Björn and Bread II: The Schism(-ing)

More musings on the staff of life.

“Man cannot live by bread alone. He needs peanut butter.” James A. Garfield, US president

A fascinating event in the long history of bread (if having the words ‘fascinating’ and ‘bread’ in the same sentence is not deemed by the reader of this post as an oxymoron) is the Great Schism. For those of you who remain interested, this was the rupture of the Christian Church in 1054 into its Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox divisions, which remain to this day.

One of the theological reasons for the division was which type of bread to use in the Eucharist. The Pope in Rome said it had to be unleavened bread, because that’s what Jesus broke at the Last Supper - which was, after all, a Jewish Passover feast and the Jews always had unleavened bread at the Passover to commemorate the exodus from Egypt, which was done in such a hurry that the poor old Israelites didn’t even have time to give their loaves time to puff up. Meanwhile, the Patriarch in Constantinople said it had to be leavened bread, because yeast symbolise the rising up of Christ and anyway the guys in the East wanted as much clear blue water as possibe between themselves and the Jews.