East and West

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Why do the Eastern Church's use leavened bread at the Mass as opposed to the unleavened bread that Christ used? What are some distinct differences between Eastern and Western theology?

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='thedude' date='Jun 18 2005, 07:59 PM']Why do the Eastern Church's use leavened bread at the Mass as opposed to the unleavened bread that Christ used?  What are some distinct differences between Eastern and Western theology?
[right][snapback]615681[/snapback][/right]
[/quote]
Normally I'd differ to Apo on questions involving Eastern Churches, but since this question is really old I'll just answer it briefly.

Eastern Churches use leavened bread. The Roman Catholic Church uses unleavened. In the West there is a continuity with the unleavened bread of the passover and what Christ used at the last supper, but the leavened bread of the East has a symbolic and Theological significance connected with the fact that Christ hath risen.

[Apotheoun]

In order to highlight some of the distinctive features of Eastern Catholic theology, I thought I would add to what Laudate_Dominum said in his response.

Now, it has been pointed out already that East and West differ over the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist, and this difference really is of only minor importance, but as Jungman explained in his [i]magnum opus[/i] on the Roman liturgy, the West only began using unleavened bread in the 9th century (cf. Jungman, [u]Mass of the Roman Rite[/u], 2:33-34), and so the older practice of the Church is to use leavened bread.

That being said, some of the differences between East and West concern practical matters (i.e., customs), while other differences are centered upon theological issues. In this post I will mainly concern myself with the theological differences (except for the first point):

(1) Westerners and Easterners make the sign of the cross somewhat differently, with Easterners making the sign from forehead to the center of the torso, and then from right shoulder to left shoulder. The West began making the sign of the cross ending on the right shoulder beginning at some point around the 12th to 13th century.

(2) The use of the [i]filioque[/i] in the creed. The creed as it was originally written did not include the [i]filioque[/i], but the West added the [i]filioque[/i] to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed beginning in Spain around the 7th century, with the [i]filioque[/i] finally being added at Rome itself at some point during the early part of the 11th century.

(3) The East holds that grace is uncreated, while the West holds that grace is created. In the East grace is divine energy ([i]energia[/i]), which means that grace is God Himself as He exists for us, that is, as He exists outside of His incommunicable essence ([i]ousia[/i]).

(4) East and West view the Trinity somewhat differently. The West tends to follow St. Thomas Aquinas and the Augustinian tradition, which looks upon the persons ([i]hypostases[/i]) of the Trinity as mere relations within the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]), and which holds that it is the unity of the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]) itself that establishes the fact that there is only one God. While the East holds that the three divine persons ([i]hypostases[/i]) are really distinct from each other, not because of their relations [i]per se[/i], but because of their origins. Thus, the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Father is distinct from the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Son and the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Spirit, because the Father is the unoriginate cause of all divinity, while the Son is eternally generated by the Father, and the Holy Spirit is eternally projected from the Father alone as sole personal ([i]hypostatic[/i]) cause of divinity. In other words, the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Father is unbegotten, and the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Son is begotten by the Father, and the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Holy Spirit is spirated by the Father alone through procession. Consequently, in the theology of the East there is only one God because there is only one Father from whom all Godhead originates.

(5) In the West, God is held to be pure act ([i]actus purus[/i]), and as such there are no real distinctions within the Godhead, because even the three divine persons ([i]hypostases[/i]) are only distinct in relation to each other, and not to the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]). Thus, in Western theology essence ([i]ousia[/i]) and person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) are identical in God (cf. [u]Summa Theologica[/u], Prima Pars, Q. 39, art. 1); while in Eastern theology, essence ([i]ousia[/i]) and person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) are really distinct from each other. Moreover, in addition to the real distinction between essence ([i]ousia[/i]) and person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) in Eastern triadology, it is held that the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]) itself is completely unknowable, because God, in His essence ([i]ousia[/i]), is [i]hyperousios[/i] and [i]hypertheos[/i]. As a consequence, God does not reveal Himself in His essence ([i]ousia[/i]); instead, He reveals Himself tri-hypostatically through His uncreated energies.

(6) From the what has been said in point number five above, it becomes clear that the West and the East understand the divine simplicity differently. The West holds that in God there are no real distinctions between, what it calls, His [i]attributes[/i] and His essence ([i]ousia[/i]), thus all of the divine attributes are identical with the divine essence. While in the East, divine simplicity is understood as the co-inherence ([i]perichoresis[/i]) of the divine essence in the multiplicity of God's uncreated energies; and so, each energy is distinct from every other energy (e.g., the divine will is distinct from divine love, which is distinct from truth, which is distinct from mercy, which is distinct from justice, etc.), but the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]) is present as a whole in each one of the distinct energies. This means that the divine essence is indivisibly divided among the personalized ([i]enhypostatic[/i]) energies of the three divine persons ([i]hypostases[/i]). A note of clarification is necessary at this point, because although the uncreated energies correspond in some sense to what the West calls [i]attributes[/i], to identify these two terms (attributes and energies) can lead to theological confusion. In the West the divine attributes are normally held to be distinct only in a noetic sense, that is, they are held to be distinction merely mentally (i.e., in the mind); and that is why the East avoids this term when referring to God's uncreated energies, because that would undermine the real distinction that exists between essence ([i]ousia[/i]) and energy ([i]energia[/i]) in God, reducing it to an epistemic distinction. Moreover, to reduce the distinction between the divine essence and the uncreated divine energies to something that is merely epistemic leads to major theological problems in connection with the doctrine of divinization ([i]theosis[/i]).

(7) As indicated above, the East makes a further distinction, without a separation, in the Godhead, between the divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]) and the uncreated divine energies. The divine essence ([i]ousia[/i]) is completely incommunicable and transcendent, and as such it is [i]hyperousios[/i]; consequently it cannot be known, not now or even in the eschaton. God is revealed only in His uncreated energies, which flow out from the three divine persons ([i]hypostases[/i]) as a gift to man. Moreover, it is only by his participation in the divine energies that man can truly possess an experiential knowledge of God, an experience that can be understood in two ways: first, at the level of nature by the sustaining of man's created existence; and second, at the level of the supernatural through the elevation of man's being into the life and glory of the Triune God.

(8) The East holds that divinization ([i]theosis[/i]) is brought about by an ontological participation in God's uncreated energies, and that through the divine energies man truly participates in the divine life and glory. The uncreated energies are God as He exists outside of His incomprehensible essence ([i]ousia[/i]), and so the divine energies are distinct from the divine essence, but without being separated from it.

(9) The Eastern understanding of predestination also differs from that of the West. The East holds that all men at the level of nature are predestined to redemption through the incarnation of the Son of God. In other words, through the incarnation of the eternal Logos all of nature has been freed from corruption and the dissolution into non-existence brought about by Adam's fall from grace, and has been given the gift of redemption to everlasting existence. But salvation, on the other hand, concerns the integration of the human person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) with his natural virtues through the power of God's uncreated energies and the activity of his own created free will. Salvation requires that a man enact his will through grace in doing good and avoiding evil. If a man lives a good life through the power of his will restored by grace, he may enter into the beatific vision, but if he fails to integrate his natural virtues into his person ([i]hypostasis[/i]), he damns himself. Thus, in Eastern theology predestination is the universal redemption of all men and of the whole of creation itself from corruption and non-existence, while salvation involves the integration of man's natural virtues with his personal ([i]hypostatic[/i]) existence through the power of God's uncreated energies and his own free will.

These are just a few of the theological differences between East and West.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Thank you Apotheoun! I learn something new everyday on this site.

Oh, but I think point #3 is misleading. There is the idea of Uncreated Grace is the West as well. I realize there are differences, but I felt you were setting up a false dichotomy. (shucks, I hope I'm not starting a debate in this forum)
And I would like to note that I've encountered treatments of the Theology of grace in the West that are strikingly Eastern (including in the writings of masters such as Dom Marmion and Scheeben). I don't know enough about it, but I tend to question the extent of the differences sometimes.

I think it would be neat to discuss some of the other points too, but in a different forum of course. I was struck by certain phrases, such as "mere relations".

[Apotheoun]

There are of course different schools of thought in the West on the nature of grace, but the Augustinian and Thomistic schools tend to dominate Western theology.

That being said, Eastern theologians do not believe that there is any need at all for a doctrine of grace as a created [i]habitus[/i]; and moreover, they deny that there is such a thing as a "created supernatural," because in the metaphysics of the Eastern Church the supernatural is by definition uncreated.

But I do agree with what you said in your post, because not all Western theologians subscribe to the Scholastic position on the nature of deifying grace.

[Apotheoun]

I thought I would post some additional differences between East and West:

(1) In the Eastern Churches married men can be ordained to both the diaconate and the priesthood; but like the Latin Church, only celibate men can be consecrated as bishops.

(2) In Byzantine sacramental theology the priest is the minister of the sacrament of matrimony, and so his blessing is necessary for the validity of the sacrament. This also means that a deacon cannot officiate at an Eastern Catholic wedding.

(3) In Eastern theology the bread and wine of the Eucharist are held to be consecrated into the body and blood of Christ by the prayer of epiclesis.

(4) Because the Eastern Churches use the Septuagint (Greek) Old Testament they have a somewhat larger canon of scripture than the Latin Church. As an example, the Byzantine Church recites the "Prayer of Manasseh" as scripture during Great Compline.

(5) In the Eastern Churches icons are always two dimensional images, and so one will rarely if ever see statuary in an Eastern Church.

[Apotheoun]

I forgot to mention this in my last post:

(6) In the Eastern Churches the sacraments of initiation are [i]not[/i] separated, and so, babies are baptized, chrismated with holy myron (confirmed), and receive first communion all at the same time.


(note: I accidentally left out the word "not" in the first line of this post, and the post has now been corrected. I need to thank my Ukrainian Catholic friend Dan Oryschak for noticing the error.)