www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Spiritually of leavened vs unleavened bread

Hello everyone -
You have been so kind in answering my questions so far. I will be turning in a paper and presenting tomorrow morning. Yeah, talk about last minute! However, I read something, and did some searching on this forum, about the use of leavened bread versus unleavened bread. Am I correct in saying that the Eastern Catholics and Orthodox Churches use leavened bread for the Holy Eucharist? And, the West uses unleavened bread?

Could someone help me understand the symbology behind using the two types of bread (i.e. perhaps the why)? If I don't receive an answer today (Friday), its okay. I'd still like to know for me.

Thank you - again!
Denise
Baptized Byzantine Catholic, but attended Roman Catholic masses growing up, due to being moved around alot, mostly in the midwest, where there were not many Byzantine Catholic churches.

The first part of the Liturgy derives its name from the early Christian custom of the people offering bread and wine and all else that was needed for the Liturgy. Therefore, each small loaf of the bread which is used in it is termed a "prosphora," another word meaning offering. This bread or prosphora must be leavened, pure, and made of wheat flour. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, for the celebration of the Mystery of Holy Communion, used leavened, not unleavened bread, as is clear from the Greek word used in the New Testament. The prosphora must be round and formed in two parts, one above the other, as an image of the two natures of Jesus Christ, divine and human. On the flat surface of the upper part a seal of the Cross is impressed, and in the four sections thus formed are the initial Greek letters of the name of Jesus Christ, "IC XC," and the Greek word "NIKA," which mean together "Jesus Christ conquers."

Alexandr

"The Lord Jesus Christ Himself, for the celebration of the Mystery of Holy Communion, used leavened, not unleavened bread, as is clear from the Greek word used in the New Testament."

Artos can refer to all bread generically or leavened bread specifically so the appearance of this word in the New Testament does not prove conclusively that Our Lord used leavened bread.

Fr. Deacon Lance

The Churches that use leavened bread see in the risen bread the Risen Christ. The Churches that use unleavened bread see it as the bread of purity having avoided the leaven of sin and the pharisees as well as a connection to the Jewish Passover meal in which Christ instituted the Eucharist.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Azumos was the word used for unleavened bread. Artos definately means leavened.
"On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (azumos Strong's # 106), the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (Matt 26:17).
"Looking back on the night when Jesus held up bread and proclaimed it His body, He held up risen bread and not unleavened bread. This is proven by the Greek word "artos", which means risen and comes from the root word "airon" meaning "to rise". If Jesus would have been celebrating a Holy Feast of Passover and had used leavened bread, He would have broken the law and sinned. In the Passover, only unleavened bread is allowed. The Jews are so exact about purging out the leaven, that today they completely clean out the kitchen of all leaven to make it "kosher".
http://www.stmichaelacademy.org/manna.html

Alexandr

Alexandr,

I know azymes refers to unleavened bread. I have read scholars that state what I state, artos can mean leavened bread specifically or all bread (including azymes) generically. There is also no agreement among scholars as to whether Christ celebrated the Eucharist on Passover or before it.

Fr. Deacon Lance

At any rate, the Catholic Church recognizes the validity of both leavened and unleavened bread for use in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

Of course, Eastern Catholic Churches use leavened bread like their counterparts in Eastern Orthodoxy.

However, as has been discussed in these forums a while back, the Maronites (no EO counterpart) use unleavened bread and the Armenian Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, also use unleavened bread.

Does anyone know what the Assyrians and the Copts use?

The Copts, at least, use leavened. I'm not sure about the Assyrians.

Peace and God bless!

Here is a description of the bread used by the Syriac Orthodox Church. It seems to be somewhere between the argument of leavened vs. unleavened since it is a risen bread but uses no new yeast--must be something like sourdough--in that a piece is saved from the bread making to be used to make the next loaf rise. I copied this from the official website of the Syriac Orthodox Church.

In Christ,

BOB

Pfffffffffff!! What kind of an etymology is THAT???? Any Greek lexicon will tell you that "artos" is a root word; trying to argue that it is derived from "airo" or "airein" (which means "to raise," transitive, and not "to rise") is just polemical nonsense--it's not based in any way on Greek linguistics.

Medieval learned men in both East and West were very fond of these kinds of etymologies. Peter, the Patriarch of Antioch in the mid-eleventh century, argued in his correspondence with Dominic the Patriarch of Venice that "artos" was derived from "artion" ("completeness" or "completion"), and that therefore one could not have "artos" without leaven (since leaven gives the bread its "completion"). Aside from the obviously circular nature of this argument, it is absolute nonsense to say that "artos" is derived from "artion" (or from "airo," or from anything else). One might as well say that "artos" is derived from "artao" which means "hang," and therefore bread is not bread unless it has been hung. This is all so absurd.

Deacon Lance is right about the meaning of the Greek word--despite a millenium's worth of religious polemics arguing that "artos" implies leaven, there are no grounds for this argument linguistically speaking.

The consistent position of the West--even a thousand years ago--is that both practices are legitimate. In his letter to the Patriarch of Antioch, Dominic of Venice explained that although the Western Churches have used unleavened bread since time immemorial, they regarded the Eastern usage as worthy, venerable, ancient, and orthodox. Historically speaking, even with everything that we know today about the gradual divergence divergence the Christian East and West, we have no idea when the divergence in this practice arose. As far back as we can trace, into the mists of time of the first-millenium Church, the Latin West used unleavened bread while the Greek East used leavened.

The Armenians, interestingly enough, have also always used unleavened bread, which aroused the ire of Patriarch Cerularius when areas of Armenia fell into his jurisdiction during the eleventh century. This practice appears to have nothing to do with the Western practice, and it also appears to go back into the mists of immemorial time. If unity between East and West will ever happen (or between EOs and Armenians for that matter), the East will just have to recognize that this is a legitimate variation in practice that is almost as ancient as Christianity itself.

-LatinTrad