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LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 291

2026 Convention Workbook
256 
THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS  —COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
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105:40; Neh. 9:15; John 6:31). And, of course, Christ refers to Himself as the true 
bread or bread of life (John 6:31–59).
The Bible knows more than one kind of bread, although wheat bread is mentioned 
more than other grains or bread. Jesus uses wheat in parables such as the Parable 
of the Weeds (Matt. 13:24–30) and of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16:1–30). Bread 
made from the “finest wheat” seems to have been the preferred bread for the Old 
Testament. For example, “fine wheat flour” is used for the unleavened bread of-
fered during the consecration of priests (Ex. 29:2; see also Deut. 32:14). Barley is 
also frequently mentioned in the Bible, but it evidently was a humbler grain or, at 
any rate, less costly than wheat (e.g., Rev. 6:6). Of note are the twenty barley loaves 
that Elisha used miraculously to feed one hundred men (2 Kings 4:42–44) and the 
five barley loaves from which our Lord fed five thousand men and their families 
(John 6:9–13).
The passages from Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe the Last Supper in the 
upper room with Jesus and His disciples as the Passover. Thus the bread that Jesus 
used at that meal would almost certainly have been unleavened bread since Pass-
over directly preceded the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:4–6). Given their 
proximity, Luke refers to Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as one event 
(Luke 22:1). Houses were cleansed of leaven in preparation for Passover and the 
following Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex. 12:15–20; Deut. 16:16).
31  The leavening to 
be cleansed would have included any leavened grain bread, such as barley as well 
as wheat.
32
Given the direct connection between Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 
it is of note that the word for bread in the first three Gospels is artos, the general 
term for bread, and not the specific Greek term for unleavened bread ( azymos). 
Then, in Paul’s teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, there 
is no mention of a Passover setting or of unleavened bread. In those chapters Paul, 
too, speaks only of bread generally ( artos, not azymos) without further qualifica-
31 See Francis X. E. Albert, “Azymes,”  The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Robert Appleton Company, 
1907), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02171a.htm. 
32  There is specific mention of barley in Rabbinic Judaism (T osefta, Pisha, 3:8f.). Later Talmudic Juda-
ism holds that matzah (unleavened bread) is to be made from one of the grains mentioned in the 
T orah (wheat, barley, spelt, rye, oats). See “Passover: Matzah,” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www
.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/matzah. Karaite Jews used only barley, believing it to be most suited to serve 
as the “bread of affliction” (Deut. 16:3) since it was the bread commonly eaten by the poor.
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tion (1 Cor. 10:14–22; 11:20–34). 33  Although grain was certainly used for the bread of 
the Last Supper and in Corinth, no text explicitly describes the kind of grain used 
in either case.
The early church practice of the Lord’s Supper was distinguished from the Jewish 
Passover, as was the case in Corinth. In the earliest Christian centuries, there is 
no evidence of controversy over the kind of bread—whether leavened or unleav-
ened—that should be used in the Supper. It appears that ordinary leavened bread 
was used most widely throughout the early church. Over time, however, a divi-
sion regarding leavening developed between the Eastern and Western branches 
of Christianity. Eventually unleavened bread was used almost exclusively among 
the Roman—or Western—Church and leavened bread was used in the East.
34  This 
became one of the factors leading to the Great Schism. 35
In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas concluded that only unleavened wheat 
bread should be used in the Sacrament. Although he argues that only wheat bread 
should be used, he concedes that there are other practices in some places where 
cereal grains that resemble wheat were used in the Sacrament. He allows that 
some mixture of other grains with wheat may be acceptable for use in the Sacra-
ment, as long as wheat predominates. He also mentions that some have thought 
wheat starch could be used in place of wheat flour. As for leavening, Thomas is 
more circumspect. Wheat is “necessary,” while unleavened bread is only “suit-
able” because it is in accord with the Roman rite, while leavened bread is suit-
able in the East according to their rite. Nevertheless, overall, unleavened bread is 
“more reasonable.”
36
33  Paul’s only mention of Passover in 1 Corinthians is in chapter 5, where the subject is the incestuous 
sexual relationship of a man in Corinth. In arguing for the necessity that the man be disciplined by the 
church, Paul says: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old 
leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has 
been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice 
and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (vv. 6–8).
34  A ugustin Joseph Schulte, “Altar Breads,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1 (Robert Appleton Company, 
1907), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01349d.htm.
35  F or a brief discussion, see “East-West Schism,”  Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/
event/East-West-Schism-1054 (accessed September 19, 2024).
36  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 58, trans. William Barden (Blackfriars, 1965), 35–39 (Part 3, 
ques. 74, arts. 3, 4).
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Thomas’s conclusion that unleavened wheat should be used in the Sacrament was 
endorsed by the Council of Florence in 1439 for use in the West, stating that “the 
body of Christ is truly confected in both unleavened and leavened wheat bread, 
and priests should confect the body of Christ in either, that is, each priest accord-
ing to the custom of his western or eastern church.”
37  For Rome, this teaching 
remains unchanged. Trent reaffirmed it as did John Paul’s Instruction Redemptionis 
Sacramentum in 2004. Paragraph 49 is explicit:
The bread used in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucha-
ristic Sacrifice must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and re-
cently made so that there is no danger of decomposition. It 
follows therefore that bread made from another substance, 
even if it is grain, or if it is mixed with another substance 
different from wheat to such an extent that it would not com-
monly be considered wheat bread, does not constitute valid 
matter for confecting the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Sacra-
ment. It is a grave abuse to introduce other substances, such 
as fruit or sugar or honey, into the bread for confecting the 
Eucharist. Hosts should obviously be made by those who are 
not only distinguished by their integrity, but also skilled in 
making them and furnished with suitable tools.
38
The same ruling was reiterated in 2017 by Cardinal Robert Sarah in a letter on be-
half of Pope Francis. “Hosts that are completely gluten-free are invalid matter for 
the celebration of the Eucharist. Low-gluten hosts (partially gluten-free) are valid 
matter, provided they contain a sufficient amount of gluten to obtain the con-
fection of bread without the addition of foreign materials and without the use of 
37  “Council of Basel-Ferrara-Florence, 1431–49 AD,” Session 6, July 6, 1439, Papal Encyclicals Online, 
https://www.papalencyclicals.net//councils/ecum17.htm (accessed February 19, 2026).
38  The Holy See, “Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament,” III 1, para-
graph 48, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccdds/documents/rc_con_ccdds
_doc_20040423_redemptionis-sacramentum_en.html.
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Proper Administration of the Lord’s Supper
procedures that would alter the nature of bread.” 39  Here the judgment is not what 
may be more “suitable” or “reasonable.” An “invalid” sacrament is no sacrament. 
The use of low-gluten hosts made by authorized providers is suggested as the only 
acceptable alternative to gluten-free hosts.
40
With the Reformation came a significant reconsideration of the nature of the Sac-
rament and also its elements. While the doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass was 
the central point of contention, Luther also addressed other matters, including 
the bread used in the Lord’s Supper. In Luther’s Against the Heavenly Prophets in 
the Matter of Images and Sacraments  he discusses sacramental bread in the context 
of his rejection of the view that has the validity of the Lord’s Supper hanging on 
duplication of doing everything that Christ does. “But we are of the opinion that 
it is not necessary to do or refrain from doing all that Christ has done or refrained 
from doing.”
41  It is what Christ teaches—the Word alone—that matters. 
Attempts to mimic Christ’s actions exactly would lead to “utter foolishness,” says 
Luther, even to avoiding the Sacrament completely due to uncertainty about ex-
actly what Christ did or did not do (or say) at the Last Supper. Sarcastically he 
writes: “Since we do not know and the text does not state whether red or white 
wine was used, whether wheat rolls or barley bread were used, we must by reason 
of doubt at this point refrain from observing the Last Supper, until we become 
certain about it, so that we do not make any external detail differ a hairsbreadth 
from what Christ’s example sets forth.”
42  To the contrary, Luther concludes: “No 
one is to command or prohibit anything which he has neither commanded nor 
forbidden.”
43  The kind of bread and the color of wine are adiaphora.
39  “Letter to Bishops on the Bread and Wine for the Eucharist,” Vatican Radio, July 8, 2017, https://www
.archivioradiovaticana.va/storico/2017/07/08/letter_to_bishops_on_the_bread_and_wine_for_the
_eucharist/en-1323886.
40  F our providers of hosts are named by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), 
Committee on Divine Worship, “Celiac Disease, Alcohol Intolerance, and the Church’s Pastoral Re-
sponse,” updated April 20, 2016, https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/order-of-mass/
liturgy-of-the-eucharist/celiac-disease-and-alcohol-intolerance. 
41  Martin Luther, Against the Heavenly Prophets, AE 40:131.
42  AE 40:132–33.
43  AE 40:133.