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To: Agrarian; annalex; kosta50
Sorry kosta, meant to write earlier but was driving back to Nebraska.

We don't think that Christ is drowned or smothered in the bread and wine, but to be honest that is something is hard to explain.

Jesus's body and blood really is present in the bread and wine. He is truly there, but the bread and wine still appear to be bread and wine. Saying "In, under, and with" is a very clumsy way at best.

Agrarian, thanks for the further details. I replied to the earlier post more tongue in check then it appeared. I know that the Orthodox understanding of Communion is different, but you sounded very "Lutheran" for a moment and I thought it was funny. Didn't translate well to the screen.

Have a good weekend.
8,797 posted on 06/16/2006 9:37:54 PM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: redgolum; Agrarian; annalex
We don't think that Christ is drowned or smothered in the bread and wine, but to be honest that is something is hard to explain

That's why the Orthodox Church doesn't try to "explain" the Mysteries of God. We know the universe exists, but we don't know why. Rationalization doesn't lead to faith, it leads to rationalism, a belief in one's own "explanation."

Jesus' body and blood really is present in the bread and wine. He is truly there, but the bread and wine still appear to be bread and wine

But that is exactly the difference, redgolum. Jesus' Body and Blood are not "in" the bread and wine. We say that "this is truly Thine Body...and Blood." The Lutheran wording makes it sound like it's some kind of a "sandwich" and "tea with honey."

The "nature" of sacramental changes are subtle to our senses. They are "real" in that (in the Aristotelian sense) the bread and wine "cease" to be bread and wine and become something they were not before.

The only difference is that spiritual changes are not physically discernible, whereas physical changes in Aristotelian philosophy are. Thus, a match is no longer "a match" when it is burned; it ceases to be a match.

We know that because the match no longer "looks" like a match, but instead looks like a "burned match," which is incapable of striking fire as a match can.

Obviously, when one is baptized, there is no physical change. One cannot tell a baptized baby from a non-baptized one just by looking at them, but the baptized baby is no longer the same being it was before baptism.

In the West, it is a must to "explain" everything, otherwise we cannot believe anything because we can believe only that "which makes sense" (now that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one!).

The West is rooted in the deification of reason and to some extent humanization of God: man is the final arbiter of what's possible and what's impossible, even God. Thus, there is a "need" to rationally "prove" the irrational.

All things considered, the Orthodox declaration on the Eucharistic Mystery is simply based on faith and not on reason. We supplicate God to send the Holy Spirit and change the Bread and the Wine, to make them the Body and Blood. The mechanism of God's mysteries are left to God.

8,799 posted on 06/17/2006 8:08:00 AM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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