The term Artos refers to a loaf of leavened bread that is blessed during services in the Eastern Orthodox

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 and Eastern Catholic Churches. A larger Artos is baked especially for use at Pascha

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 (Easter), smaller round loaves (used five at a time) are blessed during the All-Night Vigil

All-Night Vigil

The All-Night Vigil , Opus 37, is an a cappella choral composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff,written and premiered in 1915. It consists of settings of texts taken from the Russian Orthodox All-night vigil ceremony. It has been praised as Rachmaninoff's finest achievement and "the greatest musical...

 in a ritual called Artoklasia

Artoklasia

The Artoklasia is a service held near the end of Vespers in the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches. Five round loaves of leavened bread are blessed, together with wheat, wine and oil. In East Slavic usage, wheat is not used. The items are arranged on a special artoklasia tray, which is...

.

Artos in Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 meant "cake" or "loaf of wheat-bread", but in Modern Greek

Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

 now only refers to bread used in church. The earliest form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek a-to, written in Linear b

Linear B

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, an early form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization...

 syllabic script.

Ritual

Near the end of the Paschal Vigil, after the Prayer Before the Ambo

Ambo

Ambo may refer to:* Ambo Village in Kiribati where the parliament of Kiribati sits, also known for the Ambo declaration issued at the Tarawa Climate Change Conference, an international diplomatic conference held in Kiribati in November 2010...

, a single large loaf of bread, the Artos, is brought to the priest. Depicted on the top of the Artos are either the symbol of Christ's victory over death—the Cross, surmounted by a crown of thorns—or the Resurrection of Christ. The Artos symbolizes the physical presence of the resurrected Christ among the disciples.
The priest blesses the Artos with a special prayer and sprinkles it with Holy Water

Holy Water

Holy Water is the ninth studio album by hard rock band Bad Company, and their third with Brian Howe in place of Paul Rodgers as lead vocalist, released in June 1990. The singles on the album all received moderate radio airplay. These included "Holy Water", "Boys Cry Tough", "Walk Through Fire", and...

. The Artos is then placed on a small table before the Iconostasis

Iconostasis

In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church...

 where it remains throughout Bright Week

Bright Week

Bright Week or Renewal Week is the name used by the Eastern Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholic Churches of the Byzantine Rite for the period of seven days beginning on Pascha and continuing up to the following Sunday, which is known as Thomas Sunday...

. It is customary, whenever the faithful enter the Temple

Temple

A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...

, for them to kiss the Artos as a way of greeting the Risen Christ. On every day of Bright Week, after the Paschal Divine Liturgy

Divine Liturgy

Divine Liturgy is the common term for the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine tradition of Christian liturgy. As such, it is used in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Armenian Christians, both of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of the Armenian Catholic Church, use the same term...

 (or, alternatively, after Paschal Matins

Matins

Matins is the early morning or night prayer service in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox liturgies of the canonical hours. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations to describe morning services.The name "Matins" originally referred to the morning office also...

), the Artos is carried in a solemn Crucession

Crucession

A Crucession, or Cross Procession , is a procession that takes place in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic liturgical traditions. The name derives from the fact that the procession is headed by a cross....

 around the outside of the church.

In monasteries, the Artos is carried to the Trapeza

Refectory

A refectory is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries...

 every day of Bright Week, where at the end of the festive meal, it is lifted in a ceremony called the Lifting of the Artos. The one performing the ceremony will lift up the Artos (symbolizing Christ's Resurrection) and say, "Christ is Risen!" All will respond, "He is truly Risen!" The celebrant will then make the sign of the Cross

Sign of the cross

The Sign of the Cross , or crossing oneself, is a ritual hand motion made by members of many branches of Christianity, often accompanied by spoken or mental recitation of a trinitarian formula....

 with the Artos as he says, "We worship His Resurrection on the third day!" Then two Paschal hymns are sung and everyone comes forward to kiss the Artos and receive the Superior's blessing, as all sing the Paschal troparion

Paschal troparion

The Paschal troparion or Christos anesti is the characteristic hymn for the celebration of Pascha in the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite....

 many times.

On Bright Saturday, after the Divine Liturgy, the priest says another prayer over the Artos and it is then broken and distributed among the whole congregation along with the Prosphora

Prosphora

A prosphoron is a small loaf of leavened bread used in Orthodox Christian and Greek Catholic liturgies. The plural form is prosphora...

.

Significance

The significance of the Artos is that it serves to remind all Christians of the events connected with the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. While still living on earth, the Lord called Himself the Bread of Life, saying: I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and He who believes in Me shall never thirst . After His Resurrection, more than once Jesus appeared to His disciples, ate before them and blessed their own food. For example, as evening fell on the first day of His Resurrection, He was recognized in Emmaus by two of His disciples as He blessed and broke bread .

On the 40th day after His Resurrection, the Lord ascended into heaven, and His disciples and followers found comfort in their memories of the Lord: they recalled His every word, His every step and His every action. When they met for common prayer, they would partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, remembering the Last Supper

Last Supper

The Last Supper is the final meal that, according to Christian belief, Jesus shared with his Twelve Apostles in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. The Last Supper provides the scriptural basis for the Eucharist, also known as "communion" or "the Lord's Supper".The First Epistle to the Corinthians is...

. When they sat down to an ordinary meal, they would leave a place at the head of the table empty for the invisibly present Lord and would lay bread on that place.

Remembering this custom of the Apostles, the Fathers of the Church made it their custom to put out the Artos at the Paschal Feast in memory of the appearances of the Risen Lord to His disciples, and also in memory of the fact that the Lord Who suffered and was resurrected for our justification has made Himself the true Bread of Life and is invisibly present in His church always, to the close of the age .

Whereas special Paschal breads, called kulichi are broken and eaten on the first day of Pascha, the Artos is kept whole throughout the whole of Bright Week as a reminder of the presence of the Risen Savior in the midst of those who believe in Him and is only divided and distributed on Saturday. In this way Bright Week begins and ends with the eating of especially baked and blessed bread.

The Artos may also be compared to the unleavened bread

Unleavened Bread

Unleavened Bread is a 1900 novel by American writer Robert Grant....

 of the Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

, of which ancient Israel, delivered from their captivity in the land of Egypt, ate during the week of the Passover (Ex. 12:15-20). As Cyril, Bishop of Turov, who lived during the 12th Century in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, said in a sermon for the Sunday after Pascha:

Even as the Jews bore the unleavened bread upon their heads out of Egypt through the desert until they had crossed the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

, after which they dedicated the bread to God, divided it amongst all their host, and having all eaten thereof, became...terrible to their enemies, even so do we, saved by our Resurrected Lord from the captivity of that Pharaoh of the mind, the Devil, bear forth the blessed bread the Artos from the day of the Resurrection of Christ and, finally, having dedicated this bread to God, we eat of it and preserve it to the health of body and soul.

It is a custom among Russian Orthodox Christians to this day to keep a portion of the Artos throughout the year and with due reverence and faith to eat of it in time of illness or distress. This is eaten, often together with a drink of Holy Water, which had been blessed at the Feast of the Theophany of Our Lord.

Possible Jewish Christian Origins

In the Jewish seder half of the matzoh blessed and broken at the beginning of the meal is preserved and hidden until the end of the meal, when it is eaten at the end of the meal as the last thing eaten immediately before the final formal thanksgiving for the meal. This piece of bread is called the afikoman and both the meaning of this word and the reason for this ritual are unclear. Dr. David Daube, who taught civil law at both Oxford University and the University of California at Berkeley, suggested that the word afikoman was originally a Greek word meaning “the one who is to come/who has arrived” and that it originally represented the awaited Messiah with whose appearance at the end of this present Age the Jewish people would reach their fulfillment. Daube went on to hypothesize that if the ritual of the afikoman originated at or before the time of Christ, this would logically have been the piece of bread which Christ would have identified with his body/flesh during the Last Supper. Basing himself on Daube’s theory Arvid Nybroten suggested that once the Paschal Eucharist came to be celebrated apart from an actual meal, the first blessing, breaking and eating of bread at the beginning of the meal and the breaking and eating of the afikoman at the end of the meal would have combined and would have been blessed together with the cup during the formal thanksgiving at the end of the meal, the Jewish prayer which eventually evolved into the Christian Eucharistic prayer. Among the Jewish Christians the ritual of the afikoman might have survived in a modified form as the paschal Artos. In at least the Sephardic Seder ritual the afikoman has become expressly identified as representing the flesh of the Passover Lamb, which since the destruction of the Second Temple can no longer be offered or eaten. Similarly the blessing of the Artos also states that it represents Christ, the true Paschal Lamb. If one thinks of all celebrations of Bright Week as an extended Paschal supper, then just as the afikoman is blessed at the beginning of the Seder meal, but only eaten at the end of that meal, so also the Artos is blessed at end of the Divine Liturgy at Pascha, but only eaten after the final Divine Liturgy of Bright Week.

Artoklasia

The loaves baked for Artoklasia will be similar to the Prosphora

Prosphora

A prosphoron is a small loaf of leavened bread used in Orthodox Christian and Greek Catholic liturgies. The plural form is prosphora...

 used at the Divine Liturgy, except that the stamp used to seal them will be different. It may have an Icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 of a saint on it, or it may be a simple cross—perhaps inscribed with a prayer on it, such as "May the Blessing of the Lord be upon us. Amen."

At the Vigil on Sundays and Feast Days throughout the year, near the conclusion of Vespers

Vespers

Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours...

, all go in procession to the Narthex

Narthex

The narthex of a church is the entrance or lobby area, located at the end of the nave, at the far end from the church's main altar. Traditionally the narthex was a part of the church building, but was not considered part of the church proper...

 of the church, where special petitions called the Litia are prayed. Then, during the chanting of the Troparion

Troparion

A troparion in Byzantine music and in the religious music of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a short hymn of one stanza, or one of a series of stanzas. The word probably derives from a diminutive of the Greek tropos...

 of the Day (Apolytikon), the deacon censes a tray on which have been placed five leavened loaves, wheat, wine, and oil, which the priest then blesses. After the blessing he breaks one of the loaves (from which action the rite receives its name: Artoklasia, "breaking of bread"). These items are then taken back into the sanctuary where they are prepared for later distribution. After the reading of the Gospel at Matins

Matins

Matins is the early morning or night prayer service in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Eastern Orthodox liturgies of the canonical hours. The term is also used in some Protestant denominations to describe morning services.The name "Matins" originally referred to the morning office also...

, the faithful come forward to venerate the Gospel Book

Gospel Book

The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...

 (if it is Sunday) or the Icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

 of the Feast (if it is a weekday). The priest then anoints them on the forehead with some of the oil, and each person receives a piece of the blessed Artos dipped in some of the wine.

Great Saturday

A similar Artoklasia is performed at the end of the Vesperal Divine Liturgy on Great Saturday

Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday , sometimes known as Easter Eve or Black Saturday, is the day after Good Friday. It is the day before Easter and the last day of Holy Week in which Christians prepare for Easter...

, except that oil and wheat are not blessed, but only the five loaves and a cup of wine. This Artoklasia is a remnant from the days when the faithful would not leave the church all day on Great Saturday, but wait in prayerful anticipation for the beginning of the Paschal Vigil. Each person would be given bread, dried fruit

Dried fruit

Dried fruit is fruit where the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. Dried fruit has a long tradition of use dating back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia, and is prized...

, and a cup of wine as all listened to the reading of the Acts of the Apostles

Acts of the Apostles

The Acts of the Apostles , usually referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New Testament; Acts outlines the history of the Apostolic Age...

.

External links

• Paschal Artos (Photo)