Leaven As Fullness

The Eastern defense of leavened bread has to be heard in its own terms.

In the Greek polemic, unleavened bread could be treated as lifeless bread, while leavened bread better signified the living body of the risen Christ.¹

The Latin defense of unleavened bread had its own logic. The Last Supper stood close to Passover. Unleavened bread could mark continuity with Israel’s feast and the sinless purity of Christ.

Both readings are symbolic. Both depend on biblical memory.

The dispute is therefore not an argument between symbolism and literalism. It is an argument between two sacramental symbol systems, each asking which scriptural frame should rule the altar.

In contemporary Greek Orthodox practice, this is not only a medieval memory. The eucharistic offering is still prepared from leavened loaves, often called prosphora (πρόσφορα), and brought as bread and wine for the Divine Liturgy.²

This helps the Study Edition avoid a cheap victory. The point is not that one side was silly about bread. The point is that both sides treated bread as a dense theological object.

The load-bearing sacred vocabulary from Fine Flour On The Altar has now become ecclesial grammar.

Related sections: Not Bread Alone In 1054; The Wheat Beneath The Dispute.