Sacramental bread

• 1. Introduction

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  Sacramental bread sits at the center of one of the oldest rituals in Christianity. Known by many names, the host, the Lamb, Communion bread, Communion wafer, or Sacred host, it is the bread consecrated during the Eucharist and understood, across most traditions, as the body of Christ. The word used for it in Latin, hostia, means sacrificial victim. That single word carries the full weight of what the ritual is asking the faithful to consider.

  Along with sacramental wine, sacramental bread is one of two elements of the Eucharist. Whether it arrives as a thin, stamped disk or a loaf broken by hand, whether it is leavened or unleavened, plain wheat or whole grain, what it means to the person receiving it runs far deeper than its ingredients. The questions worth asking are not simple ones: Why does the type of bread matter at all? Who bakes it, and under what conditions? And what happens, theologically speaking, at the moment it is consecrated?

• 2. The Leavened East

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  Many Eastern-rite churches bake their sacramental bread with yeast, and the choice is deliberate. Leavened bread, in Eastern Christian understanding, represents the risen Christ, the Resurrected one. The bread used in this tradition, known as prosphorá, is made from only four ingredients: fine white wheat flour, pure water, yeast, and salt. Sometimes holy water is sprinkled into the dough or onto the kneading trough at the start of the process.

  In Eastern Orthodox practice, the baking itself is treated as a sacred act. Only a believing Orthodox Christian in good standing may do it, and that person is expected to have been to Confession recently. Prayer and fasting accompany the work. Before any loaf goes into the oven, two disks of dough are placed one on top of the other and stamped with a special liturgical seal. The prosphora presented at the altar for use in the Divine Liturgy must be fresh; a stale or moldy loaf is not acceptable.

  Often several prosphora are baked and offered by members of the congregation. From these, the priest selects the best one to serve as the Lamb, the host that will be consecrated. The remaining loaves are not discarded. They are blessed and returned to the congregation after the Divine Liturgy; this returned bread is called the antidoron, a Greek word meaning a gift returned, or in place of the gifts.

• 3. The Unleavened West

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  In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the choice falls in the opposite direction. Unleavened bread is used, following the pattern of the Jewish Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Code of Canon Law sets the requirements plainly: hosts must be made from wheat flour and water only, and they must be recently made so there is no danger of spoiling.

  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, at section 321, recommends that the eucharistic bread be made in such a way that the priest can break it into parts for distribution to at least some of the faithful at a Mass with a congregation. The instruction explains that this action, called the fraction or breaking of bread, was what gave the Eucharist its name in apostolic times. Breaking the one bread among the gathered congregation makes visible both the unity of those present and the act of sharing.

  Hosts in Western Christianity are often thin, round, and individually portioned. Some Protestant congregations use squares or triangles rather than circles, and some are made from whole wheat flour. The Churches of Christ use matzo. Reformed Christians use rolls that are broken and distributed. Anglican congregations vary depending on the churchmanship of the parish, with some using leavened bread and others following the unleavened practice of Roman Catholics and Lutherans.

• 4. Theology at the Moment of Consecration

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  Catholic theology generally teaches that at the Words of Institution, the substance of the bread is changed into the Body of Christ, a process known as transubstantiation. Eastern Christian theology generally locates the change at a different point in the liturgy, the epiclesis, which is the invocation of the Holy Spirit. These two positions reflect centuries of distinct theological development on either side of the Roman-Byzantine divide.

  The Armenian Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church take yet another angle on the bread itself. Because leaven is seen as symbolic of sin, both churches traditionally use unleavened bread, though it is distinctively different from the kind used by the Catholic Church. The unleavened loaf here is meant to symbolize the sinlessness of Christ.

  The Maronite Church, meanwhile, has adopted unleavened bread through a process of liturgical Latinisation, even though it is an Eastern-rite church. The Syro-Malabar Church uses both unleavened bread and a leavened variety to which Holy Malka is added. These variations show how the same theological conviction, that this bread carries sacred significance, can produce quite different material outcomes across traditions.

• 5. Gluten, Celiac, and Canon Law

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  In 1995, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the future Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a letter to Episcopal Conferences expanding on the Code of Canon Law. He stated that low-gluten bread would be considered valid matter for hosts, provided no additional substances altered the nature of the substance of the bread.

  Since the 2000s, low-gluten hosts have been manufactured in the United States, especially in parts of Missouri and New York. The context is a medical one. People with celiac disease must follow a strict gluten-free diet for life to allow recovery of the intestinal mucosa and to reduce the risk of developing severe health complications. The question of whether a person with celiac disease can receive communion using a conventional wheat host is therefore not merely theological. It is a question with real consequences for health.

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes a notably different approach to the whole question of ingredients. Latter-day Saint scripture, from Doctrine and Covenants 27:2, states that it matters not what is eaten or drunk when partaking of the sacrament, so long as the act is performed with an eye single to God's glory. Congregations may use commercial bread, homemade bread, rice cakes, or other gluten-free substitutes for members with food allergies. The bread is broken into fragments just before being blessed by one of the officiating priests.

• 6. Who Bakes the Bread

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  In the Catholic Church, hosts are often made by nuns as a means of supporting their religious communities. Lutheran hosts are produced by a number of Lutheran religious orders, as well as by monks and nuns, and by institutions such as the Concordia Publishing House. Lutheran hosts often carry a cross, crucifix, or IHS Christogram stamped onto them.

  In New Zealand, a different model has developed. The St Vincent de Paul Society hires individuals with intellectual disabilities to bake, cut out, and sort the bread, offering paid employment to people who might not otherwise have that option. The arrangement links one of the oldest acts in liturgical life to a contemporary form of social inclusion.

  Mandaeism, a religion distinct from Christianity, also uses a sacramental bread called the pihta. It is a small, round, biscuit-sized flatbread that can be salted or saltless depending on whether the ritual is for the living or the dead. The pihta is not the same as the faṭira, a small, round, saltless, half-baked biscuit also used in Mandaean rituals. Every Sunday, Mandaeans participate in a baptismal mass called maṣbuta, involving immersion in flowing water by ordained priests. The baptized then consume pieces of salted pihta blessed by a priest, an act understood to restore their connections, called laufa, with the World of Light.