Blood of Christ

The Blood of Christ in Christian theology refers to (a) the physical blood actually shed by Jesus Christ on the Cross, and the salvation which Christianity teaches was accomplished thereby; and (b) the Eucharistic blood used at Holy Communion, under species of wine.

Eucharist

Ancient Christian Churches (Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox Churches the Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Church of the East) together with some Anglicans, believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The Roman Catholic Church uses the term "Transubstantiation" to describe the change of the bread and wine into into the body and blood of Christ. Eastern Orthodox too have authoritatively used the same term to describe the change, as in The Longer Catechism of The Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church^[1] and in the decrees of the 1672 Synod of Jerusalem.^[2]

The Lutheran churches follow the teaching of Martin Luther in defining the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements as sacramental union (often misconstrued as consubstantiation), meaning that the fundamental "substance" of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine, which remain present. Lutherans also believe in and teach the Real Presence.

Most Protestant churches do not believe in the Real Presence, but observe Communion rites as Memorials.

Relic of the Blood around the world

Basilica of the Holy Blood, Bruges, Belgium
Weingarten Abbey, Germany
Abbey of the Holy Trinity, Fécamp, France
St. Jakob Church, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany
Basilica di Sant'Andrea di Mantova, Mantua, Italy
The Sudarium of Oveido

Notes

^ "The bread and wine are changed, or transubstantiated, into the very Body of Christ, and into the very Blood of Christ" (question 339).
^ "In the celebration (of the Eucharist) we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said concerning Baptism, or by impanation, so that the Divinity of the Word is united to the set forth bread of the Eucharist hypostatically, as the followers of Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly suppose, but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin, was baptised in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sitteth at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world" (Decree XVII).

References

Sollier, J.F. (1913). "Precious Blood" . In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
Vincent, Nicholas (2001). The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood relic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521571286.
Michael Heinlen, An Early Image of a Mass of St. Gregory and Devotion to the Holy Blood at Weingarten Abbey, Gesta, Vol. 37, No. 1 (1998), pp. 55-62
Caroline Walker Bynum, The Blood of Christ in the Later Middle Ages, Church History, Vol. 71, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 685-71
John Quintaine, "The Blood of Christ:The Rising" Burning Bucks: ISBN - 13: 978-0-9562583-0-4

External links

Blood Force written by Temitope Olodo

[1] "The bread and wine are changed, or transubstantiated, into the very Body of Christ, and into the very Blood of Christ" (question 339).

[2] "In the celebration (of the Eucharist) we believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by superabundant grace, as in the other Mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the Fathers have said concerning Baptism, or by impanation, so that the Divinity of the Word is united to the set forth bread of the Eucharist hypostatically, as the followers of Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly suppose, but truly and really, so that after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord, Which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-Virgin, was baptised in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, was received up, sitteth at the right hand of the God and Father, and is to come again in the clouds of Heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the true Blood Itself of the Lord, Which as He hung upon the Cross, was poured out for the life of the world" (Decree XVII).

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