John Wycliffe

(John Wyclyf, c. 1325 – 1384 AD) English philosopher and reformer. Wycliffe began with a defense of the national interests against the claims of the French (Avignon) papacy, and he was led to question the authority upon which those claims were based. His search for a basis of authority led him to the Sacred Scripture, and he concluded that they alone possess finality. Wycliffe's emphasis on the authority of Sacred Scripture and his hostility to sacerdotal power led him to question the sacramental system: confirmation he rejected as unscriptural, and ordination he carefully circumscribed. In the doctrine of the Eucharist, he claimed the body of Christ is present in the sacred sign of bread, which retains its nature as bread but "sacramentally" becomes the body of Christ thus rejecting transubstantiation.