The bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ through the action of the Holy Spirit during the Divine Liturgy. But we don’t pinpoint a single instant the way you might mark the moment a referee’s whistle blows.
This is one of those places where coming from a Protestant background (or even a Catholic one) can make Orthodoxy feel slippery. You want a clear answer. We’re giving you one, but it’s not the kind of answer that fits on a timeline with a red X marking the spot.
What Happens During the Liturgy
During the Eucharistic Prayer (called the anaphora), the priest recites the words Christ spoke at the Last Supper: “Take, eat, this is my Body” and “Drink of it all of you, this is my Blood.” These words matter. They’re Christ’s own command and institution. But in Orthodox understanding, they’re not a formula that mechanically changes the elements the moment they’re spoken.
Right after those words, the priest prays the epiclesis. That’s the prayer where we explicitly ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon us and upon the gifts. The priest says, “Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented.” Then he asks the Spirit to make the bread Christ’s Body and the wine Christ’s Blood.
This is where Orthodox theology puts the weight. The Holy Spirit changes the gifts. Not our words, not the priest’s authority by itself, but the Spirit’s action in response to the Church’s prayer.
Why We Don’t Define a Single Moment
If you grew up Catholic, you learned about transubstantiation and that the consecration happens at the words of institution. The priest says “This is my Body,” and right then, that’s it. The substance changes even though the appearances don’t.
We don’t do it that way. It’s not that we think Catholics are wrong about what happens (the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood). We just won’t nail down the metaphysics or the precise instant.
Fr. Alexander Schmemann, one of the great Orthodox liturgical theologians of the last century, emphasized that the whole Divine Liturgy is consecratory. From the moment we bring the gifts to the altar, through the Eucharistic Prayer, through the epiclesis, through the “Amen” the people sing, we’re participating in one unified action. The Spirit works through all of it.
St. John of Damascus wrote that the Holy Spirit comes upon the gifts and “accomplishes what surpasses every word and thought.” That’s the Orthodox instinct. We know it happens. We know the Spirit does it. We know when we commune we receive Christ Himself. But we leave the how in the realm of mystery.
What This Means for You
If you’re standing in the nave at St. Michael’s on a Sunday morning, watching the priest pray the anaphora, you don’t need to hold your breath waiting for the exact syllable when everything changes. The whole prayer is sacred. The whole action is the Church calling on God to do what only God can do.
And here’s the thing: we trust that He does it. Not because we’ve got the formula right or because we can explain the metaphysics. We trust it because Christ promised it, because the Church has always believed it, and because the Holy Spirit is faithful.
When people ask me about this (and inquirers do, especially folks from Baptist backgrounds who aren’t used to sacramental theology at all), I sometimes point out that we’re comfortable with mystery in a way that makes Western Christians nervous. We’re not being evasive. We’re being honest about the limits of human language when we’re talking about God’s direct action in the world.
The Church teaches clearly: after the epiclesis and the “Amen,” what’s on the altar is the Body and Blood of Christ. Before the Liturgy, it was bread and wine. Now it’s not. The Spirit changed it. That’s what we know. That’s what we stake our lives on every time we come forward to commune.
If you want to dig deeper into this, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s book The Orthodox Church has a good section on the sacraments that explains this without getting too technical. Fr. Thomas Hopko’s talks on Ancient Faith Radio cover it too, and he’s got a gift for making theology accessible without dumbing it down.
But honestly? The best way to understand the Eucharist is to keep showing up, keep praying the Liturgy, and let it soak into you. One Sunday you’ll be standing there during the anaphora, and you’ll realize you’re not analyzing anymore. You’re just there, with the whole Church, asking the Spirit to come. And He does.
