www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Other Sacramental Mysteries Unique Sacrament in the Church of the East

ADMISSION TO THE EUCHARIST IN SITUATIONS OF PASTORAL NECESSITY

PROVISION BETWEEN THE CHALDEAN CHURCH
AND THE ASSYRIAN CHURCH OF THE EAST

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity recently issued a document entitled “Guidelines for Admission to the Eucharist between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Church”. This document has been elaborated in agreement with the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The purpose of the article at hand is to clarify the context, the content and the practical application of this provision.


The Assyrian Church of the East also practices the so called sacrament or mystery (Rasà) of Holy Leaven. From times immemorial, the Assyrian tradition relates that from the bread Jesus took in his hands, which He blessed, broke and gave to his disciples, He gave two pieces to St. John. Jesus asked St. John to eat one piece and to carefully keep the other one. After Jesus' death, St. John dipped that piece of bread into the blood that proceeded from Jesus' side. Hence the name of “Holy Leaven”, given to this consecrated bread, dipped into the blood of Jesus. Until this day, Holy Leaven has been kept and renewed annually in the Assyrian Church of the East. The local bishop renews it every year on Holy Thursday, mixing a remainder of the old Leaven within the new one. This is distributed to all parishes of his diocese, to be used during one year in each bread, specially prepared by the priest before the Eucharist. No priest is allowed to celebrate Eucharist using eucharistic bread without Holy Leaven. This tradition of the sacrament or mystery of Holy Leaven, which precedes the actual Eucharistic celebration, is certainly to be seen as a visible sign of historic and symbolic continuity between the present Eucharistic celebration and the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/p...oc_20011025_chiesa-caldea-assira_en.html

In the words of +Augustine,

O sign of unity!
O bond of charity!

These Guidelines [vatican.va] date back to July 20, 2001. The Guidelines are important because they discuss and recognize the sacramental validity of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari, which had been questioned because it does not include an explicit narrative of institution of the kind we find in other eucharistic prayers.

The Guidelines are also based on the earlier Common Christological Declaration [vatican.va] of Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV from 1994.

I think both respondents miss the point of Tom's post. If I read it correctly (and in the context of the new forum - Other Sacramental Mysteries - to which he posted it), he excerpted the Guidelines to highlight the Assyrian Mystery of Holy Leaven or Rasà, unique to that Church (and their counterpart, the Ancient Church of the East).

Many years,

Neil

Thanks, Neil. I did reference the Guidelines to highlight the sacrament of Holy Leaven in the Church of the East. Here is another explanation:

Source - Assyrian Church of the East Catechism
See Chapter 24 On Holy Malka (Leaven or Yeast)

http://www.acoeyouth.org/Learn/catechism/cat.html

There's another of the ancient Churches I've read that does something similar: the leaven from making the Eucharistic bread is saved for the next batch, akin to making sourdough bread. A piece of the rising bread is pinched off and saved for the following week. Can't remember if it's the Syrian or Armenian Church.

Bob

As a sidenote, yeast was only discovered in the last couple of hundred years. Until then, this method was the *only* way to get bread to raise or beer to ferment. (Wine, on the other hand, fermented from the yeast that naturally grew on their skins. Today, more yeast of that species is added; I know of a single winery in Napa that uses the natural yeast without supplement, making them a year later to market for a given year's grapes.)

Edit: OK, "only" is an overstatement; you can also expose bread & beer to the air in some regions, and there are a couple of types of beer that can only be made this way (and Guinness relies on ancient wooden vats with an reproducible bacterial infection; 3% is soured in these vats, pasteurized, and added back in. They've tried, but can't reproduce this without those wood vats!)