UNLEAVENED BREAD (ἀζημός, from à priv. and ζῆν, "without leaven"; Heb. maṣṣāh, plur. maṣṣōth). - The Old Testament alludes to unleavened bread on the occasion of hasty flight (Gen. 19, 3; Ex. 12, 34; I Sam. 28, 24); this circumstance caused 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 of eating unleavened bread during the seven days of the solemnity was joined to the commemorative feast of the miraculous exodus (v. PASQUA) (Ex. 12, 15). Passover was called the "feast of unleavened bread" (Ex. 23, 15; 34, 18; Lk. 22, 1) or the "days of unleavened bread" (Mt. 26, 17; Lk. 22, 7; Acts 12, 3; 20, 6). Already at the first Passover celebrated in the land of Palestine (Jos. 5, 11) the use of unleavened bread is observed.
Unleavened bread had a religious significance (cf. Judg. 6, 19-21: unleavened bread offered to the angel, consumed by fire). Since nothing leavened could be offered on the altar (Ex. 23, 18; 34, 25), only cakes without leaven were offered in the sacrifices, which sometimes constituted a special unbloody sacrifice (Lev. 2, 4, 11; 6, 16 ff.) (minhāh), except for the "firstfruits," which were not placed on the altar (Lev. 2, 7; 7, 13 ff.; 23, 17). The preparation of the unleavened bread was the duty of 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 the showbread (v.) is held to have been unleavened. In the post-Christian period the Jews introduced the rite of the unleavened bread called afiqōmen (v.).
From the question whether Jesus at the Last Supper used unleavened bread arose, at a somewhat more recent time (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 AZYMES. Until the middle of the 11th century, no controversy had arisen among the Christian Churches concerning the quality of the eucharistic bread: all, that is, were agreed that it should be of wheat. Whether it should be leavened, or unleavened, azyme, was a question with which no one occupied himself, any more than one asked whether the wine of the Mass should be red or white. In fact, in the meantime, the use of leavened bread had long since prevailed in the Eastern Churches, with the exception of the Armenian Church which, at least from the 6th century, used azymes, as we know from the picturesque reply that the Armenian patriarch Moses II (574-604) one day gave to the Byzantine emperor Maurice when the latter invited him to a unionist council to be held at Constantinople: "What profit is there in crossing the Achat to go and eat bread baked in an oven and drink hot 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 wrote:
"Not azymous bread did Christ give to his disciples as antitype of his body, because the use of it would have been preserved until now" (Libellus de Paschate, ed. C. Walter, Leipzig 1899). On the other hand, in 819, when Rabanus Maurus wrote his De ecclesiasticis officiis, ch. 31 (PL 107, 318-19), he affirmed that the West used azymous bread, according to the example of Christ at the last supper. Alcuin (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 of antiquity relating to the question, among a great quantity of others more or less imprecise, which the controvertists have thrown into the dispute. What can reasonably be supposed is that in the first centuries azymous or leavened bread was employed indifferently according to places, times and circumstances. Later, usages became stabilized in the sense indicated. Certainly the Latin use is anterior to the schism of Photius, and he abstained from censuring it.
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 that they possessed at Constantinople were closed by his order. Card. Humbert of Silva Candida relates that the patriarchal sacellarius trampled underfoot the hosts consecrated by the Latins (Brevis et succinta commemoratio eorum quae Constantinopoli acta sunt: PL 142, 1004). There followed the attacks of the theologians under the orders of the patriarch Leo archbishop of Ochrid and of the Studite monk Nicetas Stethatos against certain liturgical usages of the Latin Church, among which that of azymes occupies the first place. All the Latins, and the Pope himself, received orders to submit to the Byzantine usage. Why these sudden attacks? It was a matter, for Michael Cerularius, of preventing the resumption of relations with the Roman Church, interrupted long since, doubtless since 1028. At that time, in fact, negotiations were under way between Pope Leo IX and the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachus for a political alliance against the Normans of southern Italy through the interposition of the Latin Argyrus, governor of Byzantine Italy. The political alliance was fatally bound to bring with it religious union. It was therefore a matter of rendering this union impossible by means of this ritual polemic suddenly unleashed. Cerularius's theologians claimed that azymes were not true bread; it was an intolerable residue of Judaism under the new Law: it was 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 Savior. To consecrate with azymous bread means to profess implicitly that the Son of God took a body without a soul; it means falling into the heresy of Apollinaris.
Was the Latin consecration valid? The Greek polemicists did not pronounce clearly. Taking them literally, the azyme would not be transformed into the living body, but into the inanimate body of the Savior. The Latins declared that the usage of their Church went back to the apostles Peter and Paul, and that Christ had instituted the Eucharist with azymous bread, as the three synoptic Gospels attest. The Greeks opposed to them the testimony of the fourth Gospel, and came to deny, notwithstanding the teaching of their Fathers and of their own liturgy, that Jesus Christ had eaten the legal Passover: according to them, Christ would have instituted the Eucharist before the first day of azymes. Cardinal Humbert replied to them vigorously in his opuscule Adversus Graecorum calumnias (PL 143, 931-74), praising azymous bread, vigorously attacking the use of leavened bread, "cavernous" bread, and spoke of the leaven of the Pharisees, symbol of hypocrisy and malice.
Such was the first phase of the controversy. But this did not cease with Michael Cerularius; on the contrary, after him, it became one of the principal divergences between Greeks and Latins together with the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. It was discussed whenever union was under discussion. On these occasions, and especially at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and of Florence (1439), the solution indicated by simple good sense and always proposed by the Roman Church was reached: azymous 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 in azymous bread, which some Greeks had denied or declared doubtful. In reality, polemicists of this kind were excessively rare, and almost always the adversaries of azymes contested only its suitability and licitness, repeating the symbolic arguments devised by the theologians of the 11th century. Only some Russian, spurred on by the Byzantines, seriously claimed that the Latins had fallen into Apollinarianism, because they used azymous bread.
Moreover, the polemicists later than Michael Cerularius are far from agreeing among themselves: 1) on the question of knowing of what bread Our Lord made use at the last Supper (as many as five different opinions have been noted on the matter); 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 would have been an Apollinarian, others under Charlemagne, others, and this is the most fashionable opinion, from the 8th to the 11th century, shortly before Michael Cerularius. This last opinion, which the dissident patriarch Anthimus VII made his own in the Encyclical Letter of 1895, replying to the encyclical of Leo XIII Praeclara gratulorum of 20 June 1894, is certainly false according to what we have said above.
As can be seen, in itself, the question of azymes has no importance and could not be an obstacle to union, but only a pretext put forward by those who do not want it.
Today all Eastern Christians use leavened bread except the Armenians (Catholics and dissidents), the Maronites and the Malabarese.