The celebration of the feast was suppressed in many Protestant churches (especially those of a Calvinist persuasion) during the Reformation for theological reasons, because it celebrated the doctrine of the real presence. Though Lutheranism maintained the confession of the corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist via a sacramental union, in contrast, the Reformed affirmed a spiritual (pneumatic) presence. Today, most Protestant denominations do not recognize the feast day,[8] with exception of certain Lutheran churches and the Church of England, the latter of which abolished it in 1548 as the English Reformation progressed, but later reintroduced it.[9] Some Anglican churches now observe Corpus Christi, sometimes under the name Thanksgiving for Holy Communion.
History
The institution of Corpus Christi as a feast in the Christian calendar resulted from approximately forty years of work on the part of Juliana of Liège, a 13th-century Norbertine canoness, also known as Juliana de Cornillon, born in 1191 or 1192 in Liège, Belgium, a city where there were groups of women dedicated to Eucharistic worship. Guided by exemplary priests, they lived together, devoted to prayer and to charitable works. Orphaned at the age of five, she and her sister Agnes were entrusted to the care of the Augustinian nuns at the convent and leprosarium of Mont-Cornillon, where Juliana developed a special veneration for the Blessed Sacrament.[10]
She always longed for a feast day outside of Lent in its honour. Her vita reports that this desire was enhanced by a vision of the church under the appearance of the full moon having one dark spot, which signified the absence of such a solemnity.[11][12] In 1208, she reported her first vision of Christ in which she was instructed to plead for the institution of the feast of Corpus Christi. The vision was repeated for the next 20 years but she kept it a secret. When she eventually relayed it to her confessor, he relayed it to the bishop.[13]
