The custom of pressing stamps onto bread dough was widespread in late pagan antiquity,

and was used both in a religious context, such as for marking offerings with images of the

gods or their symbols, and for secular purposes, such as identifying the produce of

different bakeries. Although ancient Jewish bread stamps have been discovered, the vast

majority of bread stamps produced in the Byzantine period is for Christian ritual use.

Communal meals shared by companions (from Latin com- ‘with’ and panis ‘bread’) of

believers in Christ were the earliest religious occasions. The breaking of bread was

fundamental in Christian worship, in particular, thanks to its frequent appearance in the

Gospels and especially, its transformation at the Last Supper, instituting the sacrament of

the Eucharist (from Greek eucharistia “thanksgiving”): “Now as they were eating, Jesus

took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to his disciples.

‘Take it and eat,’ he said, ‘this is my body’.” (Matthew 26:26-29, cf. Mark 14:22-25, Luke

22:14-20).

Bread stamps were impressed both on consecrated Eucharistic bread (doron ‘gift’) and on

blessed bread (eulogia-bread). Eucharistic bread stamps are characterized by crosses and

christograms of various sorts. Till today it is the practice in the Eastern churches to stamp

leavened bread as part of the religious service. It is also impressed on unleavened host

used in Roman Catholic mass.

Its non-eucharistic uses included stamping all types of bread that were “blessed”: the

antidoron (‘instead of the gift’), the bread given to those who could not receive

communion; the 'commemorative bread' served at funeral banquets; 'bread of special

purpose' for feast days in honour of saints and martyrs, bread which had received special

prayers and blessings for the sick; bread distributed to pilgrims at holy sites; and bread

used in exorcisms to cleanse catechumens (candidates for baptism) of evil spirits and

restore them to spiritual health. The Christian eulogia-type bread stamp bearing people’s

names and blessings was used to mark bread offered to the church and blessed by the

priests. It is also possible that the stamp itself served as a eulogia, distributed to pilgrims

in lieu of bread, and did not actually function in the process of bread making, in

particular, those having a positive rather than inverted inscription.