Very positive reviews greeted this double-header’s pre-West End run, but there was one stinker for Hare’s play which objected to its treatment of the tricky but vital concept of transubstantiation – the changing of communion bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. The reviewer was the man who had been the chaplain at the high Anglican Lancing College when Hare was a pupil there and it appeared in the school paper. The play, you see, makes fun of the difficulty of explaining the doctrine.
I wasn't aware that Anglicans believed in transubstantiation. According to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion in the Book of Common Prayer, "Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions."
Also, I would note that Rattigan's The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables aren't bad either.
Also, I would note that Rattigan's The Winslow Boy and Separate Tables aren't bad either.
Frank, Anglicans believe in Consubstantiation which is, according to the Encyclopedia of the Catholic Church:"an attempt to hold the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist without admitting Transubstantiation. According to it, the substance of Christ's Body exists together with the substance of bread, and in like manner the substance of His Blood together with the substance of wine. Hence the word Consubstantiation. How the two substances can coexist is variously explained."
ReplyDeleteThe episcopalians I know say its like Transsubstantiation -- the Catholics I know say its heresy. God remains to be heard.