Landing the plane

Throughout the first millennium of the early Church, there was a distinct effort to differentiate itself from its Jewish roots, evident in the celebration of the Eucharist using leavened bread. This practice, rooted in theological and cultural distinctions, played a significant role in shaping the divergence between Christendom in the East and West, leading to the eventual Schism of 1054.

“The fact that the Jews, adhering to the letter of the Law, continued to commemorate the Passover with unleavened bread was frequently commented upon by the fathers, who often compared (unfavorably, of course) the ceremonies of the Jews with that of the Christians, who celebrated a new, truly spiritual, Passover” (Siecienski 89–90).

The early Church’s emergence from its Jewish origins sought a unique identity through such practices as using the leavened bread, and while the establishment of this practice and reasons for doing so is prevalent in the writings of the Church Fathers, this practice would become the reasons for subsequent theological and cultural rifts between the Latin and Greek Churches.

An Aside About Dates and Their Relevance

Note: there are a few different theories regarding the dating of the above-mentioned Last Supper, with more and more scholarship in the wake of Biblical criticism arising during Enlightenment.

Among Biblical scholars to this day, the most widely accepted theory: known as the Johannine theory, claiming that the Synoptic Gospels dating was wrong and the Last Supper, in the fourth, non-Synoptic Gospel, John, whose “chronology is substantially correct in claiming that the Last Supper was not a Passover meal and that it was only described as such by the Synoptics for theological reasons” (Ibid. 94).

John Chrysostom, a greatly important Father of the Church in the East, wrote regarding this Passover meal, “Christ did keep the Pasch with them. Yet he did not do so with the idea that we should keep the Pasch with them. He did so that he might bring the reality to what foreshadowed the reality. He also submitted to circumcision, kept the Sabbath, observed the festival days, and ate the unleavened bread. But He did all these things in Jerusalem. However, we are subject to none of these things, and on this Paul spoke out loud and clear: ‘If you be circumcised, Christ shall be of no advantage to you.’ And again, speaking of the feast of unleavened bread, he said: ‘Therefore let us keep festival, not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ For our unleavened bread is not a mixed flour but an uncorrupted and virtuous way of life” (Chrystostom, John, “Eight Orations Against Judaizing Christians.” 3.8).

This fourth century homily was not meant to suggest that the Byzantine Church was wrong or would be wrong at the turn of the millennium, but to post a slightly different Patristic witness that the meal may have been a Passover meal that was celebrated, while the institution of the Eucharist occurred after as a, spiritually, separate event.

Therefore, it does not matter what the precise time and date was for the Last Supper, because as we look at the tradition of the early Church, it was clear that they consistently used leavened bread for the celebration of the Eucharist throughout the first millennium as, at the very least, to distinguish between the Jewish celebration of the Passover and this, most sacred—and exclusively Christian—event. So, while theological applications can be made in the form of apologetics for the leavened bread, and they were, it is attributed to the Christian want to separate themselves from the world, ergo leavened bread contrasted the Jewish custom of unleavened bread for its ceremonies (Siecienski 109).

Moreover, the use of leavened bread in the first millennium was not solely grounded in theology as it was a practical measure, “The same baking method and ovens were used by the Christians for both their daily bread and that which was to be used in worship. It must be made clear (contrary to practices today in the West) in the Early Christian centuries and in all eastern rites through the ages… the bread used for the Church did not differ from ordinary bread in substance. From the beginning leavened bread was used… The practice of using unleavened bread for the Eucharist was introduced much later” (Galavaris 54).

Now, the council of Chalcedon in the fifth century produced the Oriental Orthodox Church as a result of the theological decisions arrived at by that council, so by the late first millennium the Church is facing two issues: the Oriental Orthodox sect called the Armenians and the Ebionites, the latter were a smaller, dying form of Christianity by the late centuries of the millennium. These traditions were no longer a part of the Church proper, having been cut off by the early Church in the first century and by schism by the fifth, respectively.

These traditions were seen as heretical by the larger Church, and Judaizers, as they celebrated the Eucharist with unleavened bread as a form of ceremonial continuation of the Law of the Christian Old Testament.

The Armenians, as a part of the Oriental Orthodox Church, celebrated with unleavened bread, originally had no symbolic meaning, only that it was what the people had to bring to the Church as a cultural item (St. George Armenian Church), though by the seventh century it was meant to symbolize the idea “that the human body assumed by Jesus from Mary in his incarnation was untainted by sin, like bread without leaven” (Ibid.).

The other issue that rose was the evolving Latin Liturgical service which made use of the host, or leavened bread, after the service, to be used either the next day–symbolizing the continuity of eternity—and to be served in other districts of the city by the bishop after the celebration, and consecration, of the leavened bread. A problem was that leavened bread does not keep the way that unleavened bread keeps. So, while it was a gradual shift at first, the use of unleavened bread for the sake of the integrity of the Eucharist began in the West.

Furthermore, to point to the pattern Galavaris makes in the above text. In the West, either as a necessary argument to make, moving away from leavened bread or as a part of the Western tradition of setting the Church apart from its environment. Where the use of unleavened bread symbolized the, while not terribly otherworldly, different, sacred, object of the sacrament. The use of unleavened bread was precisely a means to separate the bread used in the Church and the bread used in the vulgar world of the late early Middle Ages.

This Western use of unleavened bread, more than the Filioque, more than papal primacy, more than even the beards (or beardlessness) of the clerics, was the final breaking point that led to the Great Schism of 1054. The East saw the Western use of unleavened bread as not simply breaking from Patristic tradition, but it was an overt act of either associating with the heretics or Judaizing, in any case it was seen as an affront to the Holy Tradition. A massive departure from the Patristics and, ultimately, a breaking from Christianity.

There is much debate on how the Filioque actively conjures a different God worshiped in the West than by the East, however the Eucharist—we must understand the Eucharist in terms of how the emerging Christians would have understood it in terms of the late Second Temple Judaism period. The Eucharist was a common meal, shared among the faithful—strictly protected from even the eyes of outsiders—as a continuation of the ways in which both the Israelites and pagans of the historical Old Testament period worshiped (The Lord of Spirits).

Why this is important is because the meal, as a central point of worship, was seen as a means in which people were—to use Biblical language—grafted into tribes and communities. Race, sex, and so on were not seen as qualities of character in ages past, what was important was what one’s community was, that was what someone was, that was their identity (Ibid.).

So, with that understanding we can see that the departure from the use of leavened bread was not so much a theological or even economical move, but an outright breaking from the Christian community, identity, and tradition.

Additionally, the use of unleavened bread, as seen by the Byzantines, was a rejection of the Council of Chalcedon which established the Christological understanding of dyophysitism. The arguments made by the East associated the West with the Armenians who broke off in the minor schism following the Chalcedonian Council, where they practiced the Christological application of monophysitism, “By imitating the Monophysite Armenians in their use of the ’dead’ azymes, the Latins themselves were falling into [the heresy known as] Apollinarianism, and denying that Christ, as man, had a soul. Thus, during the Middle Ages and afterward, in Greek and Slavic countries, Latins were considered” heretics (Meyendorff 95–96).

Ah yes, the Pope, I Presume?

This set-in motion the political action which is more popularly cited as one of the causes for the Schism: by this point in the eleventh century, the Roman Church viewed the papacy as a universal head, therefore the new line drawn with yeast, constituted not only the use of unleavened and leavened bread, but of papal primacy (Siecienski 116).

Using, among other texts, the canon of the fourth century Council of Constantinople, the Roman pontiff, or pope, set themselves as head of the entire Church.

The Latin Church did not, at the time, try to dominate Eastern tradition to make the Byzantine Church change their Liturgical practice to administering unleavened bread, only seeking that the Eastern Church validate the legitimacy of the use of unleavened bread (Ibid.). The East, of course, did not do this nor could they on the basis of tradition, Scripture, and to do so would mean–from their perspective–legitimizing heresy and ultimately legitimizing papal primacy.

Contextually, the Roman claim to primacy was a bit of a political overstepping by the Latin Church, who had just emerged, in quite an orderly and wealthier state following the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and the beginning of the Medieval Warming Period (Bello). “The power of the Papacy had surged in the first half of the eleventh century — indeed, the very word ‘Papacy’ dates from this time, reflecting the sudden upward trend in Rome’s self perception. This was, in part, a reaction against the low state of Rome in the previous century” (Trenchard-Smith).

Tensions were growing by this point and each subsequent decade contained a growing disparate tone of cultures leveling accusation and less than charitable names at one another, the “barbarians” in the West and the “effete” Greeks. And what cut through this tension?

Deus Ex Norman

Well, like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected the Normans. Yes, the Normans, established in the early tenth century had, nearing a century since their established community, taken Southern Italy.

Crucially, in Southern Italy, circa early eleventh century, the cultural orientation was very much Greek (Ibid.). The Normans, tracing their one lineage to the Frankish early Europeans were decidedly Latin in custom and by taking Southern Italy, imposed their practices on the Greek clergy, “including the use of unleavened bread for the Eucharist” (Ibid.).

In response, the Greek Patriarch Michael Keroularios allegedly closed Latin Churches in Constantinople.

The tensions grew even more, the Normans kept their foothold and continued their advance into Italy. Finally, the Byzantine Emperor Konstantine IX Monomachos requested that Pope Leo IX send a legate to Constantinople and so the Pope did, with a letter refuting the claims that the Latin use of unleavened bread was a form of Judaizing, among other addresses to Byzantium (Whalen 24).

That Fateful Summer

The legate walked into Constantinople in the summer of 1054 where, instead of a letter of refutation and relational restoration, a bull of excommunication was placed on the altar of the Hagia Sophia.

Ironically, Pope Leo IX had died by this time making the bull invalid, but certainly not making the bull Keroularios used in response invalid, anathematizing the Roman legate and the Western world.

The bull of excommunication, laid on the altar of the Byzantine Church by Cardinal Humbert is as follows, in Latin and English:

“Quicunque fidei sanctae Romanae et apostolicis sedis ejusque sacrificio pertinaciter contradixerit, sit anathema, Maranatha, nec habeatur Christianus catholicus, sed prozymita haereticus. Fiat, fiat, fiat.

“May whosoever speaks against the faith of the holy, Roman and Apostolic See and its sacrifice [of the unleavened Eucharist] be ‘anathema Maranatha’ and may he not be held to be a Catholic Christian but a “prozymite” heretic. Let it be done, let it be done, let it be done” (Trenchard-Smith).

Anathematized over the use of leavened bread.

Conclusions

The papacy and the Filioque clause are generally attested to be the main contributing factors to the Great Schism of 1054, it is my conclusion that while those certainly affected East-West relations it was the seemingly mundane cultural practices such as grooming norms and baking methods that widened the gulf between the Latin and Greek Churches. These two symbols characterized the gradual divergence of the two halves of Christendom, eroding the ground beneath the Churches whereby they could no longer hardly recognize one another in terms of politics or theology, ultimately leading to the Great Schism of 1054 and the emerging Church identities of the second millennium.

Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ