My Journey to Understanding the Real Presence in the Eucharist

My initial response to the doctrine of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist was to push back. Growing up in a Southern Baptist tradition, the idea that Christ was truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist felt foreign and unnecessary. I had been taught to see Communion as symbolic, a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice rather than a literal participation in His body and blood.

Determined to prove this Catholic teaching wrong, I started digging out my Protestant church history and theology books. I figured I could find the right arguments to refute the Catholic view. But what I found instead surprised me. The more I studied, the more evidence I uncovered that the early church believed in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

One book that particularly stood out to me was Historical Theology by Gregg Allison. Written from a Protestant perspective, Allison examines the development of various Christian doctrines throughout history. What struck me was that even he acknowledged the belief in the real presence was widely, if not universally, accepted by the early church. This was not a Catholic invention, as I had once thought, but a continuation of the faith passed down from the apostles.

A key insight was the early church’s connection between the Eucharist and the prophecy in the book of Malachi. The church fathers saw the Eucharist as the “pure offering” that Malachi foretold would be made by the Gentiles. Justin Martyr, a second-century apologist, explained it this way:

“For from the rising of the sun till the setting of the same, my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered, and a pure offering… Thus, he speaks of those Gentiles- namely, us - who in every place offer sacrifices to him, in example, the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist.”

This understanding of the Eucharist as a true sacrifice was central to the faith of the early Christians. The Didache, one of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament, also connects the Eucharist to a sacrifice, stating:

“On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

As I continued my research, I found countless other quotes from the early church fathers affirming the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Irenaeus, writing in the second century, put it plainly:

“For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation from God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, it consists of two realities, earthly and heavenly…”

Cyprian, another early bishop, reinforced this view, asserting that:

“If Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer in accordance with what he sees Christ himself to have offered.”

What was even more convincing was the testimony of Ignatius of Antioch, who, writing around the year 110 AD, spoke about the real presence in the context of refuting heretics:

“They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up.”

By the time I encountered the writings of Augustine, I realized that the weight of evidence from the early church was overwhelming. Augustine spoke of the Eucharist in both symbolic and real terms, and it became clear that the doctrine of Transubstantiation—where the substance changes while the appearance remains—was a way of understanding this mystery.

“That bread that you see on the altar, sanctified by the Word of God, is Christ’s body. That cup, or rather the contents of that cup, sanctified by the Word of God, is Christ’s blood.”

For Augustine, the Eucharist was not just a symbol, but a profound spiritual reality.

In closing, after reading the testimonies of the early church fathers, I found myself standing in line with them. Their belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist wasn’t just a Catholic doctrine, but a historic Christian one, shared by those who had walked closest with the apostles. I chose to follow in their example.