Flatbreads - Religious Significance

Religious Significance

The term unleavened bread can also refer to breads which are not prepared with leavening agents. These flatbreads hold special religious significance to adherents of Judaism and Christianity. Jews consume unleavened breads such as matzo during Passover.

Unleavened bread is used in the Western Christian liturgy when celebrating the Eucharist. On the other hand, most Eastern Churches explicitly forbid the use of unleavened bread (Greek: azymes) for Eucharist as pertaining to the Old Testament and allow only for bread with yeast, as a symbol of the New Covenant in Christ's blood. Indeed, this was one of the three points of contention that are, in traditional legend, accounted as those that brought about the Great Schism between Eastern and Western churches (the others being Petrine supremacy and the filioque in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed).

Canon Law of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church mandates the use of unleavened bread for the Host, and unleavened wafers for the communion of the faithful. The more liturgical Protestant churches tend to follow the Latin Catholic practice, whereas others use either unleavened wafers or ordinary bread, depending on the traditions of their particular denomination or local usage.