Sárospataki Füzetek 21. (2017)

2017 / 2. szám - ARTICLES-STUDIEN - INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE SINCE THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION-INTERKULTURELLER DIALOG SEIT DER REFORMATION - Nagy Károly Zsolt: Leaving a Mark: The calvinist landscapes of remembrance

Leaving a Mark: The Calvinist Landscapes of Remembrance

against the law: For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.” (Acts 6:11-14) In his reply, Stephen attested that what Jesus had said was essentially already there in what Moses and the prophets had said; that is, he did not deny the literal truth of the quoted words of Jesus. Actually, Stephen quotes here the book of one of the greatest prophets, Isaiah, where God himself reprehends Israel: “This is what the Lord says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?’ declares the Lord. These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.” (Isaiah 66:1-2) This biblical thought is one of the most important constituents of the knowledge related to the Protestant concept of sacrament, and the related manifestation of the transcendent.

According to the Roman Catholic concept, the church can be the place for the manifestation of the transcendent in several forms. On the one hand, it possesses a sacred character in itself, as it is a sanctified space; on the other hand, and closely related to this, the relics of the saints may be placed in it too. However, what is most important for us for the comparison with the Protestant/Calvinist concept, is probably the presence of Christ himself through the host placed in the tabernacle of the church. This presence is emphasized by the sanctuary lamp in front of the tabernacle that houses the sacrament; and when the believers bend their knees when entering the church, they salute the Christ present in the tabernacle. In the course of the Roman Catholic liturgy, when the priest repeats the words of institution5, the essence of the bread and the wine “turn into the essence of Christ’s body and blood”,6 or more specifically: the elements are replaced by each other. This is in short the doctrine of the transsubstantiatio, which claims that Christ is actually present in the elements.

The Protestants have discarded the doctrine of the transsubstantiatio. Luther writes about the consubstantiatio-, that is, he believes that the elements do not go through transubstantiation, but in some way both substances (the sign and what it signifies as well) are coexisting in the communion. The Swiss branch of Reformation discards even Luther’s doctrine, and views the communion as a symbol, and talks about a kind of “spiritual presence”; moreover, Zwingli, who had gone even further than Calvin, and who had a great influence on the Hungarian Reformation as well, does not accept any kind of presence, and holds the communion to be only a form of remembrance.7 Parallel to this, Calvinist theology discarded all “location-specific”

5 “This is my body... [...] this is my blood...” (Matthew 26:26-28)

6 The Eucharist in Magyar Katolikus Lexikon, http://lexikon.katolikus.hU/E/Eucharisztia.htm (Downloaded: March 21,2017)

7 For the Lutheran perspective see Luther’s work written in 1537, the Articles of Schmalcald on the Eucharist in The Christian Book of Concord, or Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Newmarket, Solomon D. Henkel and Brs., 1851,299-300. For Calvin’s perspective see Book 4 of the Institutio, chapters 17 and 18. John Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 2, JohnT. McNeill (ed.), Ford Lewis Battles (trans.), Philadelphia, Westminster, 1960,1359-1448.

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