eating and drinking the bread and wine which are mystically consecrated by the Holy Spirit, we have genuine communion with God through Christ who is himself "the bread of life" (Jn 6:34, 41).

Cause we don't want to be considered related to this kind of stuff, dontcha think? :-)

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It's quite obvious that those elements used in orthodox churches do not become literally the body and blood of our Lord. In their taste and substance they remain what they were to begin with. This type of thinking may have been acceptable to some in the dark ages, but now it can clearly be proved by any scientific method. I can see your thinking here that Jesus is offering a symbol for what would be unthinkable for a Jew, however, Jesus being the holy one of God, would never tempt man to sin. He said it was the Spirit that causes people to understand what he says. After many of his disciples walked away from him for the very saying that troubles you, he looked upon the 12 and asked if they too were going to leave, to which Peter responded, "Where shall we go, you have the words of eternal life." If a man has faith in God he will also have faith in Jesus, for they are one. As Abraham, the father of faith, said unto God, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?".

You might be able to dismiss what Jesus said, except that he arose from the dead. You could dismiss him as a crazy man if you could find some sin that he had committed. You could dismiss him as some zealot, except that John the Baptist declared by the Spirit of God that this was the Messiah. You could call him a deceiver, except for the many miracles which accompanied his word. The very scriptures that Jews read everyday point to him as the Promised One, even declaring that he would be raised from the dead, declaring his substitutionary death. If you approach him in unbelief, do you really expect God to show him unto you? In order to enter the kingdom of God, you must become as a little child...you must believe.