Real Presence is a term used in various Christian traditions to express belief that in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ is really present in what was previously just bread and wine, and not merely present in symbol, a figure of speech (metaphorically, common amongst the Radical Reformers and their descendants), or by his power (dynamically), or by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the individual believer partaking of the species (pneumatically, common amongst Reformed believers).

Not all Christian traditions accept this dogma. Efforts at mutual understanding of the range of beliefs led in 1980s to consultations on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM) through the World Council of Churches, consultations that included the Roman Catholic Church.

Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians see the Real Presence in terms not of a physical or "carnal" presence, but of transubstantiation/metousiosis.Anglicans generally argue for contentment with the mode of objective presence to remain a mystery. Lutherans expound a presence "in, with and under the forms" of bread and wine. Methodists postulate the par excellence presence as being a "Holy Mystery". Reformed Protestant views instead speak of a "spiritual" real presence and stress that Holy Communion is a "spiritual feeding". Certain other Protestant traditions (for instance, Baptists and some contemporary evangelicals) simply reject outright the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.