Glory to Jesus Christ!
Fr. Bohdan Hladio here at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Orthodox church in
Oshawa, Ontario. We're here in the manse and we are
making the next of our instructional videos
this one about how prosphora are made. Prosphora are the
Altar breads used for the Divine Liturgy and we normally in the church use five of
them when we serve the Liturgy. A little later
we'll talk about the Byzantine practice of having
just one big prosphora, but it's normal for all the churches to
use five Altar breads for each Liturgy,
of course in commemoration of the multiplication of the five loaves
by our Lord. And, to make the prosphora, we have four ingredients: flour,
yeast, water and a little bit of salt. And,
we use in the Orthodox Church the raised bread – the yeast bread – whereas in
the Roman Catholic Church in the Armenian Church they use
the unleavened bread called "azimi" in Greek without any type of yeast;
and in this bread we use we called "prozimi", which has the yeast in it –
so it's living bread. And we begin with the flour; and we add to it some yeast
(i'm using dry, quick action yeast) although you can use
the regular yeast or even sourdough... sourdough – it's often
done with sourdough. Then a little bit of salt and we'll mix that up... and once that's all nice and
mixed, we use the water. But before we do that, I'm going to put
some flour on the board, so that when we put the dough onto
the board, it doesn't stick. And, as with any bread,
a lot of how it ends up depends on the atmospheric conditions:
the humidity, the air pressure, because it is a living thing —
and it is affected by the environment. So, we begin
by adding the water; and we add enough water till we get a nice dough;
and we want a more firm dough,
because later on, after it's risen and we've kneaded it the second time,
we're going to be putting in the seals; and
on the bread we have usually two or three different seals...
the main one has the cross in the middle, and in each quadrant
of the cross we have a couple of letters:
IC, XC and NI KA... so looking at it from the
top on the left hand side, it's IC (Ісус —Jesus);
on the [right] hand XC (Христос) and then on the bottom left, NI;
and the bottom right, KA which "Nika" in Greek means "conquers".
So, on the seal – like we see on many of the crosses
that we have we have the words: "Jesus Christ conquers"
And so, now we have the dough
which is a little bit too wet, so we're going to be adding
a lot of flour when we roll it out onto the board the Greek word that
is used for this bread which is risen bread, yeast bread, is
"artos" and many of the Orthodox people
especially Ukrainians, Russians will recognize the
word "artos" as this particular special bread that we
bless on Pascha at the end of the Liturgy
and then distribute to the people on Saturday of Bright Week or on Thomas
Sunday, but the word "artos" actually it just
means "bread"; "yeast bread" — and
the other word as mentioned earlier "azimi" means "unleavened bread".
And so, the Christians from the earliest times used the leavened bread
for the Eucharist and it was only centuries later
that in the Roman Catholic Church and the Armenian Church; and then
following the Roman Catholics when they broke off, the various
Protestant Churches that they began to use the unleavened bread. So, that's a nice consistency — and we're going to start
kneading it here on the board. And, as far as the
proportions: under normal circumstances I would normally use about six
cups of flour; and then about a good teaspoon of the yeast;
maybe a half to three quarters of a teaspoon of the salt...
and then as much water as it takes to get the right consistency
of the dough. And, as mentioned earlier, that will depend often on
atmospheric conditions etc. It might be as little as
two cups of water; it might be as much as three cups of water —
usually somewhere in between. and so the important thing with bread
is to knead it. because the kneading breaks up
the gluten, and it forms nice, long chains that give it a nice consistency.
As opposed to something like a nice, French baguette or some other types of
bread, we would like the bread to be very
dense; and that's why it's important to have good flour — more from what they call "hard wheat". And while we knead the bread,
normally we would say the Jesus Prayer or some other type of prayer. Okay... and when the dough is ready,
we put it in a pan, we'll cover it
and let it rise for about an hour. And so, we're back: the dough has
had a chance to rise, and we will start making our prosphora. As I mentioned earlier, the prosphora
are sealed — there's a seal that goes at the top.
So, this is the seal which is usually used for most
of them, which is Ісус Христос Ніка —
you can see the inscription there.
Here's a smaller version of exactly the same one. There's one for the Mother of God;
and there are several forms of it — this one as you can see, it
in a stylized way, spells "Марія"; and there's also this type, which is
again, very stylized — and you can see there's a triangle
and the spear and the reed with the sponge on it.
Sometimes you will see see this, because there are...
from the third prosphora taken out nine, what they call the "Nine
Ranks" — and they represent different ranks of Saints
that are commemorated. And, also here we have a larger seal
which is the type used by by Greeks — Byzantines, Antiochians in
the Greek church; the Byzantine church where they have one seal and one
bread but as you can see, there are five
different sections: three with "Ісус Христос Ніка",
one for the Mother of God and one for the Nine Ranks of Saints —
and we'll make a bigger one with this just to show how that works.
So, once the dough has had a chance to rise, we take it out of the bowl; and again, we knead it.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And the big thing that we want to do
is to get all of the bubbles out of the dough, because as we mentioned,
we want a nice, dense loaf in each case.
The prosphora, the altar breads, would often be made
by someone — usually in a parish, it would be a woman,
called the "просфорниця" — the prosphora baker.
In a monastery, the monk or nun — there would be one or several —
who, this would be their obedience. it was their job
to bake the prosphora for the monastery and we know, for example,
of the saints Spyridon and, oh his buddy...
his name escapes me now [Nicodemus]... From the Kyiv Caves monastery —
saints who are prosphora bakers. And, in the Greek tradition,
it's very common that the women of the parish (or men)
that they actually bake prosphora and bring them to church —
and this is a reflection of the ancient Christian tradition
whereby people used to bring bread to the church — and then
the deacons would choose of all the bread the best, the finest,
and that would be used for the Eucharist;
and then everything that was left over would be distributed
to the hungry — and that's why, if many of you have been
to places like Europe, and you see that it's still common in many places for
poor people to beg outside of the churches, because when
the Liturgy was over, the deacons used to bring the leftover bread and give it to
the people. Here, we want to try to get all the air
out so that we have a dense loaf In the Russian tradition,
there's a priest vestment you may have seen, which is like
a rectangle that he wears over his right knee —
and it's called in the Slavonic, they call that
an "epigonat" — and then there's another vestment,
which is like a diamond; trapezoidal shape which is called
a "palytsia". And it's very confusing, because what
the Russians call the "palytsia", the Greeks call the
"epigonation"; and the epigonation is the original —
the diamond-shaped one is the original vestment,
which derives from a court dress in the Roman Empire yet; but
the one that the Russians call the "epigonat" the triangular one — I'm sorry,
the rectangular one — it is said that it derives from a bag...
and you can, when you see the priest wearing it, you see it almost looks
like that like a a little bag that you can, you know,
put something in... that the priest would put
the leftover bread after the Liturgy into that bag and then go out
and give it to the beggars after the Liturgy.
So, I don't know how true that is, but it is a very interesting,
very interesting explanation and it does again reflect that ancient
practice, whereby the bread, you know, after the Liturgy, the
bread that was left over would be given to the poor.
And so, again we want to get this nice and dense — so we want to get all of the
bubbles out... And, you know, sometimes people ask, you
know, "Who... who bakes the prosphora?"
"Can I bake the prosphora?" etc., etc. And, in fact,
it is a very good and blessed thing, because when we pray in the Liturgy,
you know, you remember that we pray for those "for the gifts here offered"; we also
pray for those who have offered the gifts, right? And,
in one sense, that could be a person who makes a donation;
and then, with that donation, flour and wine and yeast
are purchased... and so in that sense, you know, the person
has "offered the gifts" — but in a more direct way,
you know, if somebody actually offers an Altar bread, that's even a more direct
way in which, you know, you're praying for that person who has offered
"that which is going to be offered." So, we have this nice and rolled out —
and we will now start cutting the bottom sections — because every prosphora
has two parts: there's a bottom and there's a top.
And the reason we do this — the symbolism is that Christ had two natures:
He was both divine and human and so the prosphora has a top part
and a bottom part. And so, we make them in two parts. Also, as mentioned,
I'm going to be making a Greek style one, just so you can see it;
so this will be the bottom for that
Greek style prosphora. Okay, as you see, that's much bigger
than the other. Now, we're going to roll this out a little bit thinner — and
try to make sure that it's pretty well uniform in thickness; and get rid of any little
bubbles we might see. And then, we'll make the top portion —
these are the portions that have the seal on them.
And so... Okay, and then for the larger one,
we will do this. And then, we'll start making
the bottoms for some smaller ones. Because, besides
the five that we use for the Liturgy itself, there's a custom
that people can offer these smaller prosphora;
and, as mentioned earlier, in the Greek tradition, you know the
families themselves might offer a prosphora, you know, that they might
bake or that they might have purchased at a bakery —
and they would offer that; whereas in Ukraine, Poland, Russia
there's a custom whereby whoever bakes the prosphora,
bakes little ones, like this, and then, when people come to church,
they can offer their
list of names along with one of these prosphora;
and then, what the priest would do would be to take little particles
out of each prosphora; the sacristan or the subdeacon
would give him the little prosphora with the list of names
for the living, for the dead, for health... and he would take out particles
and put them on the Diskos.
And, that's the way those people would be commemorated; and then
after that the little prosphora would be given back to the people who
offered it. And so, that's — if you would like to
see that — you can look at our little film
on the Proskomedia; and there's a demonstration of how that is
done. So, here we're going to start with the "Ісус Христос Ніка" — and we need three of these:
one for the Lamb, which is that part
of the prosphora which is cut out and then sacrificed —
it's used for Holy Communion. The other two: one is
for the prosphora for the commemoration of the living;
and the other one is for the commemoration of the dead.
Next, we'll do this one: for the Nine Ranks of Saints. And, of course, for the Mother of God. And so, what we do, is we take
a little bit of water and we brush the tops of those bottom portions and this helps the top and the bottom
to stick together. Okay. And then, I'll do this larger one. Okay. Now, one of the things
that's very important, is to... again we're always trying to get
any bubbles that might be there out... so we prick the top
of the prosphora with a sharp object: it might be a type of a thicker
needle or pin — this of course is a wooden skewer; and we
want to make sure that especially — that no air
gathers under the seal; that the seal is very, very tightly
engraved into the bread itself — because when the Lamb
is taken out, we would like to have a nice, dense cube.
So, here's the the prosphora for the Mother of God.
And, with the larger one, we do the same thing: we just do,
besides around the actual center, we go also around
the edges. In our tradition, we normally would use
five; in the Greek tradition, they... if they had five they would they
would use five... but they would be bigger ones — bigger than this actually —
but you'll often see that the priest will only use
one. And, in some traditions
— specifically on Mount Athos — they would say that you always have to have
at least two, because the the Lamb, the portion that's consecrated,
has to be from its own loaf; and then the other loaf, you
could take everything else from. And there's that famous story of Saint
Paisios of the Holy Mountain, when he was going somewhere for a Liturgy —
and he had two prosphora with him for the Liturgy,
and he met a bear on the way — and so he gave the bear one of the
prosphora and the bear let him go; and he went to have the Liturgy...
so one would assume that that Liturgy took place
only on one prosphora. And so, we continue to try to get the dough rolled out without any... bubbles... and we just continue. And, if you're ever interested in making
prosphora, there are lots of resources available.
There's actually a a website called prosphora.org,
which is very interesting. So here, we'll make the tops for the smaller ones;
and again, we just wet the tops a little bit, This board (actually, everything that's
here, other than the knife) is used only for making prosphora —
so that's the ideal. If you can afford it, if you have the time and the space and the
money, that whatever you use
is used only to make the prosphora. And, as I mentioned earlier,
when I'm making prosphora, I'm usually not talking about making prosphora, but
usually you say the Jesus Prayer or something like that,
so that the Altar breads are made with prayer, like everything. Because prayer shouldn't be
something we do; it should be something we are.
And, if we are prayerfully inclined,
if our heart is, you know, prayerfully directed — then everything we do,
whether we're changing a diaper or baking prosphora, or fixing the brakes
in the car... whatever we do, it becomes prayer.
Okay, so we're going to make two more of the larger ones,
and I'll make a couple of smaller ones. And I used a smaller...
a smaller amount of flour; a smaller recipe today,
just in the interest of time. But if I did the normal, like, six cups —
basically, both of these trays would be full of prosphora of the various sizes. Okay, and as soon as I'm done with this,
we'll finish it off. And one of the very beautiful things
about the Liturgy in general, the Eucharist in particular,
is the fact that we use bread and wine. You know, you think if Jesus wanted
to give us something that we would share as a meal
in His memory... I mean, what would be better?
The bread and the wine are both things that only
humans have. No other animals bake bread or make wine — so they
are quintessentially human foods They both require yeast;
and as we know, yeast is a living thing — so that is not just
you know, some dead matter that we eat, but it is incumbent upon
these little living creatures
to make the carbon dioxide that lets the bread raise and
lets the wine ferment — so this is a very, very meaningful thing —
we often don't think about it, because nowadays we don't think about where we
get our food much at all — but the fact
that these... this food and drink: the bread and wine
had deeply meaningful connotations, in a spiritual
and religious sense for the Jews; and building upon that,
they have deeply-meaning spiritual connotations
for us, as Christians. When I was a little boy, if a piece of
bread fell on the floor, we were taught you had to pick it up,
kiss it and then eat it. Bread was holy.
And nowadays, unfortunately — some might think "fortunately" — we really don't, you know, we don't
appreciate bread — unless perhaps we are very hoity-toity
kind of people, who make sure that we get our
"artisan" bread for a relatively heavy price, because we are
bread connoisseurs. But for most of human history,
I mean, bread — that was the basic food. And for our grandmothers
(in my generation; great grandmothers for those who are younger),
in their generation, basically, no matter where you lived in the world,
if you were a normal person — not somebody who's really well off,
you know, the the mother's job, the wife's job
would be to get up, you know, before the dawn, go to the
well — which might be several hundred meters, maybe a kilometer away;
get water; grind grain to make flour; make that
flour into bread — so that when your family woke up,
you would, you would have something for them to eat.
And that's why I find it very, very amusing when people nowadays say:
"Oh, you know, Father — we're too busy to come to church! You know,
we have so much, you know, that we have to do —
and, you know, in the old country, like they didn't have anything better to do!
You know, they, you know... they basically..." I don't know what they think —
they sat around and watched Oprah or something...
I don't know. But you know, the the people worked
very hard — no matter where. And I think of the people here, for example,
if you go to Western Canada — we were just talking about this with
friends — where you have, you know, let's say five miles
to the church... and people would go there
(sometimes more than five miles), you know, when they had all those farms
in all the quarter sections... and people would go,
get up in the morning, hitch up the horses; then go there
with a horse and buggy; be there for Liturgy, which was usually
longer rather than shorter... and that was just what they did. I's a very beautiful thing, you know,
that that dedication that people had. And so, now, with all our labour-saving
devices, being able to get water out of the tap
and flour out of the bag, we really have to consider:
number one — how grateful we should be to God that we have all these labour-saving
devices; and secondly, that all these
labour-saving devices and opportunity, that if they're saving us
time — that that might be time that we might devote, maybe at least
part ways, to God. Anyway, we're going to poke the holes in these; and then put
them in the oven. O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Господи, Ісусе Христе, Сину Божий,
помилуй мене, грішного. Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ Θεού,
ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Господи, Ісусе Христе, Сину Божий,
помилуй мене, грішного. Κύριε Ιησού Χριστέ, Υιέ Θεού,
ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Господи, Ісусе Христе, Сину Божий,
помилуй мене, грішного. Κύριε, Υιέ Θεού,
ελέησόν με τον αμαρτωλόν. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy upon me, the sinner. Amen.
And now... to the oven! And we place them in the oven:
325 degrees Fahrenheit, for about 25 minutes — but have to
check on them. When the bottoms are getting a nice golden crust on them,
and the top just, just begins to turn a little bit
golden — that's when we pull them out And so, 25 minutes to a half hour later,
we pulled the prosphora out of the oven and you see how on the bottom, we have a
nice golden color. The prosphora that has
the Ісус Христос Ніка — that seal; these will be used either
for the Lamb which becomes the Body of our Lord; or for the commemoration of the
living or of the dead. The prosphora for the Mother of God —
this is where that triangular portion will be taken out in
commemoration the Mother of God. The prosphora for the Ranks of the Saints
— each one of these little triangles will be excised and put
on the Diskos in commemoration of the
various ranks of the Saints. And, as you see this large one we made —
the Greek style or Byzantine style just to show you
that it has five [seals] — the three of Ісус Христос
as well as for the Mother of God and for the Ranks of the Saints — five
different seals incorporated into that one seal there. Here, we have
the smaller ones which will be used for commemorations
by the people if anyone gives a list of names
to be commemorated for the living, for the dead, for health.
They would... the priest would take particles, put them on the Diskos
in the proper place and then the prosphora would be given back to the
people that they can take home they can divide it among the family
and eat it. And, we have
the film of the Proskomedia which you can look at, which will show
you how all of this is done during the Liturgy of
Preparation, the Proskomedia which takes place
before the Liturgy begins. Thank you for watching; and please do
take a look at the other demonstration videos that we've prepared
about those portions of the Divine Liturgy
which the faithful normally don't see. And if you would feel called
to make prosphora, please feel free to talk to your priest about it;
and as mentioned earlier, you can find lots of information
on the internet about how to make prosphora: different recipes, etc. —
but the most important thing is talk to your priest, get a blessing;
and then if he blesses you to do so, it's a very
wonderful way of serving your parish. May God bless and keep you —
Спаси вас, Господи!
