Bread, the spiritual landmark of Christianity. There are over 2,3 billion Christians in the world. More than half of them, i.e. 1,3 billion people, are Catholics or faithful of the Eastern churches united with Rome. The Roman Catholic Church represents today the most numerous denomination. Catholics from all over the world, to which are added the believers from the churches united with Rome, including the 200 thousand Greek Catholics in Romania, recognize the supreme authority of the Pontiff from Rome.
48,6% of Catholics live in Latin America, and 22% in Europe. Unlike the Catholic world, which has a single center, the Episcopate of Rome, the Orthodox world is made up of several sister patriarchies. In 1054, with the Great Schism, the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox excommunicated each other and separated. In the XNUMXth century, in the midst of the Renaissance, the Roman Catholic Church split in turn, thus losing the Protestants, who founded the third branch of Christianity.
The significance of bread in religious ceremony
Celebrating the Eucharist (Communion), bread, in its various forms, according to the beliefs and traditions of each branch of Christianity, had and continues to have its place of honor in church rituals. The religious significance of bread dates back to before the beginnings of Christianity, and Christian religions give it an essential role within the church, regardless of denomination.
Bread, religious landmark for over 2000 years
Exodus is the essential element of Judaism. It is said that when the Israelites were preparing for the Exodus, God told them to prepare with unleavened bread, because they would leave Egypt in a hurry. Then, at night, they had dinner, each in his family, prepared for the great journey to the Promised Land, Canaan.
Every year, the religious holiday Pesach or Pesach (Easter) is celebrated by the Jews in memory of the liberation from Egyptian slavery, through the exit from Egypt (Exodus) of the children of Israel, led by Moses, and the 40 years of wandering in the desert. One of the traditions is to eat unleavened bread on Easter. Moreover, the Mosaic religion stipulates that, during this holiday, no bread or other leavened products should be eaten for seven days. "And on the 15th day of this month is the feast of unleavened bread dedicated to the Lord - Yahweh. Seven days unleavened bread to eat." (Leviticus 23, 5-6).
Unleavened bread, unleavened bread
When they were preparing to flee from Egypt, the Jews led by Moses made a last supper, in a hurry! In fact, they did nothing but what their nomadic ancestors had done: they ate a roast lamb, because that's how the nomads ate it too, roasted outside, in a pit, and not boiled in pots, which were difficult to carry, just as large dishes and cooking utensils would also have been carried. They ate it with unleavened bread (unleavened bread, still used today by the Bedouins), because it was kept longer, and with bitter, raw herbs from the desert, which give the roast lamb a unique taste and flavor.
Azima was a kind of very thin dough, made of flour and water, baked on a stone or on a hot stove (as it is still baked today in Sinai). Today, Jewish Passover unleavened bread (Matza de Pesah) is made exclusively from wheat flour and water. No other additives are used, not even salt. The flour is mixed with water, and the dough is rolled out into a thin sheet. It is baked in the oven for a maximum of 18 minutes, considering that after this period of time the dough begins to leaven, even in the absence of yeast (and on Pesach, for Jews, any leavened product is prohibited).
All the utensils used in the production process are washed well after each batch, in order to prevent any leftover dough from rising. Unleavened bread or unleavened bread has remained until now the product used in the liturgical rituals of the Church in various countries, being consumed by mosaics at Easter and used by the Catholic Church for communion. Unleavened bread (in its various forms) was used, from the beginning, in the Orthodox ascetic tradition, for its simplicity and for the fact that it could be preserved for months.
Regulations for Eucharistic bread
The Eucharist or the Breaking of Bread is the central ritual of Christian worship, having a double meaning: on the one hand, communion with the Eucharistic elements, representing a holy sacrament, and, on the other hand, the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, within which Christians they solemnly listen to texts from the Bible and receive the sacrament of the Resurrection in the form of bread and wine.
According to the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus, at the Last Supper, celebrated the Jewish Passover, so with unleavened bread. But, in the Gospel according to John, the Last Supper would have taken place before the Jewish Passover, therefore, leavened bread would have been used. This aspect was not a problem for Christians in the first centuries. In general, all the rites used leavened bread, which also contained salt. The only one was the Armenian rite which, from the beginning, used unleavened and unbaked bread in the oven, on the grounds that at the liturgy the matter of the Eucharist must be alive, not passed through fire. The use of unleavened bread was taken over from the Armenians in the XNUMXth century and spread to the West between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries.
In the XNUMXth century, there was the question of what kind of bread should be used for communion: leavened bread or unleavened bread?! Thus arises the famous controversy between the Byzantines and the Latins. Following the works of Anselm of Canterbury, the Catholic Church, at the Council of Florence, decides that both types of bread are valid and that each rite can use the local custom.
The symbolism of bread in Christianity
Bread has always been a symbol of essential food.
Bread is also the only food mentioned in the most important prayer of Christianity, "Our Father", having a special symbolism in faith and religious rituals. Thus, in the Gospels, the idea is proclaimed that man lives not only by feeding on bread. These scriptures claim that bread also symbolizes the spiritual food of man. In the Gospel of John, Jesus states: "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never be hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." These words are said by Jesus after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves.
Even so, the so-called showbread of the Jews, from the Old Testament, had a similar meaning. Thus, the symbolism of the bread connects the two Testaments.
Catholics believe that Christ used unleavened bread at the Last Supper and therefore use it for communion, while the Orthodox use leavened bread for this purpose.
The words of the Holy Apostle Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians - "Your family is not good. Don't you know that a little dough leavens all the dough? Purge the old dough, that you may be new dough(…); for our Easter, Christ sacrificed himself for us. That's why let's celebrate not with the old dough, nor with the dough of malice and deceit, but with the unleavened bread of purity and truth". (I Corinthians 5, 6-8) - suggests for some liturgists that the unleavened bread was used in parallel with the bread (which appears at the Last Supper), in the service of agapes united with the Holy Liturgy.
In the Roman Catholic cult, the unleavened bread or host for communion represents, according to Saint Martin, the sadness of deprivation, preparation for purification and remembering the origins. The Roman Catholics maintain that the Savior distributed to the apostles and ate with them, on the evening before the Jewish Passover, unleavened bread, the blessed Eucharistic bread.
Jesus Christ also multiplied the two fish and the five loaves to feed the crowd that had followed him in the wilderness. Also, during the last supper, of Christ with his disciples, bread was eaten and wine was drunk, the body and blood of the Savior, that is, Holy Communion.
Bread, in its Eucharistic form, is traditionally related to the active life, like wine to the contemplative life. In fact, it can be considered that the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves by the Savior is of a quantitative order, while the miracle of the transformation into wine is one of a qualitative order, of transmutation and transcendence.
In Orthodox churches it is used as liturgical material, along with wine and water, prescura or leavened bread, from which Communion and Anafura are prepared.
Orthodox evangelists claim that such bread was used by the Savior at the Last Supper, citing: "taking bread", and not unleavened bread. For the Orthodox, leavened dough bread represents the perfect soul and the perfect incarnation of Jesus, based on three symbolic elements: flour, which represents the soul; water, which means baptism; the salt, which is the thought and teaching of the word. "You are the salt of the earth", said Jesus, referring to all Christians. It is thus suggested that without this " "salt", Christendom is losing its power. Without you, Christians, what else will the human race "jump" with? With what else will humanity be saved from alteration?
"Let's go together!"
20 years ago, on May 7, 1999, Pope John Paul II arrived in Bucharest. The moment had a special historical significance, being the first time since the Great Schism of 1054 that a pope visited a predominantly Orthodox country.
Pope John Paul brought the light of the West to these lands, strengthening the Romanian people's hope for the better, at that time still shaken by the years of communism. The words of encouragement and recognition of their sacrifices, spoken then by the Holy Father, but also those of praise for our country, remained alive in the memory of Romanians: "Romania, country-bridge between East and West, crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe... Romania, the Garden of the Mother of God".
George Gabriel Bologan, the current ambassador of Romania in Rome, remembers those moments even today, in 1999 the diplomat was a correspondent of an Italian television station. Regarding a meeting with Pope John Paul, from 2002, he reports that, for him, the 47 minutes he was with the Sovereign Pontiff are unforgettable. "I was impressed when he asked me: «What do young people in Romania do? What future do young people in Romania have? How does research develop?". Pope John Paul was a friend of Romanians. I don't think I've always had very many loyal friends in history. John Paul II was a loyal friend of the Romanians and knew how to appreciate the deep psychology of our nation. What impressed me, again, was his message at the end of the meeting: «Greet your friends! Don't be afraid!"... To have courage and enthusiasm are two qualities through which you can change the destiny of the world".
30 years after the fall of communism, the period May 31 - June 02, 2019 will remain in Romania's history under the sign of the second sovereign pontiff who visited our country. Pope Francis has now visited a Romania that has found its place in Europe. Here, he felt at home. "It's easy, seeing and hearing you, to feel at home. The Pope feels at home among you", he said on the occasion of his visit to Iași.
Pope Francis came with a special message of unity and love, which brought both joy and tears to the faces of thousands of people. "Let's go together!" was the central message, chosen for this three-day visit to Romanian soil, a powerful message with symbolic value, in which the wishes of this people were merged.
Quoting a Romanian monk, the Pope stated, in Iași: "To go together, don't forget what you learned in the family! Don't forget your roots!… I remembered the prophecy of a holy hermit of these lands. One day, the monk Galaction Ilie, from the Sihăstria Monastery, walking with his sheep to the mountain, met a hermit, a holy hermit he knew, and asked him: "Tell me, father, when will the end be the world?" The venerable hermit, sighing from his heart, answered him: «Father Galaction, do you know when the end of the world will be? When there will be no path from neighbor to neighbor! That is, when there will be no more love and understanding between brothers, between relatives, between Christians and between peoples! When people don't really love each other anymore, then it will be the end of the world. Because without love and without God, people cannot live on earth!".
Romanians have changed in the 20 years since Pope John Paul's visit. But, preoccupied with their daily worries, with their lives, it's as if they don't quite realize where they've ended up. One of the proofs of these changes is the fact that, today, populism, hypocrisy and demagoguery are no longer very successful in this country that has begun to breathe the gentle air of Westernism.
"Children are the window through which we see the future"
"Let's applaud the children! I would like the first thing we do is to pray for them... Jesus placed them among his apostles. And we want to put them in the middle, with the same love as whom the Lord loved, and let us reaffirm our commitment to give them the right to the future".
It has become almost a rule that, year after year, birthdays are celebrated with cake or cookies. But the leader of the Catholic Church from the Vatican, in 2017, broke the rule!
On his 81st birthday, Pope Francis celebrated his birthday by serving… Team Building!
The Sovereign Pontiff had as guests a group of children, and for the event he ordered a 4-meter pizza. Among the pieces of mozzarella were also candles that the Pope had blown out.
"Eat all the pizza to grow big!", Pope Francis urged the children invited to his birthday.
"A Christian must react!"
In December 2018, on his 82nd birthday, Pope Francis celebrated his birthday a day early. The anniversary party was held together with the sick children and the staff of the "Santa Maria" Pediatric dispensary, which is in charge of assisting newborns in difficulty. They were the first to celebrate the Pope with songs, choreography and a huge, two-color cake (in the colors of the Vatican).
"I am happy to be with you. I wish you all a Merry Christmas and thank you for all you do", Pope Francis addressed the doctors, nurses, clinic volunteers, children and their parents. "I hope there won't be any indigestion from such a big cake!", the Pope joked.
The photo from this event, to which the message was attached, "We cannot get used to the mess and degradation that surrounds us. A Christian must react!", became the symbolic image of those days. Pope Francis thus expressed his indignation at the "executions" without trial, ordered in certain states, completely outside of justice.
On the same occasion, of his anniversary, the image that shows Pope Francis while holding several kinds of pizza in his hand, goes towards a group of poor but very happy people, turning his back on some cardinals who -offers him a cake, saying: "I'll be right back, I just want to celebrate my birthday for a moment".
"Our daily bread"
"The Eucharist, the only Bread that satiates the hunger for infinity".
In March 2019, in St. Peter's Cathedral Square, Pope Francis said that that part of the prayer "Our Father" in which we present our needs to God "begins with a word that smells of everyday life: bread".
"The bread that the Christian asks for in prayer is not mine, but ours", the Pope also said. Remembering that Jesus teaches us to ask for bread not only for ourselves, but for the entire fraternity of the world, the Holy Father explained:
"If it were not said in this way, the "Our Father" would cease to be a Christian prayer. If God is our Father, how can we come before him without holding hands? And if we steal each other's bread, which he gives us, how can we define ourselves as his sons? This prayer contains an attitude of empathy and solidarity. In my hunger I feel the hunger of the crowd and then I will pray to God until the prayer is fulfilled. In this way, Jesus educates his community, to present before the Lord the needs of everyone: "We are all your sons!".
"The bread that we ask the Lord in prayer is the same that will accuse us one day. He will reproach us for not being in the habit of breaking it with our neighbor, of sharing it. This represents the bread given to all, which was sometimes eaten only by some. Love cannot bear this!”, drew the attention of the Sovereign Pontiff. Then he added: "The prayer of Jesus begins with a pressing request, which is much like the supplication of a beggar: "Give us our daily bread!" This prayer comes from an obvious situation, which we often forget, the fact that we are not self-sufficient creatures and that, daily, we need to feed ourselves".
Focusing on how Jesus teaches us to ask the Father for our daily bread, Pope Francis highlighted the importance of making this request together with the multitude of men and women for whom this prayer is "a cry, often kept inside, that accompanies the care of every day".
"How many mothers and fathers don't go to bed, even now, with the torment of not having enough bread for their sons the next day?", emphasized Pope Francis, suggesting us to imagine the prayer "give us this day our daily bread" said not in the safe and comfortable environment of an apartment, but in the situation of a precarious room, in which a person is forced to adapt and from which the necessities of life are missing. "Christian prayer begins at this level", Pope Francis explained, not being an exercise for ascetics, but a request that starts from reality, from the heart and body of those who live in need or those who share the condition of not having the necessities of life.
Even the most profound Christian mystics cannot do without the request for daily bread, the Pontiff said, explaining that daily bread also means water and medicine, but also a home or a job.
Speaking about the value of Eucharistic (Communion) bread, Pope Francis recalled: "only the Holy Communion is able to satiate our hunger for infinity and the desire for God, which animates every person, including in the search for daily bread".
"We need forgiveness like our daily bread"
"After asking God for our daily bread, the prayer "Our Father" enters the space of our relationships with others. Jesus teaches us to ask the Father: "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our trespasses". As we need bread, so we need forgiveness, every day", explains Pope Francis.
"The Christian who prays first of all asks God to forgive his debts, the bad things he does, that is, his sins. This is the first truth of all prayer. Even if we were perfect persons, even if we were crystalline saints who never deviate from the right path, we always remain sons who owe everything to the Father". "The most dangerous attitude of any Christian life is pride. This is the behavior of the one who relates to God thinking that he always has his accounts in order with Him", like the Pharisee in the parable who, "in the temple, thinks he is praying, but in reality he is praising himself", says the Holy Father.
"We are indebted, first of all, because in this life we received a lot: existence, a father, a mother, friendship, the wonders of creation", says Pope Francis. "We are also indebted to the fact that we manage to love; none of us is capable of doing it on our own. None of us shines thanks to our own light", but thanks to that mystery that the theologians of old called "mysterium lunae". Like the moon, which has no light of its own, but reflects the light of the sun, it is important to first receive love in order to be able to give it further, thus creating a true chain of love.
Read on the website Arta Albă and Bread from ancient wheat varieties (2) – Spelled wheat
