'In a spiritual and real manner': Jeremy Taylor, Cyril Lucaris, and breathing with both lungs

Bringing to a close this series of posts on the influence of Eastern theologians on Taylor's thought in The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), we turn to a passing reference in the work's dedication:

But in the Greek Churches [transubstantiation] could not prevaile, as appears ... in Cyrils book of late, dogmatically affirming the article in our sense.

Taylor is here referring to the Eastern Confession of the Christian Faith (1629) by Cyril Lucaris, Ecumenical Patriarch 1620-38. Having previously come into contact with Reformed churches and theologians, Cyril sought to give expression to his understanding of agreements between Orthodoxy and the Reformed. Taylor's reference, of course, is particularly to Cyril's statement on the Eucharist:

This is the pure and lawful institution of this wonderful Sacrament, in the administration of which we profess the true and certain presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; that presence, however, which faith offers to us, not that which the devised doctrine of transubstantiation teaches. For we believe that the faithful eat the body of Christ in the Supper of the Lord, not by breaking it with the teeth of the body, but by perceiving it with the sense and feeling of the soul, since the body of Christ is not that which is visible in the Sacrament, but that which faith spiritually apprehends and offers to us; from whence it is true that, if we believe, we do eat and partake, if we do not believe, we are destitute of all the fruit of it.

As Taylor states, this is "dogmatically affirming" an understanding of the Lord's Eucharistic presence "in our sense", that is, in a Reformed manner. As such, it then confirms Taylor's emphasis on Eastern liturgy, theologies, and theologians throughout this work.

Except, of course, that there is a significant problem. In 1672, the Synod of Jerusalem decisively rejected Cyril's Confession, point by point. Regarding the Eucharist, it declared:

after the consecration of the bread and of the wine, the bread is transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed into the true Body Itself of the Lord.

This, of course, was heralded by Roman Catholic apologists as a straightforward and complete rejection of any Protestant attempt to claim that Reformed eucharistic theologies cohered with those of the East. Does this therefore mean that Taylor's entire 'Eastern strategy' in The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament therefore collapses?

Actually, no, it does not. As a recent excellent study of Cyril's life and thought has demonstrated, the situation was much more complex than the Synod of Jerusalem suggests:

Perhaps it should be specified in this consideration of transubstantiation that the Eastern Church was not entirely of one mind for or against it in Cyril’s lifetime. This was largely due to the influence of the Latinizing Greeks who were put in influential positions within the Orthodox Church who were advancing transubstantiation as true Orthodox doctrine. Still, there were plenty among the Orthodox who countered the trend. When Lucaris was attacked for his heresy in denying this specific doctrine, (at a council held months after his death), there was a protest made, and we have record of one Greek priest who arose to his defense, adamant that “the word [µετουσίωσις - transubstantiation] was not to be found either in the Greek Fathers or in the ecumenical councils, that it was invented by the Latins, and that Greeks ought not to use this phrase or expression.” With this in mind, it cannot fairly be said that this was the case of Lucaris simply accepting Protestant eucharistic doctrine. All that can be said is that he did not agree with the Roman doctrine and his stubborn mind never moved on this question. 

And, for Taylor (like Hooker), this was key: affirming a true feeding upon the Lord's Body and Blood in the Holy Mysteries did not require the doctrine of transubstantiation, for this doctrine obscured and undermined the truth and reality of the real and spiritual presence. Cyril's rejection of transubstantiation, therefore, in that it gave voice to a significant Eastern strain of thought, did cohere with a fundamental insight of Reformed eucharistic theologies. 

What is more, this has remained an important aspect of Eastern eucharistic theologies. Consider, for example, Bulgakov's critique of transubstantiation:

As a result of this transmutation, the bread and wine with all their properties stop being matter of this world, stop belonging to the world, but become the true body and blood of Christ. This transmutation is accomplished through their unification with the Lord’s spiritual and glorified body that ascended from the world but now appears in them on earth. In the capacity of earthly matter, the eucharistic elements remain bread and wine for the world, whereas, in being transmuted, they already belong to the body of Christ, which is found outside and above the world. And the elements are thereby raised to the metacosmic being of this body and manifest in themselves the corporeality of Christ on earth ...

This transmutation does not exist for this world, which is why the eucharistic elements retain all the properties of natural matter even after the transmutation. But these elements become Christ’s body and blood immediately, as such, without any transformation. The transmutation here is not a physical transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood through a physico-chemical process. The Catholic transubstantatio wishes to explain why this does not take place, excusing the absence of a miracle of natural transformation. But such an understanding of the transmutation diminishes the sacrament and distorts its meaning. The meaning of the sacrament consists not in the fact that believers eat a particle of the body and blood in its natural form, but in the fact that they take communion of the one, indivisible body and blood of the Lord, being united with Him bodily and therefore spiritually. 

Similarities between Bulgakov's eucharistic understanding and that of Taylor (and wider Reformed thought) are almost immediately obvious. To be clear, this is not a claim that Reformed and Orthodox eucharistic theologies are the same: self-evidently, they are not. It is, however, to state that the common rejection of transubstantiation shares significant features and that Taylor's declaration, "the spiritual sense is the most real, and most true", shares much common ground with Eastern thought.

Which brings us back to Taylor's 'Eastern strategy', his desire to 'breathe with both lungs'. It is grounded in a knowledgeable and realistic reading of Eastern eucharistic theologies and offers to Reformed eucharistic theologies a significant companion in affirming a true, spiritual, and thus real feeding upon the Lord in the Holy Supper. It seems fitting, therefore, to conclude this series of posts with words from Taylor's work: 

The doctrine of the Church of England, and generally of the Protestants in this article is: That after the Minister of the holy mysteries hath ritely prayed, and blessed or consecrated the bread and the wine, the symboles become changed into the body and bloud of Christ, after a Sacramental, that is, in a spiritual, real manner.