www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Azymes? A Problem?

Bob and Amado,

Thanks for the info. I have a few questions about this event but I'm going to ask them in a new thread so as to avoid derailing this thread. Also, this will probably be the last discussion that I'll be involved in for awhile.

Joe

Dear Father,

This took place in Byzantine Italy, southern Italy, which in those centuries was governed directly by the Emperor and was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarch. At that time Italy, both the areas under the Pope and those under the Patriarch, did not use unleavened bread. Please refer to the earlier posts with the quotes from such Catholic liturgical scholars as Jungman, etc.

Assuming, arguendo, that the Latins did use leavened bread from the very beginning, the scholars cited by Fr. Jungman in his work all say that the Latins "switched" from leavened to unleavened bread in the "8th century." The eucharistic miracle occurred in 750 A.D., or around the middle of the 8th century.

The little Chruch of Legontian, where the miracle happened, was supposed to be under the "custody" of the Basilian monks at that time, a fact that may point to its being used as a Latin Rite parish. In the notes to the miracle, the Basilian priest-monk was assigned or asked to celebrate Mass for the Latins, not a Greek Divine Liturgy. This was the "source" or "cause" for the Basilian monk's doubt on the efficacy of the prescribed unleavened host.

If, indeed, Lanciano was under the Byzantine Emperor and/or the Patriarch of Constantinople at that time, is it not possible that there were many Latin Rite parishes within the empire, particularly in Southern Italy?

Amado

While Amado already answered Fr. Ambrose's objection, I would only add that the Miracle is preserved in a Monstrance to this day and the Holy Flesh is certainly the size and shape of an unleavened Latin style-host.

From another website:

"One day in the eighth century, in the church dedicated to Saints Legontian and Domitian in Lanciano, a Basilian monk was celebrating Holy Mass in the Latin rite, with a host of unleavened bread. The monk started doubting the real and substantial presence of the Flesh and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the consecrated Holy Species.

After having pronounced the words of Consecration (“This is My Body... This is My Blood”), as Jesus had taught it to His Apostles, the monk saw the host change into a living piece of Flesh, and the wine change into real blood, which thereupon coagulated and split into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size. We quote excerpts from a document kept at Lanciano:

“Frightened and confused by so great and so stupendous a miracle, he stood quite a while as if transported in a divine ecstasy; but finally, as fear yielded to the spiritual joy which filled his soul with a happy face, even though bathed with tears, having turned to the bystanders, he thus spoke to them: `O fortunate witnesses to whom the Blessed God, to counfound my unbelief, has wished to reveal Himself in this Most Blessed Sacrament and to render Himself visible to our eyes. Come Brethren, and marvel at our God so close to us. Behold the Flesh and the Blood of our Most Beloved Christ.'

“At these words, the eager people ran with devout haste to the altar and, completely terrified, began, not without copious tears, to cry for mercy. The report of so rare and singular a miracle, having spread through the entire city, who can count the acts of compunction which the young and old, hastily assembled, sought to make openly...”

The reliquary: the Fesh is enclosed in a round gold-plated silver lunette, between two crystals, in a monstrance of finaley sculpted silver. The Blood is preserved in a chalice of crystal, and affixed to the base of the monstrance.

The Host-Flesh, as can be very distinctly observed today, has the same dimensions as the large host used today in the Latin church; it is light brown and appears rose-colored when lighted from the back. The Blood is coagulated and has an earthy color resembling the yellow of ochre."

http://www.michaeljournal.org/eucharist3.htm

"During fall of the Western Roman Empire, Lanciano was sacked by the Goths, and was destroyed during the Lombard invasion (c. 571 AD). A new settlement was then created around a castle built by the new rulers. In 610, however, it was conquered by the Byzantines, who annexed it to the Duchy of Teate (Chieti) and allowed the trades to restart. In the late 8th century Lanciano was conquered by the Franks, who included it in the Duchy of Spoleto. In 1060 the Normans made it a centre of the unified Kingdom of Sicily."

The rites in that area seem to have merged as seen in the Rites used at nearby Benevento.

I dont know when the 'Basilian Order' was formed out the various Byzantine monasteries in southern Italy.

Pavel,

I saw this in the same article. Knowing something personal about Saint Longinus the Roman centurion at the Cross is quite touching...

"According to tradition, Lanciano is also the birthplace of Longinus the Roman centurion who thrust his spear into Jesus' side during the Crucifixion: Lanciano in Italian means "of the Spear"


A small Life of Saint Longinus:
http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/my.html?month=October&day=16&Go.x=14&Go.y=12

Well, I am not sure that he has. He has not given his sources and in fact he finishes with a question which leaves it all rather up in the air.
It is far too large to be that of a normal size host. The Italians explain that away by saying that it was the larger host which is used by the priest celebrating Mass. I am not sure how accurate that is since it was only many centuries later that the larger size host was introduced. (I am too lazy to do the web reseach for that!

What we are not noticing here is that the miracle appears to make nonsense of the insistence by some that the Eucharistic change is effected by the Epiklesis. It is obvious at Lanciano, if these records are correct, that all that is required are the Words of Institution.... so why do the Orthodox huff and puff and demand the Epiklesis?

As a matter of interest... we know that Western liturgy included various forms of an Epiklesis (after the Words of Institution.) In what century did the Epiklesis start to disappear in the West and do we know the reasons?

Fr. Ambrose,

That God choose the time of Institution Narrative to manifest his miracle in this one instance does not imply that the Epiclesis is unneeded. God can do what he wants.

St. Gelasius I (492-496) spoke about the an explicit Epiclesis in the Roman Canon, by the time of St. Gregory I (590-604) it is gone. St Nicholas Cabasilas consiered the prayer:

"Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, iube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae; ut quotquot ex hac altaris participatione sacrosanctum Filii tui Corpus et Sanguinem sumpserimus, omni benedictione caelesti et gratia repleamur.

Almighty God, we pray that your angel may take this sacrifice to your altar in heaven. Then, as we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of your Son, let us be filled with every grace and blessing."

to be an Epiclesis, albeit it an implicit ascending one as opposed to explicit descending one of the Eastern liturgies.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Something interesting on Azymes and the Armenians from Fr John H Erickson, Dean of Saint Vladimir's Seminary

http://www.svots.edu/Faculty/John-Erickson/articles/beyond-dialogue.html/

"...... Particularly instructive are the ways in which certain distinctive Armenian liturgical practices, such as the use of azymes (unleavened bread) and a chalice unmixed with water in the eucharist, come to be linked to Christological doctrine. The origins of these practices are unknown, but they certainly antedate any division of the churches. By late sixth century, however, they were becoming symbols of Armenian identity vis-a-vis the Greeks, who used leavened bread and wine mixed with warm water in the eucharist.

"Refusing an invitation from Emperor Maurice to come to Constantinople to discuss reunion, Catholicos Movses II in 591 declared: “I will not cross the River Azat nor will I eat the baked bread of the Greeks or drink their hot water.” [9]

"By the late seventh century these distinctive liturgical practices, already symbols of national identity, have become even more potent symbols of Christological doctrine. Reflecting the aphthartodocetism of Julian of Halicarnassus, which was then in the ascendency in the Armenian Church, Catholicos Sahak III (d. 703) writes: “Now we profess the body of Christ [to be] incorrupt and all-powerful always and constantly from [the moment of] the union of the Logos. This is why we take azymes [unleavened bread] for the bread of holiness with which we offer the salvific sacrifice, which signifies incorruptibility.” [10] Then, after a barrage of typological and moral arguments supporting the use of unleavened bread, Sahak goes on in like manner to associate the unmixed chalice, free from the adulteration of added water, with the incorruptible blood of Christ.

"The Byzantine Church quickly enough responded in kind. The Synod in Trullo (691-92) almost certainly had Sahak’s treatise in mind when it decreed that any bishop or presbyter who does not mix water with the wine in the eucharist is to be deposed, on the grounds that he thus “proclaims the mystery incompletely and tampers with tradition” (canon 32). [11] Very possibly Trullo also had Armenian liturgical practice in mind when it decreed “Let no man eat the unleavened bread of the Jews...” (canon 11). In any case, in subsequent polemical literature the issue of the bread and wine of the eucharist figures prominently, frequently to the exclusion of deeper theological reflection.

"Thus, despite their common rejection of Chalcedon and the generally Severan orientation of their shared Christology, the Armenian and Syrian churches in the Middle Ages sometimes attacked each other precisely because of such liturgical differences. So also, as schism yawned between the Byzantine and Latin churches in the eleventh century, Byzantine polemicists transferred their anti-azyme arguments from the Armenians to the Latins, notwithstanding the latters’ manifestly Chalcedonian Christology. Use of leavened bread and mingled wine, or conversely of unleavened bread and pure wine, immediately marked a community as either heretic or orthodox, no matter what Christological doctrine the community in question actually held!"

That, Father, and shaking causes more of the ice to melt and shatter, watering down the drinks . . .

leading to the conclusion that a notorious Englishman has his shaken because he's a sissy

hawk

Re
Can you provide a source? But this sounds like something invented to stir up anti-Latin prejudice. One relic from the Last Supper is of course the Holy Chalice which was probably in [old] Rome at the time of Saint Lawrence, then Spain, and never was in Constantinople (source "St. Lawrence & the Holy Grail", Bennet).

Is it credible the Apostles would have left any consecrated bread (leavened or not)?

Re
Here's the end of the article about this "Leaven, Holy" in "A Catholic Dictionary" (Attwater)



So presumably the further-Eastern author of this legend wanted to induce a prejudice against "schismatic Westerners" [here Byzantines] who did not use the "true" leaven. Now where have I heard that before?

On the contrary Jews ought to know what was forbidden in their temple. Here is a quote from the



So the truth is the opposite to your statement. Unleavened bread is never forbidden by God for the Old Testament sacrifices, but leavened bread was prohibited for most types of sacrifice.

Fact: Most of the original converts to the Church were from Judaism.

Speculation: Its probable that the Apostolic church used only unleavened bread (Matzo/Mazzah/Mazzot) in Mass/Liturgy to avoid offending ethnic Jews who had strong attachments to the old ceremonial prohibitions (such as Lev 2:11 "Every oblation, that is offered to the Lord, shall be made without leaven").
Perhaps some churches insisted on using leavened bread after the destruction of the Jewish Temple to make the point that the ceremonial prohibitions of the old law no longer applied to Christians.


Re:

Can you quote from the Law of Moses where God forbid the Jews to eat Mazzot at any time?

On the contrary it is leavened bread that the Jews were forbidden to eat during the 7 days of the Pascha (festival of unleavened bread see Luke 22:7). From the same Jewish Encyclopedia article



Again the Jewish Encyclopedia (article on Mazzah [jewishencyclopedia.com] ) proves that unleavened bread (Mazzah) was required for the meal at the time of the Last Supper (the evening before the date of 14 Nissan).

The only time the Encyclopedia says Mazzah was forbidden to Jews was the day of 13 Nissan before sunset.

But I cant find this prohibition in the Old Testament so I expect it is later human tradition (the sort of thing Jesus complained about).

Also perhaps relevant is this

Azarius:

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!

Before you get too far with this, let us remember charity here. This debate has been going on in the Church for over 1000 years and won't be settled here.

An interesting possibility occurred in the past few years where Passover was immediately followed by a festival requiring the blessing of leavened bread. The rabbis were busy trying to figure out how to accomodate two opposing situations.

My own speculation is that a similar situation may have occurred at the time of Our Lord's Last Passover Supper. And, if so, there would be no need for any of us to be splitting hairs over the reason that we have differing Eucharistic practices.

In Christ,

BOB

As Azarius correctly points out in a recent post, the above quoted arguments given against the use of unleavened bread are not supported by Scripture and even contradict it. Such blanket statements can take on a life of their own as factual when not, but to be sure there is no misunderstanding: Is there support in Scripture for the assertions in the quote, and if so, where specifically?