Consubstantiation

Doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist associated with the theology of Martin Luther. It teaches that after the consecration the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ and the substance of the bread and wine coexist in union with each other. The doctrine was formulated in opposition to the doctrine of transubstantiation, which held that the substance of the consecrated bread and wine no longer existed, but their accidents (external form) were sacramentally united to the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. This doctrine was condemned by Luther in The Babylonian Captivity. Transubstantiation was believed by the Reformers generally to overthrow the nature of a sacrament by denying the reality of the external sign.