[siunevada]

As for the Protestants famous heretics-I would argue that Luther and Calvin just corrected errors that had crepted into the church. Their doctrinal position was no different than the early church fathers. What's one person's heretic is another person's saint.

A minor question. Perhaps I'm not well informed.

Luther believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Zwingli believed it was an ordinance, an ordinary memorial. Calvin attempted to mediate the difference at a meeting between the two.

Of the three, who was correct on this point of doctrine? And why should one believe that such a person has the authority to correctly declare such a doctrine?

[HarleyD]

My understanding on the Eucharist from which I've just finished reviewing was that there were some differences of opinions even in the very early church. Augustine viewed it symbolically while others had other opinions.

I'm pinging my GRPL friends who may be able to shed more light on this.

[Cronos]

Of the three, who was correct on this point of doctrine? And why should one believe that such a person has the authority to correctly declare such a doctrine?

That's one of my issues with non-Catholic preachers who do pop up from time to time (and I don't mean Luther, Calvin etc., I mean some evangelist ministers), they suddenly pop up and potray themselves as teachers. The Catholic church is a distillation of millions of people who have studied the bible over and over again. Many of the supposedly new issues raised by the new ministers are actually heresies that popped up in the early centuries (Gnosticism etc. ) and were convincingly refuted by the Church -- somewhat similar to (;p) the Jedi versus the Sith -- viz. the Church had proved those heresies wrong and let them disapper, but then forgot about them, so that people centuries later would make the smae mistakes again.