www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Western Rite and some Latin usages

Does the Western Rite Orthodox:

- use the azyme bread?
- give the communion in only one specie?
- baptizes by infusion?

The bread is leavened, but still flat like a RC Host. Communion is given in both species (although my 3 year old refuses the "spicy" wine). Baptism is by triple immersion.

Gregg

Roman Catholic baptism, ideally, is also supposed to be by triple immersion. Communion, ideally, should be under both species (as was the case down to the 13th century).
Even infant communion would be in line with the practice of the Roman Church down to the 13th century, and thus a legitimate restoration.

But use of leavened bread can only be considered a blatant case of byzantinization (the mirror image of latinization in the Greek Catholic Churches)--if it really is leavened. It might just be real flat bread, which is unleavened, but has the texture and taste of real bread due to its extra heft. Paper thin, pre-stamped wafers are a recent innovation, one I wish the Latin Church would discard. Bread should look like bread, and the Eucharist should be distributed from a loaf that is capable of being broken.

I've been told it is leavened in Orthodox Western Rite parishes. I once asked a Western Rite priest about it and he said:

"It's leavened. But, you can't tell."

He seemed almost apologetic. I agree that this is an example of byzantinization.

Personally, I don't think this is necessary nor a stumbling block to eventual reunion. Consider that the Armenian Apostolic Church uses unleavened bread and is in communion with the Syriac and Coptic Orthodox which use leavened bread.

The entire azymite issue ought to have been put to bed ages ago. When the Churches were in communion, the use of leavened or unleavened bread was considered irrelevant. Only after communion was broken, and both sides were looking to justify their mutual schism, did trivial matters such as azymes, or beards on priests, or the cut of the monastic tonsure become fodder for polemics.

Strangely enough, through all the years of bickering, neither side ever bothered to criticize the marriage doctrines of the other--go figure!

Two other examples of "byzantization" should also be noted: the addition of an explicit epiclesis to the Roman Canon (which never had one); and the insertion of a Byzantine-style pre-communion prayer. The former was added out of ignorance (just as the Latins used to insist the Greeks removed the Filioque from the original text of the Creed, so the Greeks insisted that the Latins had removed the Epiclesis from the Roman Canon), but the insertion of the latter was simply an example of the majority rite considering its usage to be normative.

The insistence of contemporary Orthodox hierarchs that all Western Rite priests must use leavened bread is not forcing them to accept a "Byzantization" for the sake of Eastern Orthodox sensitivities. It is, rather, a return to the authentic first millennium usage of the Western Church. Like their brothers in the East they also used leavened bread.

CATHOLIC SCHOLARS SAY THAT THE CHURCH OF ROME USED LEAVENED BREAD
for the first 800 and more years.

The change to unleavened bread in Rome took place towards the end of the first millennium.


Fr. Joseph Jungman -- in his The Mass of the Roman Rite -- states that:


"In the West, various ordinances appeared from the ninth century on, all demanding the exclusive use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist. A growing solicitude for the Blessed Sacrament and a desire to employ only the best and whitest bread, along with various scriptural considerations -- all favored this development.


"Still, the new custom did not come into exclusive vogue until the middle of the eleventh century. Particularly in Rome it was not universally accepted till after the general infiltration of various usages from the North" [Rome itself, conservative as alwaysr, did not change to unleavened bread until a few decades after the schism.]

~ Joseph Jungman, The Mass of the Roman Rite, volume II, pages 33-34


Fr. Jungman goes on to say that:


". . . the opinion put forward by J. Mabillon, Dissertatio de pane eucharistia, in his answer to the Jesuit J. Sirmond, Disquisitio de azymo, namely, that in the West it was always the practice to use only unleavened bread, is no longer tenable."


"Now, the fact that the West changed its practice and began using unleavened bread in the 8th and 9th century -- instead of the traditional leavened bread -- is confirmed by the research of Fr. William O'Shea, who noted that along with various other innovative practices from Northern Europe, the use of unleavened bread began to infiltrate into the Roman liturgy at the end of the first millennium, because as he put it, "Another change introduced into the Roman Rite in France and Germany at the time [i.e., 8th - 9th century] was the use of unleavened bread and of thin white wafers or hosts instead of the loaves of leavened bread used hitherto"


~ Fr. William O'Shea, The Worship of the Church, page 128


"Moreover, this change in Western liturgical practice was also noted by Dr. Johannes H. Emminghaus in his book, The Eucharist: Essence, Form, Celebration, because as he said:


"The Eucharistic bread has been unleavened in the Latin rite since the 8th century -- that is, it is prepared simply from flour and water, without the addition of leaven or yeast. . . . in the first millennium of the Church's history, both in East and West, the bread normally used for the Eucharist was ordinary 'daily bread,' that is, leavened bread, and the Eastern Church uses it still today; for the most part, they strictly forbid the use of unleavened bread. The Latin Church, by contrast, has not considered this question very important."


~ Dr. Johannes H. Emminghaus, The Eucharist: Essence, Form, Celebration, page 162


"Thus, with the foregoing information in mind, it is clear that the use of leavened bread by the Eastern Churches represents the ancient practice of the undivided Church, while the use of unleavened bread by the Western Church was an innovation introduced near the end of the first millennium."

Someone on another forum, who may be here as well, I don't know if he is, said this re the topic of azymos which I find I'm responding to very well...

Father Ambrose should note that the change in Latin usage occurred (or at least became dominant) before the separation of the Churches from the 11th century onward, and that the issue of azymes was settle to the satisfaction of all prior to that time. No less a person than St. Photios the Great dismissed the use leavened vs. unleavened bread as being a matter of legitimate usage of particular Churches, and not a matter of theology.

The matter only became important in the context of the imposition of the Latin rite upon the Byzantine churches of southern Italy by the Normans. While the Russians (surprise!) like to say they first raised the azymite "heresy" a century or more early, theological treatises attributed to Leontius of Kyiv are pseudoepigraphical.

With regard to the Western rite, insofar as the use of unleavened bread was widespread before the separation of the Churches, and insofar as no Orthodox theologian objected to the practice prior to that point, and finally, insofar as at the time leavened bread was forced upon the WRV it was generally accepted that the Western Church had always used unleavened bread, the policy of the WRV is revealed as a byzantinization, nothing more or less, on the same level as adding an epiclesis to the Roman Canon and inserting a Byzantine pre-communion prayer into the liturgy.

Father Ambrose would do well to consider the words of Fr. John Meyendorff, but experience shows he attributes little authority to such a "modernist".

The great problem with unleaved bread is that the Church first encountered it as a phenomenon of heresy. It was adopted by the Armenians as a way to asssert that Christ has only one nature. So when the Churches of the East come upon unleavened bread in the Eucharist ancient warning signals go off for them...

Something interesting 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."

"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." [ 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). 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!"

Thank you for posting this interesting analysis. I guess since Roman Catholics use unleavened bread but mix water with the wine they are just 1/2 heretics, at least on this point.

So, Ericksson is actually saying that the use of unleavened break and unwatered wine are in fact the ancient usage of the Armenian Church, predating any of the Christological controversies, but that they were picked up by polemicists on both sides to advance their respective causes.


So, again, Ericksson points out the Byzantine tendency to regard any usage not explicitly Byzantine as being at least suspect, if not outright heretical. Hence, the imposition of leavened bread on the WRV is merely a continuation of a long history of forced byzantinization upon non-Byzantine communities.

If we object to latinization, we should also object to byzantinization, since both spring from the same mistaken assumptions.