THE AZYMES CONTROVERSY — Up to the middle of the 11th century, no controversy had arisen among the Christian Churches regarding the quality of the Eucharistic bread: all, that is, agreed that it should be made of wheat. Whether it should be leavened or unleavened, that is, azymes, was a question that no one troubled over any more than they asked whether the wine for Mass should be red or white. In the meantime, the use of leavened bread had long prevailed in the Eastern Churches, with the exception of the Armenian Church, which, from at least the 6th century, used azymes, as we know from the picturesque reply that Patriarch MOSES II of Armenia (574–604) once gave to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice when inviting him to an ecumenical council to be held in Constantinople: “What is the use of crossing the Hellespont to go and eat bread baked in an oven and drink hot water?” (cf. J. Pargoire, L'Église byzantine de 527 à 847, 3rd ed., Paris 1923, p. 102). A little earlier, the Monophysite Alexandrian JOHN PHILOPONUS wrote:
“It was not unleavened bread that Christ gave to His disciples as an antitype of His body, because the custom of it would be preserved until now” (Libellus de Paschate, ed. C. Walter, Leipzig 1899).
Moreover, in 819, when RABAN MAURUS wrote his De ecclesiasticis officiis, ch. 31 (PL 107, 318–19), he affirmed that the West used azymes, following the example of Christ at the Last Supper. SOMEONE (d. 804), in the Epistola ad fratres Lugdunenses (PL 100, 289), had written: “Panis autem qui in corpus Christi consecratur absque fermento ullius alterius corruptionis debet esse mundissimus... Ex aqua et farina panis sit qui consecratur in corpus Christi.” These are the only clear testimonies from antiquity on the question, among a great quantity of others more or less imprecise that the controversialists have thrown into the dispute. What can reasonably be supposed is that in the early centuries either leavened or unleavened bread was used indifferently according to place, time, and circumstances. Later, usage became fixed in the manner indicated. Certainly the Latin usage is natural, and it is assumed that it spread from there and was extended by condemning the opposite.
Patriarch MICHAEL CERULARIUS of Constantinople (1043–59) was the first to initiate the controversy on this point with the Latins, whom he treated as heretics. Toward the end of 1052 or the beginning of 1053, all the churches that the Latins possessed in Constantinople were closed by his order. Cardinal HUMBERT of Silva Candida relates that the patriarchal sacristan trampled upon the Latin consecrated hosts (Brevis et succincta commemoratio eorum quae Constantinopoli acta sunt: PL 142, 1004). This was followed by attacks from the theologians at the behest of the patriarch LEO, archbishop of Acrida, and the monk NICETAS STETHATOS of Studion against certain Latin liturgical usages, among which that of azymes occupied the first place. All the Latins, and the Pope himself, were ordered to conform to the Byzantine usage. Why this sudden attack? Was it not that Michael Cerularius sought to prevent the resumption of relations with the Roman Church, which had been interrupted for a long time, doubtless since 1028? At that time negotiations were indeed under way between Pope LEO IX and the Byzantine Emperor CONSTANTINE MONOMACHUS for a political alliance against the Normans of southern Italy through the mediation of ARGYRUS, the governor of Byzantine Italy. The political alliance was inevitably to bring with it religious union. It was therefore a matter of rendering this union impossible by means of the suddenly unleashed ritual controversy. The theologians of Cerularius claimed that azymes were not true bread; they were an intolerable remnant of Judaism under the New Law; they were a dead and inanimate thing, incapable of representing the living body of Christ, since, according to them, leaven is the symbol of the human soul of the Saviour. To consecrate with unleavened bread meant implicitly to profess that the Son of God had taken a body without a soul; it meant falling into the heresy of APOLLINARIUS.
Was the Latin consecration valid? The Greek controversialists did not pronounce clearly on this. Taken literally, azymes would not be transformed into the living body but into the inanimate body of the Saviour. The Latins declared that the usage of their Church went back to the Apostles Peter and Paul, and that Christ had instituted the Christian Eucharist with unleavened bread, as attested by the three Synoptic Gospels. The Greeks opposed this with the testimony of the Fourth Gospel and even went so far as to deny, despite the testimony of their Fathers and their own liturgy, that Jesus Christ had eaten the legal Passover: according to them, Christ had instituted the Eucharist before the first day of azymes. Cardinal Humbert answered them sharply in his pamphlet Adversus Graecorum calumnias (PL 143, 931–74), extolling unleavened bread, vehemently attacking the use of leavened bread as “cavernous” bread, and speaking of the leaven of the Pharisees as a symbol of hypocrisy and malice.
Such was the first phase of the controversy. But it did not end with Michael Cerularius; rather, after him it became one of the principal differences between Greeks and Latins, along with the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. It was raised whenever union was discussed. On such occasions, especially at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439), a solution was reached that accorded with simple good sense and had always been proposed by the Roman Church: both unleavened and leavened bread are equally valid matter for Eucharistic consecration. In practice, the priests of each of the two Churches, Eastern and Western, must follow the usage of their respective Churches. The definition of the Council of Lyons (Confession of Michael Palaeologus) insisted on the validity of consecration in unleavened bread, which some Greeks had denied or declared doubtful. In reality, controversialists of this sort were excessively rare, and almost always the opponents of azymes contested only its suitability and lawfulness, repeating the symbolic arguments devised by the theologians of the 11th century. Only a few Russians, urged on by the Byzantines, seriously claimed that the Latins had fallen into Apollinarianism because they used unleavened bread.
Moreover, the controversialists after Michael Cerularius are far from agreeing among themselves: 1) on the question of what kind of bread Our Lord used at the Last Supper (up to “nunc opinioni differenti” have been noted on this point); 2) on the origin of the Latin usage, which some trace back to the Apostles, others place in the 2nd century, others in the 4th century under the antipope FELIX II (355–65), who is supposed to have been an Apollinarian, others under Charlemagne, and others—this is the most widely held opinion—from the 8th to the 11th century, just before Michael Cerularius. This last opinion, which the dissident Patriarch ANTIMUS VII adopted in his encyclical letter of 1895 in reply to Leo XIII’s encyclical Praeclara gratulationis of June 20, 1894, is certainly false in light of what we have said above.
As can be seen, the question of azymes in itself has no importance and could not be an obstacle to union, but only a pretext advanced by those who do not desire II.
Today all Eastern Christians use leavened bread except the Armenians (both Catholic and dissident), the Maronites, and the Malabarese.