Transubstantiation

Transubstantiation is a doctrine of the Greek and Roman Churches, which teaches that in the Eucharist the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and the blood of Christ, although the accidents of the bread and wine remain. The belief is to be found as early as the ninth century, though the term was not formally approved till the Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215. The Council of Trent stated the doctrine explicitly as against those who held the doctrines of impanation and consubstantiation. The Catholic Church holds that the Greek and Latin Fathers imply the doctrine, though they may not explicitly declare it. The truth of the doctrine is utterly beyond proof upon physical principles, especially to those who, rejecting the old scholastic theory of substance and accidents, look for nothing beyond phenomena.