Sacramental bread

The word host is derived from the Latin hostia, which means 'sacrificial victim'. The term can be used to describe the bread both before and after consecration, although it is more correct to use it after consecration.

With the exception of Churches of the Armenian Rite, the Maronite Church, and the Syro-Malabar Church, Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches use leavened bread for the Eucharist. Thus, the sacramental bread symbolizes the Resurrected Christ. The host, known as prosphorá or a πρόσφορον (prósphoron, 'offering') may be made out of only four ingredients: fine (white) wheat flour, pure water, yeast, and salt. Sometimes holy water will be either sprinkled into the dough or on the kneading trough at the beginning of the process.

Because leaven is symbolic of sin, the Armenian Catholic Church and the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church traditionally offer unleavened bread (although it is distinctively different from the kind used by the Catholic Church) to symbolize the sinlessness of Christ.

The baking may only be performed by a believing Orthodox Christian in good standing, having preferably been recently to Confession, and is accompanied by prayer and fasting. Before baking, each loaf is formed by placing two disks of dough, one on top of the other, and stamping it with a special liturgical seal. The prosphora should be fresh and not stale or moldy when presented at the altar for use in the Divine Liturgy.

Often several prosphora will be baked and offered by the faithful, and the priest chooses the best one for the Lamb (Host) that will be consecrated. The remaining loaves are blessed and offered back to the congregation after the end of the Divine Liturgy (Eucharist); this bread is called the antidoron (αντίδωρον, antídōron), i.e. a 'gift returned', or 'in place of the gifts'.

Rite of Renewal of Holy Leaven in the Syro-Malabar Church.

The Byzantine Rite Eastern Catholic Churches (like the Eastern Orthodox Church) use leavened bread for prosphora (the Greek word for Eucharistic altar bread).[3]

The Maronite Church has adopted the use of unleavened bread due to liturgical Latinisation. The Syro-Malabar Church uses both unleavened bread as well as leavened bread in which Holy Malka is added.

Detail of tongs for baking hosts

A host is a portion of bread used for Holy Communion in many Christian churches. In Western Christianity the host is often thin, round, unleavened hosts.

Catholic unleavened hosts of differing sizes.

In the Roman Rite, unleavened bread is used as in the Jewish Passover or Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Code of Canon Law[4] requires that the hosts be made from wheat flour and water only, and recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling.

Hosts are often made by nuns as a means of supporting their religious communities. However, in New Zealand, the St Vincent de Paul Society hires individuals with intellectual disabilities to bake, cut out, and sort the bread, thereby offering paid employment to those who would not otherwise have that option.[5]

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal §321 recommends that "the eucharistic bread ... be made in such a way that the priest at Mass with a congregation is able in practice to break it into parts for distribution to at least some of the faithful. ... The action of the fraction (breaking of bread), which gave its name to the Eucharist in apostolic times, will bring out more clearly the force and importance of the sign of unity of all in the one bread, and of the sign of charity by the fact that the one bread is distributed among the brothers and sisters."[6]

In 1995 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI), then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote a letter to the Episcopal Conferences in which he expanded the Code of Canon Law, stating that low-gluten bread would be considered "valid matter" for hosts as long as no additional substances "alter[ed] the nature of the substance of the bread".[7] Since the 2000s, hosts with low gluten content have been manufactured in the United States, especially in parts of Missouri and New York.[7] People with celiac disease must follow a strict gluten-free diet[8] and maintain it for life to allow the recovery of the intestinal mucosa and reduce the risk of developing severe health complications.[9]

United Methodist Elder presiding at the Eucharist, using a leavened loaf of bread

In the varying Protestant denominations, there is a wide variety of practices concerning the sacramental bread used.

Lutherans and Anglicans use unleavened hosts, as with Roman Catholics.

Reformed Christians use rolls which are broken and distributed to the faithful.[10]

The Christian Congregation, a Pentecostal denomination, uses leavened loaves of bread. Among those who use the unleavened hosts, there is a great deal of variation: some are square or triangular rather than round, and may even be made out of whole wheat flour.

Some, such as the Churches of Christ use matzo.[11]