Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist

=== Catholic ===
{{main|Eucharist in the Catholic Church}}
[[File:Ecce Agnus Dei.jpg|thumb|''[[Ecce Agnus Dei]]'' ("Behold the Lamb of God") at [[Solemn Mass]]]]
[[File:20190529 Spain and Portugal El Camino Pilgrimage 1063 (48002601588).jpg|thumb|Eucharistic celebration at the [[Sanctuary of Fátima|Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima]]]]

The [[Catholic Church]] declares that the presence of [[Christ]] in the [[Eucharist]] is true, real, and substantial.<ref name="Trent">{{Citation |last=Trent |first=the Council of |title=Session XII. Decree touching the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Canons_and_Decrees_of_the_Council_of_Trent/Session_XIII/Sacrament_of_the_Eucharist |work=Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent |access-date=2023-05-18}}</ref> By saying Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, it excludes any understanding of the presence as merely that of a sign or figure. By stating that his presence in the Eucharist is real, it defines it as objective and independent of the thoughts and feelings of the participants, whether they have faith or not: lack of faith may make reception of the sacrament fruitless for holiness, but it does not make his presence unreal. In the third place, the Catholic Church describes the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as substantial, that is, involving the underlying substance, not the appearances of bread and wine. These maintain all their physical properties as before: unlike what happens when the appearance of something or somebody is altered but the basic reality remains the same, it is the teaching of the Catholic Church that in the Eucharist the appearance is quite unchanged, but the basic reality has become the body and blood of Christ.<ref name="Dulles2009">{{cite book|author=Avery Cardinal Dulles|title=Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988–2007|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lQBXkaYEy0cC&pg=PA455|date=25 August 2009|publisher=Fordham Univ Press|isbn=978-0-8232-2864-5|pages=455–}}</ref>

The change from bread and wine to a presence of Christ that is true, real, and substantial is called ''transubstantiation''.<ref name="Trent"/> The Catholic Church does not consider the term "transubstantiation" an explanation of the change: it declares that the change by which the signs of bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ occurs "in a way surpassing understanding".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P3Z.HTM |title=''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', 1333 |publisher=Vatican.va |access-date=2018-04-16}}</ref>

One hymn of the Church, "[[Ave Verum Corpus]]", greets Christ in the Eucharist as follows (in translation from the original Latin): "Hail, true body, born of Mary Virgin, and which truly suffered and was immolated on the cross for mankind!"<ref>"Ave verum corpus natum /de Maria Virgine; /vere passum, immolatum /in cruce pro homine!" (late-fourteenth-century hymn)</ref>

The Catholic Church also holds that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is entire: it does not see what is really in the Eucharist as a lifeless corpse and mere blood, but as the whole Christ, body and blood, soul and divinity; nor does it see the persisting outward appearances of bread and wine and their properties (such as weight and nutritional value) as a mere illusion, but objectively existing as before and unchanged.

In the view of the Catholic Church, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is of an order different from the presence of Christ in the other sacraments: in the other sacraments he is present by his power rather than by the ''reality'' of his body and blood, the basis of the description of his presence as "real".