Wednesday, May 24, 2006

The Eucharistic Sacrifice: Old Catholic Style

What does our sister Church, the Old Catholic Church, say about the Eucharistic Sacrifice? The Declaration of Utrecht 1889 states the following:

'Considering that the Holy Eucharist has always been the true central point of Catholic worship, we consider it our duty to declare that we maintain with perfect fidelity the ancient Catholic doctrine concerning the Sacrament of the Altar, by believing that we receive the Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ under the species of bread and wine. The Eucharistic celebration in the Church is neither a continual repetition nor a renewal of the expiatory sacrifice which Jesus offered once for all upon the Cross; but it is a sacrifice because it is the perpetual commemoration of the sacrifice offered upon the Cross, and it is the act by which we represent on earth and appropriate to ourselves the one offering which Jesus Christ makes in heaven, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews (9.11-12), for the salvation of redeemed humanity, by appearing for us in the presence of God (Hebrews 9.24). The character of the Holy Eucharist being thus understood, it is, at the same time, a sacrificial feast, by means of which the faithful, in receiving the Body and Blood of our Saviour, enter into communion with one another (I Corinthians 10.17).'

The Old Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but shun technical definitions of the Mystery. The celebration of the Eucharist is considered sacrificial insofar as it is an anamnesis, a re-presentation of the once for all time Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross. The Mass, then, is central to the worship of the Old Catholic Communion.

It was on the basis of this doctrine that the Church of England (1931) and the Episcopal Church (1946) entered into communcatio in sacris with the Old Catholic Churches.

Thus I would say that the doctrine expressed above is word-for-word the doctrine of the Anglican Church!

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