My landlady asked if I wanted bread leftover from the church service today. Today is the Feast of the Holy Archangels and I got this…
This bread is called Prosphora (Greek: πρόσφορον, offering) It is bread used in orthodox church services. The term originally meant any offering made to a temple, but in Orthodox Christianity it has come to mean specifically the bread offered at the Divine Liturgy.
Prosphoro is made from only four ingredients, wheat flour (white), yeast, salt, and water. Salt was not used in early times, and is still not used in the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. Women would make it themselves. That is to say any member of the church who is in good standing. Now you order the bread from the bakery.
A prosphoron is made up of two separate round pieces of leavened dough which are placed one on top of another and baked together to form a single loaf.
(stamps)
Before baking, each prosphoron is stamped with a special seal called sphragis or Panagiari usually bearing, among other things, the image of a cross with the Greek letters IC XC NIKA (“Jesus Christ conquers”) around the arms of the cross. This impression is baked into the bread and serves as a guide for the priest who will be cutting it.
I know that your are not supposed to spill anything of this bread. No breadcrumbs at all! How we will manage that I don’t know.
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