www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Questions raised by attending DL

I have a few questions from attending Divine Liturgy for the first time Sunday. (Well, OK, I have a lot of questions but I won't ask them all at once).

1. Before entering the church, in the vestebule there was a large hanging icon crucifix. People stopped to pray before the service and there were candles lit below. Are there specific prayers to be said there?

2. At one part of the service, (I think before communion) there were words spoken by the congregation in another language. Do you know what they were? This was a Ruthenian Byzantine church.

3. The leavened bread. I have searched all over trying to find the reason for leavened bread and finally found an answer on an OCA site, but am not sure it applies to EC. Is it because Christ is risen? (It was actually quite nice to take communion the way it was done.)

OK, I'll start off with those 3. Thanks for the help!

Andrea

Hi,

I am not sure about 1.

Re. 2, that would've been Church Slavonic and most likely they were at least one repetition of the Trisagion and/or part or all the Cherubic Hymn. You can easlily lookup English translations for those.

Re. 3, different Sui Iuris Churches have different traditions regarding leavened or unleavened bread, but either way, we all believe that it is the Risen Christ who is truly present in the consecrated gifts and therefore, presuming that the use of unleavened bread is in anyway detrimental to this belief is quite simply misinformation (it may be deliberate or just out of ignorance, but it is wrong anyway).

The Jews celebrated Passover with unleavened bread and, since the Eucharist was instituted during a Passover celebration, we can assume Our Lord used unleavened bread, that is the reason for using unleavened bread, as in the Latin Church.

Jesus used yeast as an example several times during His preaching. Sometimes yeast is presented as a sign of the Kingdom, because the Kingdom comes in little things, like yeast, which affect our entire lives, like the yeast ferments all the dough. This is the reason for Byzantines and other Eastern Churches to use leavened bread.

However, yeast is sometimes presented in a somewhat negative light, something which "inflates" the dough and Our Lord applied that example to the Pharisees who were kind of "full of hot air", so that would be a reason not to use leavened bread.

Either way, the Catholic Church believes that both liturgical traditions are valid and worthy of respect, and each Sui Iuris Church should be allowed to follow her own tradition in this regard.

Shalom,
Memo

Church Slavonic. Thanks, I will look that up.


Thank you for the information about the leavened bread.

Andrea

Some further information about the differences between leavened and unleavened bread:

Whether or not the Mystical Supper was celebrated on Passover is a point of debate. The eastern tradition is that it was the night before Passover. If it was the night before Passover, leavened bread would have been used. I've seen it said that the Jews consider unleavened bread to be a bread of sorrow because it was used during times of transition. Leavened bread took time to prepare so it was used during times of luxury and celebration. So it is befitting to use it during the Sunday celebration, symbolic of the risen Christ.

"The Orthodox Church follows the chronology of John's Gospel which places Last Supper on Thursday evening before the beginning of Sabbath and Passover on which fell on Friday evening; Western Christianity on the other hand follows the chronology of the synoptic gospels which places the Last Supper and Passover on the same day, Thursday. Also there is some debate among scholars as to whether the Last Supper instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ derived from the once a year Passover Haggadah meal which used only unleavened bread or the weekly chaburah (fellowship) meal which normally used leavened bread. It is possible that the chaburah meal overlapped with the Passover Haggadah meal on the night that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. This might explain why the Roman Catholic Church uses unleavened bread while the Eastern Orthodox Church uses leavened bread. In any event both the Western and Eastern traditions are in agreement that the bread and the wine becomes the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic celebration."

It should also be pointed out that in addition to using leavened bread, the tradition in the Byzantine (Orthodox) rites is that the Eucharist is only valid using leavened bread and when communion is recieved under both species. This is actually one of the most important points of difference between the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics. Eastern Catholics must accept the validity of communion using leavend bread and with one species as a condition of Union. Having said that, there was a dispute recently in my church where a Bi-ritual priest took wine alone for communion of the sick and was told in no uncertain terms by the Byzantine rite priest that he should add a particle of bread as well as "that is not our tradition". This example highlights that it it is not just the bread used but also the manner in which it is administered that is different/important.

Ned

I'm not sure what you mean by (the distribution of) communion being "valid". Do you intend to say "licit"? I would hope that you are not asserting that the ontological change in the bread and wine is somehow compromised by the manner of its distribution.

As to which practice is better (leavened or unleavened) I think there is room for diverse practices in this regard. Of course, I prefer the Eastern-Byzantine approach, but I do not question in any way the reality of the sacramental mystery in Latin churches because they use unleavened bread.

Ned,
Where is this requirement outlined?

Your understanding seems to contradict The Union of Brest when the Ukrainians and Belorussians entered into union with Rome, stating as one of their 33 requirements "that the Mysteries of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ should be retained entirely as we have been accustomed until now, under the species of bread and wine; that this should remain among us eternally the same and unchangeable." The Union of Uzhhorod and and the Union of Berestia also had as their main provisions that the Eastern or Byzantine church rites and traditions would be preserved. How does this square away with a requirement for unleavened bread?

Unless you mean that the Eastern Catholic churches recognize and respect that unleavened bread, as following the synoptic gospels, is the tradition of several other churches including the Maronites and the Latins.

Sorry, yes; of course I mean the validity of communion with unleavened bread; I was thinking of FLorence rather than Brest, but same principle. I mean licitly, but in this post I was talking only in the case of Byzantine ORTHODOX churches in that context and attempting to highlight Byzantine Catholics aceptance of unleavened bread in contrast. And my example meant to illustrate Byzantine Catholics commitment to their own tradition along with this. My original post without the spelling error:

It should also be pointed out that in addition to using leavened bread, the tradition in the Byzantine (Orthodox) rites is that the Eucharist is only valid using leavened bread and when communion is recieved under both species. This is actually one of the most important points of difference between the Orthodox and Eastern Catholics. Eastern Catholics must accept the validity of communion using unleavend bread and with one species as a condition of Union. Having said that, there was a dispute recently in my church where a Bi-ritual priest took wine alone for communion of the sick and was told in no uncertain terms by the Byzantine rite priest that he should add a particle of bread as well as "that is not our tradition". This example highlights that it it is not just the bread used but also the manner in which it is administered that is different/important.

Ned

An intriguing question arises in connection with the wafers used as "unleavened bread". Since bread is not a chemical element, one must ask what, precisely, the Church means by requiring the use of bread for the Eucharist. In response to this question, the Church teaches that provided the foodstuff in question is made of wheat flour (nor rice flour, or corn flour, or some other kind of flour) and water (this obviously means clean water, but there is no obligation to use distilled water or the like) and is BAKED (that's important) and is recognizable as bread by most people that will do for the purpose of the Eucharist [this does not immediately involve the question of leavened or unleavened).

Now comes the fun part. A well-educated Greek-Catholic priest of my acquaintance was teaching the high school seniors in a summer program on Christian doctrine in a good-sized Greek-Catholic parish located in a rather large mid-Western metropolitan area offering, among other things, a good range of different foods, including baked goods.

The priest was speaking about the Eucharist one day, and towards the end of the hour he invited questions. Immediately one of the students asked "Father, didn't you say that bread is necessary for the Eucharist?" The priest of course said yes, that bread is absolutely necessary for the Eucharist. The student then objected that "the Roman Catholics don't use bread; does that mean that their Mass isn't real?"

The priest explained that the bread for the Eucharist used by the Roman Catholics is unleavened bread, and was about to find Biblical references to unleavened bread - but he was not allowed the time to do so, because Every Student in the Class insisted that the wafers used in the RC Mass are not unleavend bread, and indeed are not bread at all. Dumbfounded, the priest asked where they had picked up such an idea. They offered to give him a tour of various sorts of bakeries in the city (which, again, has a wide ethnic mix) that sold unleavened bread and see for himself what unleavened bread is, looks like, tastes like and even how it is baked - and then try the wafers used in the Roman Mass, and see for himself that the wafers simply are not unleavened bread. They had all eaten various kinds of unleavened bread, either in their own homes or in the homes of their friends and schoolmates.

So there is the question. If normal people of good education (for their age, obviously, but high school graduates are high school graduates and this class was not composed of idiots) are unable to recognize the wafers as unleavend bread . . . . well, you may draw your own conclusions.


I must admit that while this anecdote is true in every respect (my only reason for not naming the priest or the parish is that I have no wish to embarrass the priest), I would not have recounted it were it not for the claim that Eastern Catholics have some sort of "obligation", which in turn seems to imply that it is our bread for the Eucharist that is exceptional. I've never met anyone who could not recognize our bread as precisely that. I have met plenty of people who find it difficult to recognize the wafers as bread, and evidently people who have experienced and eaten authentic unleavened bread can find it even harder to recognize the wafers as bread. So just who is being normal here?

Father Serge

Father Serge bless!

A very interesting post. A wafer is not bread. When did the Latins start using wafers? There is a Christian store near us that sells communion kits for non-denominational Protestants and the kit contains ... wafers. Seems like without real bread something is missing.

Father Serge and John,

My wife and I were just discussing this. We wonder whether it has something to do with two factors:

- the need to produce larger quantities of communion "bread"
- concern over "crumbs"

The Latins also gradually removed the laity from their responsibility to "offer" the bread and wine of their own making and it became a more focused apostolate of monastaries who could "mass produce" (no pun intended) communion hosts for a larger number of parishes. The process of producing large quantities of hosts has been gradually "perfected" to the point that certain hosts are not only "crumbless", but are even designed to be so paper thin as to dissolve completely almost immediately at the first contact with saliva! (When I swung in traditionalist Latin circles some 15 years ago, I recall a very well known Latin Msgr. who explained to me the great benefit of a quickly dissolving host on the tongue.)

All of this points to what Father Serge was saying, which I think is an excellent point: mass produced paper thin hosts don't look or taste like bread! Obsession with "validity of matter" compromises subjectively the integrity of the host as a sign. While it may fulfill the minimal requirements to be a valid sacrament, like the 15 minute Mass, the experience and significance of it is largely lost.

The same issue arises with the leavened bread of the Byzantines (again, no pun intended!). The typical practice of "pre-cut" bread somehow diminishes the intended symbolism of the extraction of the principal portion to be consecrated (the Lamb) from the whole loaf (with the loaf signifying the Old Covenant People of God - In the Tabernacle, there were Twelve Loaves of Shewbread to signify the Twelve Tribes...I see this as one of the OT roots of the practice of certain portions of the prosphora being set aside in prayer for the faithful and the departed, etc etc ). All this occurs at the Prothesis table which symbolizes Bethlehem, the "city of bread" and the City of David - the city where the Messianic Son of David was born under the sign of the "star". The prosphora will then make its pilgrimage from Bethlehem to Jerusalem in the midst of the people, who welcome the Holy Gifts with joy and singing (and I love the Russian practice of reaching out to touch the garments of the priest who carries the gifts).

Again, the use of pre-cut bread diminishes somewhat the iconic significance of the salvific events unfolding before the congregation.

God bless,

Gordo

Perhaps, but in typical Jewish practice it would not be used because it would already have been emptied out of the house during the day.

Also, don't forget the Fast of the First Born that is celebrated the night before Passover. The first born children of Jewish families are to fast on this night, and that would rule out the participation in the meal by many of the Apostles, and by Christ. The things one picks up by coming to the Catholic Faith through Judaism

As for the wafers, while I agree that they are not at all ideal, I'm hard pressed to come up with a workable alternative for the Latin Liturgy. The communities are often quite large, and with no presbytera to bake the bread, and the practice of Daily Mass, I can see how the wafer option is the most practical. It definately poses problems of its own, however, and all things being equal I think the use of REAL unleavened bread would be far, far more preferable.

Peace and God bless!