www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Question On The "Mode" Of Consecration

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but here goes:

From what I've read, the West considers the "words of consecration", to be the moment when the bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ; but the East considers the "epiclesis" to be the moment of change.

As Byzantine Catholics, what is your take? I ask because I've also read that the West at one point in history didn't have the 'epiclesis'. Is this true? If the 'epiclesis' is missing, does the change not occur?

Thanks!

The modern scholarly consensus is the entire anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer is a single, unfolding consecratory action, all of which is necessary for the transformation of the Holy Gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ. Such was the position of the Fathers, and medieval arguments about the specific moment in the Liturgy when the change occurred would have struck them as meaningless, if not dangerous.

Somewhere along the line, it seems that Latin Christianity got into the problematic habit of reducing things to their least common denominator; a tendency to pose the question, "what's the LEAST I have to do to get by?"...dissection of the Mass and sacramental services into the most minimal of details...maybe that's what one had to do when the English Protestant persecutors were hot on the Irish Catholics' trails and time was of the essence...