Yes. The bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ.
This isn’t a metaphor or a symbol. When the priest prays the epiclesis during the Divine Liturgy and calls down the Holy Spirit upon the gifts, something real happens. The bread and wine are transformed into what they appear not to be: the actual Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. We receive Him. Not a memorial of Him, not a representation, but Him.
If you grew up Baptist or in a non-denominational church around Beaumont, this probably sounds strange. You’re used to communion as a memorial, a way to remember what Jesus did. Maybe you took little plastic cups of grape juice and crackers once a quarter. That’s not what we’re talking about here.
What Christ Said
Jesus didn’t leave much room for interpretation. In John 6, after feeding the five thousand, He told the crowds: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” People walked away. It was too hard, too scandalous. He didn’t call them back to explain He was speaking metaphorically.
At the Last Supper, He took bread and said, “This is My body.” He took the cup and said, “This is My blood.” The apostles understood Him to mean exactly what He said, and the Church has believed it ever since. St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing around 107 AD (that’s our spiritual father, by the way, the third bishop of Antioch), called the Eucharist “the medicine of immortality” and insisted it was truly the flesh of Christ. St. Justin Martyr, writing around 150 AD, said the Eucharist was “the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” This wasn’t a new idea in the Middle Ages. It’s what Christians believed from the start.
How It Happens (Or Why We Don’t Explain That)
Here’s where we part ways with our Catholic friends. Catholics use the term “transubstantiation” and explain the change using Aristotelian philosophy, substance and accidents, that sort of thing. It’s precise. It’s scholastic. We don’t do that.
Not because we think they’re wrong about the real presence (they’re not), but because we refuse to dissect the mystery with philosophical tools. The Church calls down the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit does what only God can do. We don’t know the mechanism. We don’t need to. It’s a mystery, and we’re content to leave it that way.
During the Liturgy, the priest prays, “Send down Your Holy Spirit upon us and upon these gifts here presented, and make this bread the precious Body of Your Christ, and that which is in this cup the precious Blood of Your Christ, changing them by Your Holy Spirit.” That’s the epiclesis, the invocation. The Holy Spirit transforms the gifts. We can’t explain how any more than we can explain how God became man in Mary’s womb. We just believe it because Christ said it and the Church has always taught it.
Why It Matters
This isn’t just theology for theology’s sake. If the Eucharist really is Christ’s Body and Blood, then receiving communion isn’t a nice gesture or a personal devotional moment. It’s union with God Himself. St. Paul said, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). Communion means participation, sharing in, becoming one with.
That’s why we fast before Liturgy. Why we prepare through confession. Why the priest communes the faithful with a spoon from the chalice, saying, “The servant of God receives the Body and Blood of Christ.” We’re not being fussy or overly ritualistic. We’re recognizing what’s actually happening.
And that’s why we don’t practice open communion. It’s not that we think we’re better than other Christians. But if this really is Christ’s Body and Blood, and if receiving it unworthily brings judgment (Paul says that too, in 1 Corinthians 11), then we can’t treat it casually. You prepare. You become Orthodox. You learn to fast. You go to confession. Then you commune, and you receive the medicine of immortality.
When you come to Liturgy at St. Michael, you’ll see people approach the chalice with reverence, sometimes with tears. You’ll see them bow, cross themselves, receive. They’re not just remembering Jesus. They’re receiving Him, the same Christ who walked in Galilee, who died on Golgotha, who rose from the dead. That’s what the Church has always believed, and it’s what we still believe today.
