Figures

Byzantine archbishop of Ohrid whose Gospel commentaries digest the Greek Fathers for the medieval East; Aquinas quotes him throughout the Catena Aurea.

Dominican friar and theologian; his Summa Theologica is the high-scholastic synthesis of Catholic doctrine, including the treatise on the Eucharist.

The nineteenth ecumenical council; its Thirteenth Session (1551) defined Catholic eucharistic doctrine, including transubstantiation.

German Augustinian friar and reformer; he affirmed the real bodily presence of Christ in the Supper while rejecting transubstantiation.

Reformer of Zurich who held the Supper to be primarily a memorial sign; his clash with Luther at the Marburg Colloquy (1529) divided the Reformation on this point.

Reformer of Geneva; his Institutes of the Christian Religion teach a spiritual real partaking of Christ in the Supper by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Italian hermit and founder of the monastery of Montevergine. He left no writings of his own; what we know comes from later lives. His feast falls on 25…

Benedictine abbot of Solesmes and restorer of monastic life in France; his fifteen-volume The Liturgical Year walks the whole cycle of the Church’s worship, feast by feast, Sunday…

Italian Jesuit scholastic who renounced a marquisate for religious life and died at twenty-three nursing plague victims in Rome; patron of young people. Beyond a handful of letters,…

Philosopher and Christian apologist; his First Apology, addressed to the Roman emperor, gives the earliest extended description of the Eucharist.