Article X The Holy Supper
[54] Article X has been approved, in which we confess the following: We believe that in the Lord’s Supper Christ’s body and blood are truly and substantially present and are truly administered with those things that are seen (bread and wine) to those who receive the Sacrament. We constantly defend this belief, as the subject has been carefully examined and considered. Since Paul says, “The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16), it would follow that if the Lord’s body were not truly present, the bread is not a communion of the body, but only of Christ’s spirit. [55] We have determined that not only the Roman Church affirms Christ’s bodily presence. The Greek Church also now believes, and formerly believed, the same. Their canon of the Mass testifies to this. In the canon the priest clearly prays that the bread may be changed and become Christ’s very body. Vulgarius, who does not seem to be an unimportant writer to us, says clearly that “bread is not a mere figure, but is truly changed into flesh.” [56] There is a long commentary by Cyril on John 15, in which he teaches that Christ is bodily offered to us in the Supper. For he says:
Nevertheless, we do not deny that we are joined spiritually to Christ by true faith and sincere love. But that we have no way of connection with Him, according to the flesh, this indeed we entirely deny. We say this idea is completely foreign to the divine Scriptures. For who has doubted that Christ is in this manner a vine, and we the branches, deriving life for ourselves from this? Hear Paul saying, “For you are all one in Christ Jesus; so we, though many, are one body in Christ; for we all partake of the one bread” (Galatians 3:28; Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 10:17). Does he perhaps think that the virtue of the mystical benediction is unknown to us? Since this is in us, does it not also, by the communication of Christ’s flesh, cause Christ to dwell in us bodily? And a little after: Therefore, we must consider that Christ is in us not only according to the habit, which we call love, but also by natural participation.
[57] We have cited these testimonies, not to undertake a discussion here about this subject, for His Imperial Majesty does not disapprove of this article. But we cite them so that all who read them may more clearly discern that we defend the doctrine received in the entire Church. In the Lord’s Supper, Christ’s body and blood are truly and actually present. They are truly administered with those things that are seen, bread and wine. And we speak of the presence of the living Christ, for we know that “death no longer has dominion over Him” (Romans 6:9).