Transubstantiation in the East?

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Wesrock said:
Yes, all the sacraments are, in a way, veiled, in that we see the physical action and the species (water, oil, bread, wine) but not the divine action at work. The species are a symbol of the graces conferred.
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Yes, the Sacraments involve symbolism. However, no apostolic Church (Eastern or Western Catholicism, Eastern or Oriental Orthodoxy) would hold that the presence of Christ in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, is merely symbolic.

In layman’s terms, everyone agrees about the WHAT/WHETHER but not the HOW.

I’m just saying this because a lot of Protestants get confused over it. I became Catholic in large part because the Methodist church I was at thought that just because the East thought that the “how” of the Eucharist was a mystery, they also thought that the East also thought whether Christ was really present was also a mystery. IOW, Protestants don’t understand what the East means by mystery.
 
The point of the doctrine of transubstantiation is that there is something more important than what is visible.
The point of calling the sacraments a mystery is that there is something more important than what is visible.
The point of saying a sacrament is a symbol is that there is something more important than what is visible.

Each of these can be abused by injecting words like “merely” into the discussion. A current thread here Rejection of the flesh… is from someone who thinks the Eucharistic change is merely physical. We all struggle to understand the mystery of God, and have to avoid reducing the mystery to “mere” physical or symbolic status. “Whom all the world cannot contain, comes in our hearts to dwell.” (lyric from Gift of Finest Wheat, based on St Augustine)
 
They are the Body and Blood of Christ after the second Consecration.

Please see my 2 lengthy replies quoting Fr. Basil Shereghy on this thread:
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Epiclesis or Words of Institution, how does that work? Eastern Catholicism
Do you attend a Byzantine-Ruthenian parish? I ask because the profound bows after the Words of Institution are something I’ve only encountered at Ruthenian parishes, and are widely known to be a Latinization. I’ll double-check the Melkite liturgical texts to see if they say anything.
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The Greek term is older since it came from St. John Chrysostom.
 
Thank you! So would it be true to say that the Latin word was first coined as a translation of Chrysostom’s Greek term?
 
BartholomewB said:
Thank you! So would it be true to say that the Latin word was first coined as a translation of Chrysostom’s Greek term?
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Because nothing catastrophic has ever come from translating greek to latin. 😱😭

Not criticizing, and you’re likely right (I have no basis for an opinion), but things do seem to take on a life of their own when such translations get made . . .

I don’t think that Theotokos has a direct English (or probably Latin) translation, although there is a slavic word (that we oddly don’t use) that has never had any other meaning . . .
 
dochawk said:
Because nothing catastrophic has ever come from translating greek to latin.
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and greek to coptic- Chalcedonian Schism is clear example of how translations can get problematic.

Nowadays, when people speak more languages and cultural differences are not as hard to overcome, translations are much easier to understand, so we can reasonably hope it doesn’t happen again… but one never knows how Satan will try to divide Christians.
 
dochawk said:
I don’t think that Theotokos has a direct English (or probably Latin) translation, although there is a slavic word (that we oddly don’t use) that has never had any other meaning . . .
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Богодорица. 👌
 
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dochawk said:
I don’t think that Theotokos has a direct English (or probably Latin) translation, although there is a slavic word (that we oddly don’t use) that has never had any other meaning . . .
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No, the dogmatic title given to Our Lady at the Council of Ephesus is always rendered Mater Dei in Latin or Mother of God in English.
 
twf said:
No, the dogmatic title given to Our Lady at the Council of Ephesus is always rendered Mater Dei in Latin or Mother of God in English.
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But not currently by most E churches in the US. Ours switched to Theotokos when the Divine Liturgy was revised a few years ago. Retranslated from the Slavonic, except that one word where we used to use “Mother of God” instead went to the Greek word that had never been used in Slavinic! 🤔

Theotokos includes more of the notion of bearing/carryingn than “Mother” does
 
twf said:
No, the dogmatic title given to Our Lady at the Council of Ephesus is always rendered Mater Dei in Latin or Mother of God in English.
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Neither of which is a direct translation of the term “theotokos.”
 
But it’s the only title we have in the Latin tradition. I don’t know about Latin, but “God-bearer” just sounds a bit odd in English.
 
I’m perfectly fine with rendering “theotokos” as “Mother of God.” However, it is not a direct translation.
 
Probably why we don’t translate it 🙂

But I do find it odd that we use the greek rather than the slavonic . . .
 
We still sing the Kyrie in Greek… haha. Some things just never get translated as a matter of tradition.
 
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