You are absolutely right…I was not thinking or Eastern rite churches & Anglicans (not sure about the Lutherans, though…I don’t know TOO much about it, but in discussions with some Lutheran friends, there seems to be some subtle differentiation between the Catholic concept of the True Presence, and the Lutheran.), but more about typical American mainstream Protestant denominations such as Methodist, Baptist, etc. I wouldn’t have thought to differentiate Eastern Rite Catholics, for sure, and I might have even thought that they are “allowed” communion in a RC church.
Thanks for the more detailed answer! I should have covered that in mine.
As I understand it, the Catholics and Orthodox believe in transubstantiation, which is to say that the stuff in the chalices no longer has the substance of bread and wine, but only the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. The Anglicans are a bit vague about their exact beliefs, but can be interpreted to be transubstantiation. And the Lutherans believe in consubstantiation, which is to say that the wafers have both the substance of bread and the substance of the Body, and the wine is both wine and Blood. Some other Protestant denominations (I don’t know exactly which) hold that the Communion does not take on the substance of Body and Blood at all, but is merely symbolic.
This confused me when I went to a Catholic Midnight Christmas Mass with a girl-friend. I noticed that when people were going up for communion, several people were staying in their pews. I asked her if I was supposed to go up for communion, and she replied with a long description of what I should believe and what ceremonies I should have passed. I looked at her quizzically.
She then asked, “Are you Catholic?”
“No.”
“Then stay here.”
Quite a difference from the United Methodist Church. There, everyone is encouraged to take communion, even the wee tykes.
My wife and I were even once in a group at the church that delivered (i.e., performed) a communion for shut-ins at their homes. We weren’t lay preachers or anything like that. We were simply blessed by the congregation just after the communion at the church. Then we’d take our little communion kits with bread and grape juice (a holdover from the Methodists’ temperance origins) and drive to whoever’s home and perform a variation of the communion ceremony for our hosts.
It was very rewarding, especially when we went to this one elderly couple at a nursing home. They both were in the developing stages of Alzheimer’s, and only marginally remembered us from visit to visit. But they were delighted that their church remembered them, and regaled us with stories of happenings at the church from 40 years before like they had only happened yesterday. We also brought our toddler daughter, who was the belle of the ball with all of the residents.
The Catholic belief is actually closer to the Lutheran belief as given here. The church knows full well that analyzed by a chemist, the transformed hosts would still be recognized chemically as bread and wine. Nevertheless, they exist on a metaphysical, or “super real”, level as the actual body and blood of Christ, beyond mere symbolism.