AZIMO (ἀζημός, from à privative and ζῆν, “without fermentation”; Heb. maṣṣāh, plural maṣṣōth). — The Old Testament alludes to unleavened bread on occasions of sudden haste (Gen. 19:3; Ex. 12:34; I Sam. 28:24); this circumstance led to the use of unleavened bread in Israel’s flight from Egypt (Ex. 12:8-18; 13:3; Deut. 16:3). In remembrance of this, the law requiring the eating of unleavened bread during the seven days of the feast was joined to the commemorative celebration of the miraculous exodus (v. PASQUA) (Ex. 12:15). Passover was called the “feast of unleavened bread” (Ex. 23:15; 34:18; Lc. 22:1) or the “days of unleavened bread” (Mt. 26:17; Lc. 22:7; Act. 12:3; 20:6). The use of unleavened bread is already observed at the first Passover celebrated in Palestinian territory (Jos. 5:11).
Unleavened bread had religious significance (cf. Iudc. 6:19-21: unleavened loaves offered to the angel and consumed by fire). Since nothing fermented could be offered on the altar (Ex. 23:18; 34:25), only unleavened cakes were offered in sacrifices; at times these constituted a special unbloody sacrifice (minhāh) (Lev. 2:4, 11; 6:16 ff.), except in the case of the “firstfruits,” which were not placed on the altar (Lev. 2:7; 7:13 ff.; 23:17). The preparation of the unleavened loaves was entrusted to the Levites (I Par. 23:29: the “sacerdotes” of the Vulgate is interpolated). Only the priests ate the unleavened bread left over from the sacrifices (Lev. 6:16, 18). In late Judaism it was held that the showbread (v.) was unleavened. In the post-Christian period the Jews introduced the rite of the unleavened bread called afiqōmen (v.).
From the question of whether Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper arose, at a somewhat later date (11th century), the thorny controversy between the Greek Church and the Latin Church. From unleavened bread St. Paul derives the tropological symbolism of “sincerity and truth” (I Cor. 5:8).
THE CONTROVERSY OVER UNLEAVENED BREAD. — Until the middle of the eleventh century, no controversy had arisen among the Christian Churches concerning the nature of the Eucharistic bread: all agreed, that is, that it had to be made of wheat. Whether it should be leavened or unleavened, azimo, was a question that no one concerned himself with, any more than people wondered whether the wine of the Mass should be red or white. In fact, by then the use of leavened bread had long prevailed in the Eastern Churches, with the exception of the Armenian Church, which had used unleavened bread since at least the sixth century, as we learn from the picturesque reply given one day by the Armenian patriarch Moses II (574–604) to the Byzantine emperor Maurice when inviting him to a council of union that was to be held in Constantinople: “What good would it do to cross the Achaean [sea] in order to go and eat oven-baked bread and drink warm water?” (cf. J. Pargoire, L'Eglise byzantine de 527 à 847, 3rd ed., Paris 1923, p. 102). A little earlier, the Alexandrian Monophysite John Philoponus had written:
“Christ gave his disciples no unleavened bread as the antitype of his body, for its use would have been preserved until now” (Libellus de Paschate, ed. C. Walter, Leipzig 1899). Moreover, in 819, when Rabanus Maurus was writing his De ecclesiasticis officiis, chap. 31 (PL 107, 318–19), he stated that the West used unleavened bread, following Christ’s example at the Last Supper. Alcuin (who died in 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 concerning the question, amid a large number of other more or less imprecise ones that controversialists have thrown into the dispute. What may reasonably be supposed is that in the early centuries either unleavened or leavened bread was used indifferently, according to place, time, and circumstances. Later, usages became stabilized in the manner indicated. Certainly, the Latin usage predates the schism of Photius, and he refrained from censuring II.
The patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius (1045–59), was the first to begin the dispute on this point with the Latins, whom he treated as azymites. Toward the end of 1052 or the beginning of 1053, all the churches they possessed in Constantinople were closed by his order. Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida relates that the patriarchal sacellarius trampled on the hosts consecrated by the Latins (Brevis et succinta commemoratio eorum quae Constantinopoli acta sunt: PL 142, 1004). The attacks by theologians followed, at the orders of the patriarch, Leo, archbishop of Acrida, and the Studion monk Nicetas Stethatos, against certain liturgical usages of the Latin Church, among which that of unleavened bread held first place. All Latins, and the Pope himself, were ordered to submit to Byzantine usage. Why these sudden attacks? For Michael Cerularius, the issue was to prevent the resumption of relations with the Roman Church, which had been interrupted for a long time, undoubtedly since 1028. At that time, negotiations were in progress between Pope Leo IX and the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachus for a political alliance against the Normans of southern Italy, through the mediation of the Latin Argyrus, governor of Byzantine Italy. The political alliance would inevitably have brought religious union with II. It was therefore a matter of making this union impossible by means of this suddenly unleashed ritual polemic. Cerularius’s theologians maintained that unleavened bread was not true bread; it was an intolerable remnant of Judaism under the New Law: it was dead and inanimate, incapable of representing Christ’s living body, since, according to them, leaven was the symbol of the Savior’s human soul. To consecrate with unleavened bread meant implicitly professing that the Son of God had assumed a body without a soul; it meant falling into the heresy of Apollinaris.
Was the Latin consecration valid? The Greek polemicists did not express themselves clearly. Taken literally, their words would mean that the unleavened bread was not transformed into the Savior’s living body, but into his inanimate body. The Latins declared that their Church’s usage went back to the apostles Peter and Paul, and that Christ had instituted the Eucharist with unleavened bread, as the three Synoptic Gospels attest. The Greeks opposed to them the testimony of the Fourth Gospel, and went so far as to deny, despite the teaching of their Fathers and of their own liturgy, that Jesus Christ had eaten the legal Passover: according to them, Christ instituted the Eucharist before the first day of Unleavened Bread. Cardinal Humbert responded to them vigorously in his pamphlet Adversus Graecorum calumnias (PL 143, 931–74), praising unleavened bread, vigorously attacking the use of leavened bread, “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; indeed, after him it became one of the principal divergences between Greeks and Latins, along with the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. It was discussed whenever union was under consideration. On these occasions, and especially at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439), the solution indicated by simple common sense and always proposed by the Roman Church was reached: unleavened bread 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 Church. The definition of the Council of Lyons (Confession of Michael Palaeologus) insisted on the validity of consecration with unleavened bread, which some Greeks had denied or declared doubtful. In reality, polemicists of this kind were exceedingly rare, and almost always the opponents of unleavened bread challenged only its appropriateness and lawfulness, repeating the symbolic arguments devised by the theologians of the eleventh 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 polemicists 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 (as many as five different opinions have been noted on this matter); 2) on the origin of the Latin usage, which some trace back to the apostles, others place in the second century, others in the fourth century under the antipope Felix II (355–65), who is said to have been an Apollinarian, others under Charlemagne, and still others—and this is the most widespread opinion—from the eighth to the eleventh century, shortly before Michael Cerularius. This last opinion, which the dissident patriarch Anthimus VII adopted in the Encyclical Letter of 1895, in response to Leo XIII’s encyclical Praeclara gratulorum of 20 June 1894, is certainly false in light of what we have said above.
As can be seen, in itself the question of unleavened bread has no importance whatsoever and could not constitute an obstacle to union, but only a pretext advanced by those who do not want II.
Today all Eastern Christians use leavened bread, except the Armenians (Catholic and dissident), the Maronites, and the Malabars.