I was reading through Facebook today, and a posting from an Orthodox priest, Fr. John Peck (Peck, 2018) came up and drew my attention. The subject being whether the Eucharist should be of unleavened bread or just bread. The article Many of the facts in that article come from a discussion board (Antonios, 2007), which Fr. Peck also cites. The main point being made by Fr. Peck's article is that in Greek there are specific words for unleavened bread, "azymos," and for bread it is "artos." The points in Scripture which refer to the Eucharist use the word "artos."
That being said, at the Last Supper - the first Eucharist - Jesus was celebrating Passover with the Apostles - and it would have been unleavened bread (azymos) used, regardless of how the writers of the Scripture translated it.The point of leavened or unleavened bread became a theological sticking point between East and West. Eastern Orthodoxy stood firmly on "artos" - or regular bread, while the Latin Church stood just as firmly on unleavened bread, or "azymos." A derogatory slang used by the Orthodox for the Latins was (is?) "Azymites," for the used unleavened bread (Peck, 2018). In the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, they too use "artos" - or regular/daily bread.
In the humble opinion of this blogger, to draw line in the sand over this was a bit too much. Whether it is azymos or artos, when Jesus holds up the host and declares "This IS My body" - it IS His body! I speak in present tense on purpose because when the priest consecrates the Eucharist, it is not merely he standing there, but Christ Himself, and is why when he declares, "this IS My body," it is truly the body of Christ, not that of the priest - but I digress. My point is, let us not be divided over this! In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church the valid form for the host is unleavened bread (azymos). By the same token, for the Eastern Rites within that very same Catholic Church, the valid form is regular or daily bread (artos). These rites co-exist just fine, as should both Catholics and Orthodox. We should focus on how much we are alike and not squabble over minor distinctions, like this. There are good reasons and valid arguments on both sides of the leavened/unleavened debate.
References
Peck, J. (2018, March 10). Eucharistic Bread: Leavened or Unleavened? · All Saints of North America Orthodox Church · Phoenix, Arizona. Retrieved from https://arizonaorthodox.com/eucharistic-bread-leavened-unleavened/?fbclid=IwAR25IXUEvfdQ_gdFBdAppBV5Psvims30KZXlQDDnbUJS9kmxWsqKu70EkNA
Antonios. (2007). Leavened bread for communion. Discussion Board: Manchos.net. http://www.monachos.net/conversation/topic/1728-leavened-bread-for-communion/
Another valid reason why "artos" can be either unleavened bread or just plain bread (leavened):
ReplyDeleteThe word ‘bread’ is translated from the Greek word :and used to identify the bread distributed by Yahshua at this ‘Last Supper’. ‘Artos’ is the general word for any kind of bread (Arndt and Gingrich, 1967, p. 110 – Matthew Miller). Using [Artos] G740 does not exclude the possibility that it was unleavened bread, since the Greek Septuagint translators of the Old Testament used the same Greek word to reference to ‘unleavened bread’ (Ex.29:2; Lev.8:26; Dt.16:3; Jdg.6:20, etc.). Source: https://torahwithoutrabbinics.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/artos-ie-bread/
Cordially,
Scott<<<