Christ is the True Leaven that Leavens the Whole Lump

Someone asked the questions of: 1. leavened vs. unleavened bread and 2. the date for Holy Pascha.

If the Western Rite Orthodox were using unleavened bread or keeping Pascha by the Western reckoning, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, since anyone doing that would immediately fall under the anathemas and depositions and excommunications of our Holy Canons and infallible Oecumenical Counsels. But no, leavened bread (though made to look like wafers of unleavened bread) is used, and the date of Pascha can never be changed.

On Leavened Bread: “The ancient question that continues to divide the Roman Catholic and Western Churches from the Orthodox Church regarding the use of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist had to be resolved when the Western Rite parishes were received into the Orthodox Church. The host used in Western Rite liturgies resembles the unleavened wafer used by Roman Catholics and Episcopalians, but in fact it is leavened—although flattened—bread. The use of leavened bread in accordance with Orthodox theology, was required by Metropolitan Philip when he recieved these parishes into Orthodoxy.” – From the Diocesan News for Clergy and Laity, February 1995, Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople)