Real presence. Outline of an ecumenical review

Abstract

The issue of an adequate description, a conceptual formulation and a theological interpretation of the gift of the Lord’s Supper, has been a concern of Christianity since ancient times. The circumspect observation in the Charta Oecumenica (2001) reads: ‘Fundamental differences in faith are still barriers to visible unity’. In the light of those difficulties, attempts have been made in recent years to work on a ‘Joint Declaration on the Lord’s Supper’. All churches and denominations face the challenge to bring that which they learn of Jesus Christ’s sacramental presence from the New Testament. Some rapprochements have been achieved in the last decades. Some of those results are discussed in this essay.