Leavened and Unleavened bread for the Eucharist

[Famulus]

So, both unleavened and leavened bread are valid matter for the Eucharist, because the Byzantine who are Catholic leavened bread, and I heard that it was the ancient tradition of not just the East, but also the West to use leavened bread. So, how long has unleavened bread been used for the Eucharistic Feast? Why was it used? thanks

 

[otjm]

The Passover Feast used unleavened bread, and that was what Christ used at the Last Supper; it has continued on down to today in the Roman rite.

I am not aware of leavened bread being used in the West, so I cannot respond to that part, and you are correct that the Byzantine Catholic Churches used leavened bread; but I do not know the history of that.

We have some Byzantine Catholics in the forum; perhaps one will reply.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Leavened bread is used because the communicant receives the crucified and risen Christ in Holy Communion.

 

[PilgrimMichelangelo]

how long has un leavened bread been used for the Eucharistic Feast? Why was it used?

The Western Church has used unleavened bread since well before the ninth century as emphasized by the article below: “In the ninth century the use of unleavened bread had become universal and obligatory in the West”. As to why, I think that the article also explains, that it more closely resembled the prototypical Passover. Interestingly the Armenians have always used unleavened bread since time immemorial, making them the singular example of this custom in the Christian East.

Azymite - Wikipedia

Also here is an old thread that may help address this better:

Unleavened bread? Apologetics

Has the Roman Catholic Church always consecrated unleavened bread?

 

[ziapueblo]

Latins began using unleavened bread about halfway into the first millennium. It eventually became customary in the Western Church.

ZP

 

[otjm]

Thanks for the links.

If one reads between the lines of the article from Wikipedia, one is left to wonder if the dustup was actually about leaven/no leaven, or something far deeper, and this was used as a cudgel… Interesting what people can focus on in order to play the game of “my tribe is (better/holier/more correct) than yours.”

Which is not to say that the game was one sided.

 

[Famulus]

Hey so I’d like to correct an assumption I made. I don’t know if leavened bread was used for the tradition of the west at all, because I heard an approved vision from St. Anne Catherine Emerrich, where she described the Last Supper. It sounded just like the Latin Mass, obviously the Latin Mass adding many things, but one of the things she said was used was a thin piece of bread, interpreted as a matzo, which was the bread used for Passover. She then said that it was because of this that unleavened bread was used in the Mass, to imitate the Last Supper.