Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T11:24:14.386Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter Six - Pusey's Eucharistic Doctrine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2013

Carol Engelhardt Herringer
Affiliation:
Wright State University
Get access

Summary

Introduction

The Victorian Church of England was riven by a heated conflict over the meaning and nature of the Eucharist. Traditionally Anglicans could believe either that the consecrated bread and wine were used as, but not changed into, Christ's body and blood – which was known as the virtualist view – or that Christ was present only to the worthy communicant, which was the receptionist view. The rather peaceful coexistence of these two views was challenged beginning in the late 1830s, when the Tractarian doctrine of the Real Presence introduced theological and liturgical strife into the established church. This doctrine held that Christ was ‘really’ present in, or in conjunction with, the consecrated bread and wine. The doctrine quickly found adherents in the Scottish Episcopal Church as well; and by the 1860s ritualists had introduced liturgical practices associated with it – including bowing to the altar, kneeling during communion and even reserving the sacrament – at the parish level.

This new doctrine was denounced by traditional Anglicans who were horrified by what seemed to them to be crypto–Roman Catholicism. While the preferred form of dispute was through the spoken and written word, some of the more excitable opponents of the doctrine disrupted church services, and clergymen who preached the doctrine were prosecuted in church and civil courts. The controversies were so fierce and so prolonged partly because, while they were about liturgy and doctrine, they were also about deeper issues of whether the Church of England was Catholic or Protestant and whether material objects could have a central role in Christian worship.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×