BREAD USED BY THE GREEK CHURCH

The bread used by the Greeks is round, like a large griddle-cake, and rising from its surface is a square projection denominated the Holy Lamb, which, when cut off afterwards by the Holy Lance, becomes, properly speaking, the sacrificial Host. What remains of the loaf when the square projection has been taken away is divided into several small particles, which are arranged in groups and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the apostles, saints, and martyrs, as well as the living and the dead (Goar, Euchol. Græc., p. 116; Primitive Liturgies, pp. 120 and 183, by Neale and Littledale). The square projection itself is divided into four equal portions after Host of the Greeks consecration. When cutting off the Holy Lamb from the large loaf the Greek priest says, as he inserts the lance in the right side of the seal (that is, the impression stamped upon the bread), “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter”; when inserting it into the left, “And as a blameless lamb dumb before his shearers, he opened not his mouth.” Inserting it into the upper part, he says, “In his humiliation his judgment was taken away”; into the lower, “And who shall declare his generation?” The deacon says at each incision, “Let us make our supplications to the Lord.” By the quadrangular form of the holy bread the Greeks intend to signify that Christ our Lord suffered for the four quarters of the globe (Martène, De Antiquis Eccl. Ritibus, f. 15).

HOLT LANCE.

HOST OF THE GREEKS.