Anglicans and the Eucharist

The Pontificator blog is really one of the best, and I try to keep up to date with it.  His post called “Symbol and Realityâ€? is about the Anglican [Episcopalian in the USA] view of the Eucharist, specifically those of Lancelot Andrewes and Alexander Schmemann, neither of whom I had heard of before this.  Catholics explain the Real Presence in terms of transubstantiation, while others, including many Anglicans, use the explanation consubstantiation, or impanation.  While Andrewes did not accept transubstantiation, the original blog to which Pontificator refers, figura et res, veritas et figura, at the Meam Commemorationem blog, says:

"There is no hiatus, the Eucharist IS the Body and Blood and the Sacrifice offered on behalf of the sins of the whole world. There is no doubt in the mind of Andrewes about the reality of the whole Christ in the Sacrament."

I don't have the theological background to understand all that Jeff Steel at Meam Commemorationem quotes from Schmemann regarding this issue, but it was interesting to read all the same.

Pontificator's comment includes the following: "My one question about Schmemann's ontology of symbol is whether it truly allows the difference between an icon and the eucharistic Body and Blood. ... Hence the insistence of II Nicaea that the Eucharist is not an icon of the Body and Blood but is the Body and Blood."

Certainly food for thought.