The best way to lose weight. Why His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama Eats Meat

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Exactly one week before the start of Lent, Orthodox Christians refuse to eat animal meat. For Athos monks, this is not a big event in life, because they do not eat meat at all, adhering to most of the year strict fast. For the “better parting” with meat during the period of Maslenitsa and Great Lent, we have prepared excerpts about not eating meat from the lives of the ascetics of Holy Mount Athos.

Venerable Paisios the Holy Mountaineer

1. He kept fasting and fasting endlessly, Ekaterina Patera recalls about then little boy, the future Athos saint Paisios Svyatogorets.

“My child, did you eat anything today?” a woman once asked.

- Not. And how can I eat when my mother cooks everything in one pan: both meat and lean. The pot soaks up the meat, and I can't even eat the lean food that's cooked in it.

“My child, but your mother is such a neat person, she washes dishes well with water and ashes ...

– No, I can’t eat from this dish.

2. After the army, the Monk Paisius also did not eat meat, justifying himself to others by the fact that it supposedly disgusted him. In fact, he avoided meat in order to accustom himself to the conditions of monastic life.

3. Saint Paisius once recalled about himself: “When I was sitting in the yard and eating two tomatoes with a piece of cracker, I began to think about the blessings of God… Suddenly a young man approached me, who a few days ago asked me to take him novices. So that he would not see me crying, I immediately went into my cell, washed my face and, having cleaned up, went to open the gate. Apparently seduced by my delay, he tells me, “So, so, uh? And you are considered an ascetic! He ate meat and, as soon as he noticed me, he immediately disappeared so that I would not see you. Now I understand who you really are!” Dumbfounded by such an accusation, I laughed and did not try to justify myself. I was surprised only at how easily he succumbed to bad thoughts.

4. One day three hunters came to Elder Paisios. They asked the saint to eat beans. But since they had meat in a sack with them, they left it behind the fence of the monastery on a tree, because the Monk Paisios did not allow meat to be baked in the monastery.

5. Saint Paisios thought about meat: “Unfortunate worldly people eat meat, but they still have no strength: their legs tremble, they cannot fast, and all because they live with spiritual anxiety and excitement and inside they have no stop produced bile and gastric juice. When a person organizes himself internally, even a small amount of food will nourish him.

Elder Dionysius (Ignat)

1. “Meat is not unclean food, it is food given by God. But the holy fathers decided that in monasticism they should not eat meat under any pretext, so that it would be easier to struggle with carnal passions.

Saint Silouan of Athos

1. The saint recalled the following about his childhood. One Friday, forgetting about fasting, he boiled pork and took it to the field where the harvest was going on. The father of the future saint crossed himself and began to eat boiled meat. Only six months later, he said with a soft smile: “Son, remember how you fed me pork in the field? And it was Friday. You know, I ate meat like carrion." The boy gasped, "Why didn't you tell me?"

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” my father replied.

Many years later, Saint Silouan said: “I would like to have such an old man. He never got irritated, he was even and meek. Think, you endured half a year to correct me without embarrassing me!”

Elder Neofit Karamanlis

1. He prayed on Mount Athos for 88 years. Not to mention meat, his monastic diet did not include eggs, fish, or even vegetable oil. His Charter provided for complete abstinence from oil, even on Maslenitsa, Christmas and Easter. Easter eggs they had boiled potatoes dyed red.

Saint Gregory Palamas

1. Saint Gregory recalled about himself: “The grandson of the great emir sent his man to us. After we sat down, fruit was served to me, meat to him. During the meal, he asked if I never eat meat and why. Then I answered him that this is how it is supposed to be.

Saint Nicodemus the Holy Mountaineer

1. He once wrote: “It is disastrous to desire food that is delicious, sweet, and tasty... Learn this by the example of the whole people of Israel, who desired to eat meat, and fish, and onions, and garlic, and leeks, and cucumbers, and melons. For this, God allowed the Israelites to suffer great punishment and death.”

Recall that in the 7th century, the Byzantine king Heraclius promised that if God would help him in the war against the Persian king Khosroi, he would ban the consumption of meat in the week that precedes Lent.

The holy fathers also advised to give up meat, so that people would not be burdened by the body, suddenly switching from polyphagy and meat to strict fasting.

The preparatory week for Great Lent is popularly called Maslenitsa or Cheese Week.

"Orthodox heritage of Ukraine on Mount Athos" - for "UNIAN-Religion".

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Rev. Vasily Polyanomerulsky

ABOUTabstaining from brashen forbidden to monks

Foreword

For what reason are collected from Holy Scripture these answers to resolve questions about abstaining from brashens forbidden to the monastic voluntary promise

There are many of us who speak, but few who do, but no one should hide the word of God or move away from it due to his negligence, but, confessing his weakness, should not hide God's truth, so as not to be guilty of us, along with the transgression of the commandments, and in the interpretation of the word God's, as Saint Maxim said. But since I, despondent and worthless, have been able to read with diligent zeal and undoubted faith the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as well as teaching and paternal books, and learn from their many useful words but I have no good deeds, then the word of the Lord convicts me: “Physician, heal thyself” (Luke 4:23). on the other hand, I am horrified by the fate of that slave who hid his talent and is deprived of any justification, not only because he himself was idle and idle, but especially because he did not convey the word to other listeners, as the divine Maxim believes.

I saw that some of my brethren, to whom during my monastic vows I, unworthy, was named a godfather, while traveling through other lands, are convinced by some people that supposedly eating meat by monks is not a sin and not a violation of a vow. “For,” such people say, “to eat or not to eat meat is in the will of everyone, and this is not a law or an inviolable rule. Some of the ancient fathers ate meat, some did not, but it was in their will, for the apostle said: “He who does not eat, let him not rebuke, and he who does not eat, let him not condemn” (Rom. 14, 3) ”and so on. Some, in all these words, finding justification for their ignorance, devoid of any forgiveness, begin to treat eating meat lightly.

A lot of bewilderment about this, which announced to me, led to the most thorough research and, with God's help, I found a very useful ancient story in the Official Book of St. Nikon of Montenegro. This holy teacher, having read the epistle of Cyrus Peter, the Patriarch of Antioch, who allowed monks to eat meat, did not tolerate this in any way, but out of divine zeal, like Phinehas (see Numbers 25:7), piercing this patriarchal scripture with the sword of reproof, as if with a spiritual spear, declared delusion and spoke out against the vice, saying: “The patriarch, by his passionate will, cast passionate teaching into monasticism and cited the fasting rules of Basil the Great as justification for this. But this should not be silent, for what does this antiquity mean now, when the eating of meat is completely forbidden to monks? That was at the beginning of Christianity, but now it is invalid, ”and other things that will be said later.

In 1749, I asked the Most Blessed Patriarch Cyrus Sylvester of Antioch, in the presence of His Majesty Mr. Konstantin Nikolaevich, Prince of Ugrovlachi, about this. And then His Holiness gave my thinness a blessing to speak and write against those who teach monks to eat meat. Based on this, I dared, although I lacked any boldness before God, to collect from the Holy Scriptures and from the books of church teachers and from the types of great monasteries, which the Holy Catholic Church accepts and adheres to, evidence of what is now not at all befitting for monks, looking back for antiquity, there is meat. And not in order to denounce or condemn others, I gathered this, but only in order to instruct my brothers, assuring and strengthening, and leading them away from such trampling of conscience and fearing the righteous judgment and vengeance of God that befell that ancient bishop Or 1 I because of his sons Hophni and Phinehas (see 1 Sam. 1-4).

Unworthy Elder, Vasily Schemamonk

Study

About abstinence and non-tasting of meat by monks: where did this start from?

The divine apostle called everything of the Old Testament a shadow of the future and the intelligible (see Col. 2:17; Heb. 10:1), as the most sacred Gregory the Theologian also says: He represented the three main passions: voluptuousness, greed and vanity, the first of which, that is, voluptuousness, as if a kind of payment for their work, the Israelites took with them from Egypt and because of it many times, more prompted by it, tried to return again into Egypt, as shown in the second and fourth books of Moses, called Exodus and Numbers."

“For,” says the Scripture, “the whole host of the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying: “Oh, it would be better if we died, smitten by the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat over meat cauldrons” (see Ex. 16, 2 and 3 ). And again: "And the children of Israel sat down and wept, and said, 'Before that, he will feed us with meat, for our soul is dried up, there is nothing but manna before our eyes.' And Moses said, “O where do I get meat to give to all these people, for they weep before me, saying, Give us meat to eat.” And God commanded Moses to say to them: “Be clean in the morning, and you will eat meat, for you wept before the Lord, saying: who will feed us with meat? How good it was for us in Egypt! And the Lord will give you meat to eat until it comes out of your nostrils, and it becomes disgusting to you” (see Numbers 11:4-20).

And in the exodus of the ancients from Egypt, the most godly fathers see an image of the departure of the monks from the world and renunciation of it, while food or food prepared for them from seeds and fruits of the earth can have the image and perfect likeness of manna from heaven. Just as manna was sent from God to the Israelites from above, and not meat, so from the very beginning, all people were given to eat by God Himself earthly seeds and fruits from trees, and not meat, once desiring which and despising the heavenly manna, the ancient Israelites died in the wilderness: “For yet, - it is said, - the meat was in their teeth, and the Lord became very angry with the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great ulcer, and they called that place “Coffins of whims”, for whimsical people were buried there ”(see number 11, 33 and 34). “Whose bones,” says Basil the Great, “fell in the desert? Are they not seeking meat-eating? For while they were content with manna, they defeated the Egyptians and passed through the sea, but when they remembered meat and cauldrons, they did not see the promised land.

So, finding here a reason and a reason, to all those who oppose the good tradition of our God-inspired fathers about abstinence from meat according to a voluntary monastic promise, we present only one thing in response: if some of the ancient monks were involved in meat-eating, then God accepted these customs just as and Old Law blood sacrifices. “And it’s clear that initially God did not want to establish such sacrifices for them, but, condescending to their infirmities and seeing their raging and overwhelmed by the desire of victims, allowed them,” said the divine Chrysostom. So is the eating of meat: initially it was not so much the will of God, but indulgence and a forced matter. That is why this was subsequently abolished by the God-bearing Fathers, which will be sufficiently and truly shown below. Since the monastic promise seeks its original existence and dispassion, and not the indulgence revealed to Noah, it is necessary to choose the food given by God to Adam in Paradise, and not to Noah after the flood. For food is the first evidence of the fear of God and shows the love and reverence of a monk.

Question: about whom the monks adopted the custom of not eating meat - after all, the divine apostle Paul clearly opposed him when he wrote to Timothy: Brashen, which God created for the faithful and those who know the truth” (1 Tim. 4:1-3)?

Answer:Although there were heretics called Manichaeans, Encratites, Eustathians, Marcionites, Saturnians and Priscillians, who called the meat of all animals, wine and marriage unclean, yet we do not need to have any doubt about all this now, since by the grace of Christ the Holy Catholic Church , cursing the heretical blasphemy about the brushes, honors abstinence. It is worth paying attention to how the devil, seeing that this weapon of his has completely weakened, takes up his first cunning and scolding, with which he cast down the primordial from paradise and proceeded to condemn him to death. And about this the divine Paul wrote to the Philippians not only with ink and pen, but more with his tears: glory in their study, who are wise on the earth” (see Philp. 3, 18 and 19) and so on. Interpreting this, the divine Chrysostom says: “There is nothing so unworthy and alien to a Christian as to seek comfort and peace. Your master is crucified, and you are satiated. Carry the cross not just, but with compassion for the sufferings of the Savior on the Cross. For everyone who is a friend of satiety and this repose is an enemy of the cross of Christ. Paul weeps over what those laugh at, for whom, as he said, God is the womb. Therefore it is God to them, that they say: "let us eat and drink." Do you see what evil is satiety? For to others God is possessions, to others it is the belly, and their glory is in shame. And is it only about those (about the Jews) that this is said, but those who are here escaped this reproach, and is there no one who is guilty of this? Does no one have a belly as a god and shame as a glory? I want and really want none of this to happen to us, and I don’t even want to see anyone guilty of what I said, but I’m afraid that this would not be said more about us than about those who lived then. When someone spends his whole life in food and drink on the womb, would it not be appropriate to say about him that God is his womb and his glory is in shame?

P therefore, it is most fitting for us monks to avoid such impudence and fearlessness before God, about which sins little caring, the entire Latin and Lutheran race explores the above and below, scriptures and ancient stories, with a sly spirit collecting words and justifications for the constant use of meat, becoming like hornets and wasps who, not knowing how to collect honey from the flowers of the field or fruit trees and plants, feed on the carrion of the flesh of animals, or rather, they, like beetles, born in manure, feed on manure. In general, each of us who is disgusted by such a disposition needs to be like bees, collecting from the Holy Scriptures and the lives of the venerable fathers honey words (like bees from flowers - honey), which can quench the lust of a voluptuous spirit and subdue us in obedience to Christ and the tradition of the holy fathers. ours, completely forbidding the monks to eat meat.

Question:If God allowed the righteous Noah to eat meat after the Flood, for “every animal,” God said, “will be for your food, and I give you everything like green grass” (Genesis 9:3), then what will be the sin or what virtue to the monks, Eating or not eating meat?

Answer:Not to eat meat before the Flood was a common law for all people, originally given to Adam by God in Paradise. “For behold, I have given you,” said God, “every herb of seed yielding seed, and every tree that has fruit of the tree yielding seed in itself, this shall be food for you, and for all the beasts of the earth, and for all the birds of the air, and every creeping thing that creeps on the ground, which has a living soul in itself” (Genesis 1:29 and 30).

And the fact that after the Flood they began to eat meat seems more like an allowance of God and condescension to our intemperance than a law of God. “For after the flood,” said Basil the Great, “God allowed Noah and after it all people to eat meat, not as necessary for our nature, but as a condescension to our weakness. For the Lord knew that people are cruel, and allowed everyone to enjoy. And with this allowance, other animals began to eat meat without fear, rebelling against each other. It is possible for those who wish, imitating the life of Paradise, and now to guide themselves and direct themselves to this life, avoiding the enjoyment of many and various dishes and eating the fruits and seeds of trees. We will reject the superfluous, as unnecessary, not because we consider it vile, for we honor the Creator, but as undesirable because of the complacency of the flesh.

One should be surprised here how this divine hierarch, in one of his fasting words, allows the monks to dip bread in a liquid in which a small piece of meat was boiled, and eat for some kind of delight. Here, in a word for six days, he forbids the eating of meat, calling it food that arouses passions, and all who wish to imitate the aforementioned paradise life, commands to eat only seeds and fruits of the earth, and Basil the Great himself had bread and water for food, according to the testimony divine Gregory the Theologian. And from this it is known that even in the time of this great teacher, some of the monks did not completely abstain from meat, since this was not yet forbidden.

When our venerable father Anthony the Great, the first desert-dweller, completely refused to eat meat, as the very description of his life shows, since then this good establishment of abstinence from meat, as food, which arouses voluptuousness and because of which the bones of the ancient Israelites fell in the wilderness, and the Israelites did not see the Promised Land. For just as then manna was called angelic bread, because it came down from heaven, so now bread, and not meat, is angelic food, which is sent to many saints from above by holy angels.

After Great Anthony was the Monk Euthymius, after him - Savva the Sanctified, whose names are supposed to be remembered even in the rank of monastic tonsure, as the establishers and executors of all monastic deanery and vows. For they were the first according to Bose who taught the monks to abstain from meat. They saw that manna was sent from heaven to the ancients, but in the new grace, instead of manna, bread, wine and oil, and not meat, were sent to many desert dwellers, sometimes through angels, sometimes through celestial birds, and sometimes by the invisible hand of the Divine. And especially through the fact that in the desert Christ the Life-Giver Himself offered bread and fish, and not meat, to four and five thousand people, they came to know the will of God and the preference for the law given to Adam in paradise, and in typicals they completely forbade the monks from eating meat.

Here's something else to remember here: in the life of St. Paul of Thebes it is written that when he was sitting, talking with Great Anthony, a raven flew in, carrying whole bread, and, putting it in front of them, quietly flew away, and St. Paul said to Great Anthony: For sixty years now, I have received half the bread, but for the sake of your coming, Christ the Lord doubled the alms to His servants. The Great Onufry says the same about himself: “God, seeing my hunger, commanded the holy angel to take care of me: to bring a little bread every day.”

From the life of our venerable fathers Simeon and John: “John brought a certain man into his cell, and they found a meal offered by the invisible hand of God, unusual in the wilderness, for it was pure and warm bread, and excellent fish, and good wine.”

The life of the Monk Euthymius says: “It happened that pilgrims from Jerusalem came to the monastery of St. Euthymius, about four hundred men, and the elder, seeing that they were hungry, said to the steward: “Put food for these people.” He answered: “Father, the cellarer does not have bread to feed at least ten people, where can we get bread for so many people?” The saint said: “Go and do what I command you!” When the steward came to the place where the bread was stored, he could not open the doors, for the blessing of God filled this place to the top with bread. When several brothers were called and the doors were removed, bread fell from there, the same blessing was on the wine and oil: the vessels were suddenly filled. This is how it is said about the Great Euthymius.

Although there are many divine fathers who lived both in solitude and in a hostel and accepted the food sent to them from God, except for meat, however, for the sake of brevity, it is impossible to describe everything here in order. Only here we have shown that God, neither Himself, nor through the holy angels or birds of heaven, in the new grace never gave meat to His servants, but only bread and fish, wine and oil, which, according to economy, God the Word Himself tasted after His resurrection. from the dead. All this assures us that it is not befitting for us monks, looking at some ancient fathers, to eat meat now, since God's testimony that it is necessary to abstain from meat is much more and more reliable than human permission. Assuring us of this, God never appears to those who send flesh food to their slaves. Therefore, we should more submit to the good tradition of the holy fathers, who forbid monks from eating meat, than to those who eat it and allow others. For Christ the Lord Himself, honoring the law of food given to Adam in Paradise, fed, as it is said, four thousand men with seven loaves and small fish, and then five thousand, besides women and children, with five loaves and two fish, although He could satisfy them with meat feathered birds, as in ancient times the recalcitrant Jews in the desert. Then He Himself, after His rising from the tomb, appeared to His disciples, sometimes to eleven, before whom he ate fish and honeycomb (see Lk. 24:42), then to Simon Peter with other disciples on the Sea of ​​Tiberias, with whom he ate bread and baked fish (see John 21:13). But nowhere does He appear as a meat eater, or rather, nowhere is this mentioned in the Holy Gospel. And seeing that the Evangelists do not mention anything about meat, showing Christ the Lord eating only fish, bread and honey, we believe that this, in the direction of our conscience, is nothing but the preference for the law on food, given in Paradise to Adam from the very beginning, and this is an example and a prescription for monks to eat such food, not meat. For all the divine life of the Lord on earth and His exploits were an example and a model for us to follow His steps (see 1 Pet. 2, 21), for He said: “If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me” (John 12, 26).

Question:If there were any virtue or sin for monks in abstaining from meat or in eating it, then would the holy Ecumenical Councils not make it law for monks to eat or not eat meat? But if the Councils are silent about this, how can everyone know the truth?

Answer:This question causes great surprise and is full of extreme recklessness. If even in the ancient law the law of God was different, the tradition of the elders was different, and the arbitrary promise of every individual person was different, for it is said: “A husband or wife, whoever is promised a vow, to be cleansed by the purity of the Lord, may he abstain from wine and strong drink, and let him not drink osta wine and osta from strong drink, and let him not drink fir-trees from bunches of wine, and let him not take away bunches of fresh and dry, all the days of his vow ”(Num. 6, 2 and 5) and more: “A man who promises a vow to the Lord or swears by an oath, will not defile his word: all the tree will come out of his mouth, let him do it” (Num. 30, 3), - then why don’t you accept such a thing in the new grace? For when you renounce the world and accept of your own free will all the rules and traditions of monastic life, is this not a voluntary promise? Do not think, then, that the holy Councils, silent about the abstinence of monks from meat, give the monks, in their voluntary vows, a pretext to despise the good traditions of the God-bearing fathers - let it not be so - for by such silence they mainly affirm these traditions. If the Holy Councils considered that the abstinence of monks from meat is contrary to the charter of the Holy Church, then, of course, they would forbid it and would not accept typical types for the Holy Church: Jerusalem, Studite and Athos about the quality and quantity of food that all Christians, that is, monks and worldly, are guided until now. If you are tempted by the silence of the Holy Councils, then understand it this way, that not only the Holy Councils do not establish a law for the monastic promise through rules and prohibitions, but our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, although He showed many examples and deeds to the monastic promise by His God-manly life on earth , however, nowhere confirms these vows with threats and hell, like His other sacred commandments, but what does he say? - "If anyone desires to follow Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). And he said to that young man: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and follow me” (Matthew 19:21). Why, then, should monks demand a law, and why legislate this to the Holy Councils, if a voluntary monastic promise according to God is itself a law and a rule for them? The firmness of the same vows legitimized by God in the Old Testament.

Question:But we are not talking about the entire monastic vow, but only about one abstinence from meat, which from apostolic times to the time of Basil the Great, many monks ate without any condemnation. Why is it now a temptation?

Answer:It has already been said enough that not only did the God-bearing fathers reject the eating of meat by the monks as food that conveniently arouses passions, but above all, the Lord Himself was an example and model for this, for, showing His displeasure to eating meat, He never sent to His servants meat, but only bread and oil, sometimes fish and wine, the same food He Himself ate providentially after His Resurrection. And he commanded a multitude of people to offer only bread and fish, and not meat. And the fact that it was shameless for some of the ancients to eat meat is seen as nothing more than the fact that abstinence from meat had not yet been determined, and not only did this not exist, but the monastic rite itself had not yet come to its full beauty. and perfection. Saint Simeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica, said: “And this is not surprising, for the very ecclesiastical deanery with all the rites, even up to the very Seventh Ecumenical Council, gradually accepting the pious tradition, came to perfection, and not all at once from the beginning it was like that. Since it is impossible for anyone, and even not piously, to reject or despise anything from the written or unwritten Church Tradition with the justification and under the pretext that not all of this received its beginning and perfection from the holy apostles, then it is not righteous and not pleasing to God, when someone, justified by the first, seemingly imperfect monastic rule and definition, eats food from meat alien to the monastic image and vow.

in life Saint Alexander, the teacher of the monastery of the Unsleeping Ones, says: “Ravul, the mayor, followed the advice of the Monk Alexander and, getting up in the morning, took with him a lot of family and friends, and they walked through the impenetrable desert all day, before the eleventh hour, and they saw a certain villager leading a laden cattle, on which there were clean and warm breads and other food - garden and garden fruits, and they asked him: “Where are you from and who sent you here?” He said, "My lord has sent me to you." And in that moment he became invisible. Alexander said to Rabul: “Take food and be not disbelievers, but believers” (see John 20:27). And again the monk learned that some of the citizens came to him, wanting to know where he gets food for many brothers, being a beggar, and he said to one brother with those men: “Go and bring a man standing in front of the gate with warm and clean bread ". When this man entered, he asked him in front of everyone: “Where did you come from with these loaves?” He answered: “When I was taking these loaves out of the oven, a certain bright young man imperiously commanded me to carry them after him, and, having brought me to the gate of this monastery, he said to give the loaves, but he himself became invisible.” And what will those who eat meat say against this? Doesn't this clearly show that monastic food, among which there is no meat, is sent by God? And to the Great Onufry, who was still a boy, Christ the Lord gave clean and warm bread with His own hands. Also, the Holy Virgin Theotokos Herself, who loves monastic abstinence from meat, talking face to face with Blessed Dositheus, gave him these three commandments, saying: “Fast, do not eat meat, and pray often, and you will get rid of flour.”

Question:IN ancient church many of the monks who ate meat, were they not fasting and more pleasing to God than those of today who do not eat meat?

Answer:The divine apostle well said: “I know no sin, but by the law, but the acceptance of guilt by the commandment has created in me every lust. For the commandment that came, for sin quicken, but I died” (Rom. 7, v. 7, 8, 9, 10). The Lord also says: “Unless he came and spoke to them, they had no sin” (John 15:22). Fasters and abstinences in the ancient Church, since they did not have a tradition about the quality of food, were not guilty of the crime of the good and pious establishment of the God-bearing fathers: Anthony, Euthymius, Savva and others. But now the monks who dare, breaking tradition, eat meat, will they not be judged by the same judgment and answer before God, as it is said about Israel: lusts: as if there were people buried who were lusting” (Num. 11, 33 and 34). But we, who hear this, should be very afraid of the fact that we, having the monastic food established by the holy fathers, like the ancients - manna from God, abhor it, being carried away by the lust for meat, just like those whose bones fell in the wilderness. We cannot be like the ancient Church in everything, in which, fearing the infidels, the priests sometimes celebrated the Liturgy in the evening and at night, communing the Holy Mysteries of those who ate food that day, and Holy Baptism they postponed until the age of thirty, and deacons were allowed to marry after ordination, and the Holy Mysteries were taught, placing them directly into the hands of all those who took communion.

If these and many other ancient customs, as well as the eating of meat by monks, are put aside, is it in good time those who respect everything ancient without distinction, to accept, along with the eating of meat, all these abandoned customs? How can we compare with the ancient fathers, who ate meat with such great abstinence and cutting off lust, with which we now do not even eat unsatisfactory food, servility to the womb as to God, serving him and desiring to offer him sacrifices of voluptuousness and intemperance and without eating meat? But if even without meat, with meager food, we plan to perform voluptuous service to the womb, then what shall we impute our voluptuous disposition and slavery to the womb, when we allow ourselves, at our desire, to taste the natural sweetness of meat? The voluptuousness that arises from eating meat is like the Chaldean furnace, kindled seven times, and that which also appears conceived from simple food, is equal to the lions' den into which Daniel was once thrown. And just as this furnace was more terrifying and the torment in it was more frightening than the lions and this den, so much more terrible is the service of gluttony and lust, enslaved by the eating of meat, than simple food. And how much more difficult it was for someone to approach and look into the furnace, the flame of which spread forty-nine cubits, and see the three youths thrown into it, than to approach the den with lions and Daniel sitting there with them - so much more inexcusable is the audacity of those who despise the types and the statutes of the holy fathers and those who eat meat today, than the boldness of the ancients, who, having no tradition about this, ate meat.

Question:But wasn't the same meat as now eaten by the ancients? And what is the difference here?

Answer:The meat is the same, but not the same reasoning, for if there is no tradition, there is no crime. Now, the eating of meat by monks is contrary to tradition, or rather, it is contrary to the law originally given by God, and is imputed to disobedience and self-will before God. If that ancient Joanadab, the son of Rehab, forbade his entire tribe to drink wine, and to his sons who keep this commandment, the prophet Jeremiah said on behalf of the Lord: their father: For this reason saith the Lord of hosts: A man from the sons of Jonadavlih the son of Rechabel shall not fail; stand before me all the days of the earth” (Jer. 35:18-19).

How much better and much more favorable would it be for God if we, monks, would listen to our holy fathers, who commanded not wine, but meat, as food that easily inflames passions, not to eat all the days of our life! For just as our blessed fathers are more numerous and higher in holiness before God than Jonadab, so it behooves us to keep their commandments par excellence. Where are those who wear useless antiquity on their lips and ruin the pious tradition of the holy fathers about the quality of food, established for monks? Are they not destroying the oldest sons Jonadab their antiquity by one praise of God to them for such great obedience and keeping the commandment of the fathers, which not only seems to many to be small and is imputed by them to nothing, but is also most despised by everyone both in antiquity and now? The tradition of our God-bearing fathers was originally legitimized in paradise, then in the Holy Gospel, or rather, it was witnessed by the God-manly life on the earth of Christ our Lord and transmitted by the Most Pure Mother of God, and also confirmed by the food sent from God to many saints, as it is already was said above. Therefore, it is appropriate to consider and call it the first law, which is given from God and which we must keep with undoubted faith and good will from the bottom of our hearts, and not only the tradition of the fathers invented later. Arguing with us about this and asking: who established this tradition? - it must be answered that initially God himself legitimized this, but the eating of meat was allowed by God only because of our weakness, just like the ancients - the sacrifice of livestock.

Therefore, eating meat for the laity, and not for monks, is neither a sin nor a virtue, according to a simple saying: neither sin nor salvation brings a person, but abstinence from meat is the saving law of God and a godly virtue. The first reason for holy fasting is the curbing of the flesh and the taming of every wordless movement, which is very necessary and useful for monks. The second is that fasting makes the soul easy for prayer and heavenly meditation. The third one is that by doing this we serve God and fasting is piety. The fourth is that fasting is the satisfaction of God and the propitiation of His righteous wrath. Fifth - fasting is a petition from God for eternal and temporal blessings, and so on, as the divine Chrysostom said: “Fast so as not to sin; fast because you have sinned; fast to receive; fast so as not to lose what you have received.” Although fasting is divided into four types, that is, spiritual and moral fasting and natural and ecclesiastical fasting, monks should still always refrain from meat-eating. spiritual post- this is a removal from sins, while moral fasting is moderate eating, natural fasting is not to eat at all, not to drink until a certain time, following the example of the Ninevites, fasting is church fasting - abstinence from meat according to the law and rules of the church, and worldly people should to keep this fast four times a year and every Wednesday and Friday, in reverence also on Monday, along with the monks. However, our word is not about this fast, but about the constant abstinence of monks from meat, while eating fish, cheese, eggs and oil at the time indicated in the tips. If we promise before God to keep virginity and arbitrary poverty all the days of our life, which is higher than natural, then shouldn’t we, according to the tradition of the holy fathers, have the will to naturally abstain from meat? Since our monastic life and promise seeks nothing else, but only heavenly dispassion, it is necessary to choose the food given by God in paradise. Why are those five virgins also called by the Lord foolish (see Mt. 25:1-12)? Is it not only because virginity, the highest of all virtues, was preserved, but almsgiving, the easiest and most convenient virtue for everyone, because it is natural, was not found. In the same way, it is equally foolish for monks to practice the highest and most difficult virtues, that is, virginity and voluntary poverty, and not to keep the very easy virtue - abstaining from meat.

The light of the whole world and the glory of the monks, especially the Church of Christ, - Mount Athos, Kyiv and all great Russia, where in these end times the holy fathers shone with such great holiness, who, obeying the tradition of the most ancient holy fathers, ate only seeds, oil, fish, cheese and milk, and we do not see a single one of them eating meat. Their life and abstinence gives all the laity a zeal for fasting and causes great surprise that in other places the monks eat meat. And many of the monks, convicted by their conscience, tremble before an unknown judgment for this.

Therefore, it is not befitting for us to joke about serious things and, justifying our gluttony with ancient tales and stories, dare to eat meat, thinking that this is left to the will of everyone, and is not the law of God and our renunciation before God and His holy angels.

Question:If, as you can see, abstinence from meat is the first law of God, and not just the tradition of the holy fathers, depicted in the types and accepted by the Holy Catholic Church, and is spreading in all Orthodox countries, that is, Greek, Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian, Ugrian and Moldavian, and others, then where did the beginning of this contempt and fearlessness in monks come from?

Answer:The beginning and the end, or rather, the source of many iniquities before God in this world, is the old Rome, which from the time of the apostles was prophetically called the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, as it is written in Revelation (see Revelation 17, 3-5). From there, along with many other evils, began the contempt of the pious patristic traditions about the abstinence of monks from meat. His Beatitude Patriarch Cyrus of Constantinople Michael Cerularius writes against the Latin heresy: “If in the Roman Empire someone from the monastic rank becomes a bishop, then without fear he allows the monks to eat meat, and he himself, if a minor illness happens to him, eats meat. And in cenobitic monasteries, everyone, being healthy, eats fat. This is also acknowledged by the Roman Barony, when in the seventh chapter he describes the events of the year 1054 of the Lord: “Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in agreement with Leo Ohrid, Archbishop of Bulgaria, wrote a diatribe against the Roman Church, listing such Latin errors: they liturgical on unleavened bread, they eat strangled , the monks eat their meat, and so on. It is not surprising that the Greek monks learned to eat meat from the Latins. When the Romans occupied Jerusalem for eighty years or more, from 1099 to 1186, and installed their Patriarch and King in it, then many voluptuous Greek monks had to adopt meat-eating from the Latins, especially when Constantinople itself was taken by the Latins. Barony writes about the events of 1191: “When Balsamon, Patriarch of Antioch, dared to set out in a letter many blasphemies against the Pope, considering and calling him vile and unworthy not only of being remembered at the most holy liturgy, but even of the Christian name, then, two years later, the Latins They took Constantinople and appointed their Patriarch." All this was by the permission of God, the help and action of Satan, who was released after a thousand years of imprisonment in the abyss, as the seer said (see Rev. 20, 1–3), and who showed the sign of his new return to Rome as a retreat of the Latins from the new Roman monarchy, and the separation of the Holy Cathedral and Apostolic Church and permission for monks to eat meat, and for laity to neglect the holy fasts preserved by the Holy Church since the apostolic days.

And about the fact that Basil the Great wrote in one of his fasting words that the monks boil a small piece of meat in salt water and, dipping bread in this brine, eat, let's say that they did this not out of voluptuousness, but to strengthen the body, and the saint wrote about this not as a legitimate tradition, but as a custom of the time. Approving and preferring the law originally given by God, he commands the monks to eat plants and fruits of the earth, and not meat, the eating of which is allowed because of the intemperance of people after the flood, as was said about this. Therefore, the God-bearing Fathers, seeing that the eating of meat is unprofitable for monks and kindles lust, forbade it completely and, against this antiquity, outlined the rules in typics. Therefore, in view of all antiquity, it is fitting for us to adhere only to that which constitutes our salvation, and to abolish that which is not. For back in ancient history it is written about Saint Peter, the chief apostle: “He said to Clement: “Why do you, not understanding my life and will, want to always be with me? Do you not see that I live only on bread, and olives, and a meager amount of vegetables?” Such antiquity is useful for understanding our monastic vows. This is what Clement of Alexandria writes about the holy Evangelist Matthew in the second book of the Teacher, in the first chapter: “He ate only herbs.” James, the apostle, always abstained from meat, as St. Eusebius writes in the second book of history, in the twenty-second chapter. What else can we say about those Christians who lived near Alexandria and who were instructed by St. Mark? - They took food once a day towards evening, but they always abstained from meat, as St. Eusebius writes about this in the second book of history, in the seventeenth chapter. And Saint Epiphanius, in his book against heresies, says: “There were many who, of their own free will, always abstained from meat.” And St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the fourth teaching of the catechism also testifies to the abstinence from meat, which was the custom of many Christians. Also, Augustine in the book on church customs, in chapters thirty-one and thirty-three, and Jerome in book three against Jovian, and Theodoret, and many others write in their books about the constant abstinence of Christians from meat. If from the beginning there was such diligence and diligence among the laity in abstaining from meat, then isn’t it better for him now to be among the monks? And why do you need to talk so much? Let us only say the very words of Christ: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many who enter through it. And the gate is narrow and the path that leads to life is narrow, and those who find it are few” (cf. Mt. 7:13-14).

And since here in many places mention is made of the types of great monasteries compiled by the holy fathers, it is necessary to briefly quote excerpts from them. The Studio typical, determining the quantity and quality of food, says: “It is worth knowing that after Easter until the week of All Saints we eat boiled juice with oil and herbs, we also take fish, and cheese, and eggs, except Monday, Wednesday and Friday.” The Typicus of Jerusalem writes: “It is fitting to know that the whole year in simple days when there is no feast or fast, at the fifth hour we cling to the liturgy and after the dismissal we enter the refectory and eat two dishes: one boiled, and the other scalded greens or juice, on fast days, that is, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the whole year , - dry eating, according to the legend of the divine fathers. The typical of the holy Mount Athos says: “It is worth knowing that from Easter to the week of All Saints in the refectory we eat two dishes with butter, greens and juice, cheese and fish, if we have.”

About the Nativity of Christ: “If the feast of the Nativity of Christ happens on Wednesday or Friday, we allow: for the laity - meat, for the monks - cheese and eggs, and we eat from the Nativity of Christ all the days until the eve of Holy Theophany, the laity - meat, the monks - cheese and eggs."

About the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos: “If this holiday is on Wednesday or Friday, we allow only fish and wine. If on Monday, the laity are allowed meat, and cheese, and eggs, but the monks - only fish and wine.

Such is the tradition of our God-bearing and all-blessed Fathers about abstinence from meat, preserved from the days of the Apostles by the mere will of every pious monk, but in the years of Great Anthony and Euthymius, Savva and Theodosius and other God-bearing Fathers, collected and approved by types and writings, accepted by the Holy Catholic Church and even to this day not blotted out of the books of the Church. Therefore, the opponents of abstinence, although they do not dare to efface this tradition, nevertheless have an irreconcilable enmity and hatred towards these rules, and sorrow and down, seek out such words and ancient stories in order to destroy and exterminate them from the monastic rank.

Such was their clergyman Cyrus Peter, Patriarch of Antioch, about whom in the book called "Taktikon" in 1033 it is written as follows: He completely rejected his son, but because of the permission to eat meat and everything else, he accepted and justified, and therefore he opposed the most blessed Patriarch, Kir Michael Cerularius. “And this, from the beginning to this place, I chose from various epistles of Kirk Peter,” writes the Monk Nikon of Montenegro, “and some, as not having much harm, I missed, namely, the permission for the laity of the unlawful eating of the meat of some cattle and animals, what are bears and the like. And the fact that he expounded the doctrine of eating meat according to his passionate thoughts, which is very harmful for monastic life, and, having found fryazhsky apostasy, introduced the passionate doctrine of his own passionate will and cited the fasting words of Basil the Great and the life of Pachomius, this should not be silent. For what does such antiquity mean today, when the eating of meat is completely forbidden to monks? The Armenians also talk about such antiquity. So Kir Peter wrote about her, being enslaved by passion, as Kir Luka, the metropolitan of Virza and my spiritual father, told me, for when Kir Peter accepted the appointment to the patriarchate, this my father was also there. The king said to him: “We give you the Patriarch, but he does not leave the eating of meat.” The elder dared to say in front of everyone: “My lord is kind and reasonable, but we do not receive in Antioch the Patriarch who eats meat.” Then Cyrus Peter answered him: “Stop, my lord, do not forbid me this, for I will not leave the eating of meat, and our holy king condescended to me in this.” But since the elder did not allow this, Cyrus Peter was completely forbidden to eat meat. When they all left Constantinople together and came to Antioch, the Patriarch was enthroned, and those who did not eat meat sat down with the Patriarch, and those who ate sat separately. When the meat was cooked, they first brought it to the Patriarch, and he smelled its smell with pleasure, and then they took the meat away to those who ate it. The elder, sitting near the Patriarch, again forbade him, as before before the king, and said in front of everyone: “My Lord, do not do this, for you will raise a great scolding against yourself.” Then the Patriarch, unable to bear this word, took a piece of meat and said: “Shut up, old man, so that I don’t hit you with it!” The elder answered: “I, my Lord, said this, seeing your mercy towards me and hoping for it; if you do not command, then I will not speak any more. The patriarch said: “The holy king ordered me to eat meat, but you forbade me, and now I have no consolation, except for one smell of meat.” This is how my spiritual father Luka told me. But I, fearing that someone else would not accept deceit into my soul, before I die, set out in a letter what I know for sure.

And also about this same Patriarch, some told me that he secretly ate meat, and from this I understood: what he wrote about meat was caused by passions, just like indulgence for other things, for blood and strangled, which Fryags also have them. He writes to the Patriarch of Constantinople: “Blood is eaten in the Greek land, and even in Constantinople itself, and you cannot forbid it, how can you say a flask is not a strangled one?” But let it be known to all that he writes in this way according to his passionate thoughts, to tempt and stumble many, as the Scripture says: “Everyone is carried away and deceived by his own lust” (see James 1, 14). And the Lord Himself says: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you yourselves do not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and you rebuke others” (see Matt. 23:13). And about those who accepted the talent and did not teach others, he says: “Cunning servant, it was fitting for you to give my money to the merchants, and when I came, I would have taken mine with profit” (see Mt. 25, 26-27). And the divine Chrysostom, so understanding this, says: “It would be fitting for you to speak and teach, and bring profit to Me - instruction in good deeds. But for us, who see and hear all this, what is it appropriate to say or understand? For if the light that is in us is darkness, then what is the darkness (cf. Mt. 6:23)? And where is the word of the divine Paul, thundering: If meat offends my brother, I will never eat meat.(see 1 Cor. 8:13)? And he did not add: If righteously offended, but anyway. And I do not say, - continues Chrysostom, - meat sacrificed to idols, which is forbidden to eat for another reason, but if even what is in our power and is permitted tempts, I move away from it, and not one day, but all the time of my life, as said the apostle, I will never eat meat.”

But, as we see, the entire Diocese of Antioch, with all the consecrated rank of bishops, both clerical, monastic, and lay, did not want to have a Patriarch eating meat, and considered this a temptation to themselves. However, Cyrus Peter did not pay any attention to this, or rather, he despised the Apostle Paul himself, who had the mouth of Christ, interpreting whose writings, the divine Chrysostom said in the twenty-first teaching on the letter to the Corinthians: “Let us hear this, beloved, and let us not despise tempted, and let us not lose our salvation! Do not say to me: "What is it that a brother is offended, because it is not forbidden." But I will tell you more: if Christ Himself would allow, but you see that someone is injured, then wait and do not use the permission. And he also says in the twentieth lesson on the same epistle: “All this was said not only to them, but it is appropriate to say to us, who are neglectful of the salvation of our neighbor and speak such satanic words: “What do I care that he is offended and this one perishes?” This is cruelty and extreme inhumanity." Thus, by the power and action of the apostolic spirit, the divine Chrysostom legitimizes what is permitted and left to our will, but brings much harm and temptation. The eating of meat is not permitted to monks and is not left to the will of anyone. Do not eat meat - the law and the establishment of God, given before the flood, and after the flood, as it is said, Noah was allowed to eat meat by condescension. That is why this tradition was canceled by the God-bearing fathers, and confirmed by the typists, not as something new and unattested, but as original and connected with the being of the primordial Adam, and, above all, more pleasing to God Himself than eating meat. And if this is the truth (as it is), then who can wash the monks, black like the Ethiopians, and eating meat at the temptation of the world, to wash away vice? Where are those who now say and write that the holy Empress Theophania commanded the monks not to eat meat? Does Baronius, who was a Roman, stop their mouths and testify in the description of 1054: “Patriarch Michael Cerularius reviles the Latins not only because they serve on unleavened bread, but also because they eat strangled and all unclean things, their monks and bishops eat meat, and so on.” The blessed Empress Theophania lived in the year 885, and if in the days of His Holiness Patriarch Michael the monks, according to Barony, did not eat meat, then how could one hundred and sixty-nine years before that, in the days of Tsar Leo the Wise, they wanted to eat it? Moreover, Cyrus Peter, arguing with the Antiochians about meat, would not have kept silent about calling the abstinence of monks from meat a tradition of women (that is, of Empress Theophania), and not patristic. But he did not say this, knowing for sure that such eating of meat began in Rome, as all church teachers agree about it, and it was not abolished and stopped by Empress Theophania, but by our wise and holy fathers, and abstinence from meat began from them, more correctly but to say, from the Creator of all God Himself, speaking to Adam and laying the law: “Behold, I have given you every seed herb yielding seed, and every tree that has the fruit of seed seed in itself, and this will be your food” (see Gen. .1, 29).

This book was written by the elder schemamonk Vasily

Extracted from the Sling, from the Act of the Council convened in Kyiv against the heretic Martin, from the message of His Holiness Patriarch Luke Chrysoverg of Constantinople to Metropolitan Konstantin of Kiev with all the spiritual rank, where, among other things, he writes this: “Armenians command monks to eat meat, but you don’t listen of this Armenian teaching, for although before Orthodox monks ate meat, but then the holy fathers conciliarly forbade the monks to eat meat, and those who ate it were ordered to be subjected to penance. And you in no way allow the monks to eat meat, but order them to abstain from it in every possible way and not to eat, as we received from the fathers from ancient times and passed on to you. In the lives of the twenty-first day of the month of July, it is said: “It is worth mentioning what God announced to the holy prophet Ezekiel: “If a righteous man, trusting in his righteous life, dares to commit any sin, and in that sin his death will befall him, and he dies without repentance, then God will no longer remember all his former righteous and God-pleasing deeds, but in the sin in which he dies, he will be condemned. Likewise, a lawless person who has spent his whole life in iniquity, if at his death he repents and in repentance comprehends his death, then God will no longer remember all his former iniquities, but he will be numbered among the righteous ”(see Ezekiel 3, 20; 18:21-22).

Translation from Church Slavonic. languagepublished by:Life and writings of the Moldavian elder Paisius Velichkovsky. Repr. play ed. 1847 Holy Vvedenskaya Optina Pustyn, 2001, pp. 138–164.

I always thought monastic food was bread and water. But one day I found myself in the monastery refectory - and my opinion completely changed. I have never tasted more delicious meals in my life. What's the secret? The monks of the Holy Panteleimon Monastery, on Mount Athos, always welcome pilgrims cordially. The law of hospitality is strictly observed here - first feed, then ask questions. However, no one will bother you with questions even after dinner: everyone, they believe, has his own way to the temple.

We were not at all surprised by the modesty of the meal: bread, buckwheat porridge, seasoned with stewed vegetables, pea stew with herbs (for which worldly life you won’t even look and you certainly won’t look), baked potatoes with sauerkraut, fresh cucumbers and kvass. There were also olives (by the way, as they explained to us, you can eat them with pits) and dry red wine (at the bottom of the mug). But the taste of these dishes… He amazed us! The most appropriate word in this case is ‘unearthly’. I asked one of the monks about this. He silently raised his eyes to the sky and quietly, without the slightest hint of instructiveness and edification, answered: ‘It is important with what thoughts, not to mention words, a person starts preparing food and the meal itself. Here is what is written about this in the ‘Kiev-Pechersk Paterikon’: ‘It was given to one elder to see how the same food differed: those who blasphemed food ate sewage, those who praised honey. But you, when you eat or drink, praise God, because the one who blasphemes harms himself.

Sauerkraut was with carrots, beets and fragrant dill seeds. It was they who gave the habitual for us, Russians, winter harvesting amazing taste. And, as the monks said, such cabbage is very useful for the good functioning of the stomach. Above a mound of cabbage, laid out in simple aluminum bowls, rose a gleaming soaked apple. Several of these apples must be placed in each tub when sauerkraut is sauerkraut. They also give it a special flavor.

Meat delicacies and pastries are not for Athos monks. In their opinion, gluttony is a dangerous trait that entails diseases of the body and various mental ailments. Fatty foods ‘salt the soul’, and sauces and canned food ‘thinn the body’. For the monks of Athos, eating is a spiritual process, somewhat of a ritual act. Prayer - during the preparation of this or that dish (in this case it will definitely succeed), a short prayer before sitting at the table, a prayer after eating food. And the very atmosphere of the spacious and bright refectory, the walls and ceiling of which are painted with paintings on biblical scenes, turns a modest monastic dinner into a festive feast and a feast of the soul. ‘Likewise, a layman’s kitchen,’ the monk told me, ‘should not be a place for family squabbles and political discussions, but only a refectory.’

Most recently, I happened to visit the Goritsky Resurrection Convent, which opened in 1999. In the monastery refectory, sisters Yulia and Nadezhda carried out their obedience. They were young, hardly more than twenty in appearance, but they handled the kitchen utensils confidently and without fuss. Novelties of technological progress, such as mixers and vegetable cutters, bypassed these holy places. The nuns do everything themselves: they knead the dough in large vats with their hands, and churn the butter with hand-made buttermilk. Yes, and the monastic meal is prepared not on gas in dishes with a non-stick coating, but on a wood-burning stove, in cast iron. Because, say the nuns, and it turns out more tasty, rich and fragrant.

I watched the younger Nadezhda shred the cabbage, and admired: the strips were thin, thin, one by one, as if each one was measured out. I salted it lightly, sprinkled it with vegetable oil, laid out a flower from thawed cranberry beads and dill sprigs on top - not a dish, but a picture, it’s even a pity to eat, and put it aside with the words; ‘Let the cabbage give juice, then you can put it on the table’.

I heard somewhere that monks shouldn't decorate their meals nicely, so I asked Sister Nadezhda about it. ‘Well, what are you,’ she replied, ‘God cannot be against the beautiful, as long as it comes from a pure heart, does not become an end in itself and does not lead to bitterness if something does not work out. In general, I noticed,” she added, “that I have become very good at cooking here, although I have never studied it, and I have not yet accumulated much worldly culinary wisdom. It’s just that when there is peace in the soul and love for the world and those who live in it, everything you do turns out well.

As she said this, she was carving up a herring to prepare an aspic of salted herring minced with mushrooms. The nun soaked dried porcini mushrooms in advance in cold water and now put them on fire. After they were cooked, they passed through a meat grinder and mixed with finely chopped herring fillet. I added black pepper, chopped onion to the minced meat and ... began to paint a new culinary still life. She formed a herring from the minced meat, carefully attached the head and tail, put small, parsley, small water lilies of boiled carrots around and poured everything with mushroom broth mixed with swollen gelatin. It turned out a lake with an appetizing fish inside.

“You can,” she said, seeing my enthusiastic look, “decorate your dish as you like. Yes, and it is not necessary to cook it using dried mushrooms. It’s just that my sisters and I collected so many of them over the summer and autumn ... And you, if you don’t have dried ones, take ordinary champignons. Although, for me, not a single mushroom grown in ‘captivity’ can compare with forest ones. Such a spirit comes from them! .. I must say that the dinner for which Sister Nadezhda prepared her 'culinary masterpieces' was not festive, and of the guests it was attended by only a few travelers like me, who were real then pilgrims can be called a stretch. But here they accept everyone and do not ask how strong your faith is: once you have come, it means that your soul asks.

In addition to aspic, Nadezhda prepared a few more unusual dishes from mushrooms. For example, mushroom cheese, caviar and some unusually tasty cold appetizer. dried mushrooms for it, it is soaked in water for an hour, and then boiled in salted water until tender. They, as the nuns said, can be replaced with fresh ones: champignons or oyster mushrooms. In this case, it is enough to boil the mushrooms, finely chop, mix with chopped onions, add salt if necessary and pour over the sauce. It is prepared from grated horseradish, diluted with a small amount of strong bread kvass and mushroom broth. The dish is not spicy, but only with a slight aftertaste of horseradish, which should not interrupt the taste of mushrooms.

Of the cold appetizers on the table, there was also boiled beetroot with a spicy sauce made from boiled egg yolks, grated horseradish and vegetable oil. This dish was very familiar to me, but I tried boiled beans fried in oil for the first time - very tasty. The dish, as the sisters told me, is prepared, albeit simply, but for quite a long time. Beans must first be soaked in water for 6-10 hours, then boiled in salted water until tender, but so as not to boil, put in a colander, dry slightly on fresh air and only then fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. A couple of minutes before readiness, add browned onions to the cauldron, salt, season with spices to taste and remove from heat. The beans are served cold.

While Nadezhda was conjuring (although such a word is not very suitable for a nun) over cold dishes, Julia was preparing the first and second. The first was the monastery borscht with beans and kalya (soup cooked in cucumber pickle) with fish. For the second - pilaf with vegetables and raisins, lean cabbage rolls, pumpkin repecha - something like a pumpkin casserole with rice: pumpkin and rice for this dish are pre-boiled separately from each other, then mixed, beaten whites and yolks are also added to the minced meat and spread everything in a greased form. It turns out something between a pastry and a second course. For dessert, the sisters made an apple pie and poppy seed cakes with honey - poppy seeds. And although the dough was kneaded without using butter, it turned out lush, tender, and the filling ... Baking with poppy seeds is generally my weakness.

As you can see, the nuns ate and treated the pilgrims without meat at all. But believe me, we didn't even notice it. On the days of fasting, the number of dishes on the table, as the nuns said, decreases, fish, eggs, and dairy products disappear. But the meal at the same time does not become less tasty and, of course, remains just as satisfying.
Saying goodbye to the hospitable sisters, I asked if they had heard of ‘Angel Curls’ jam? They say that this recipe was given to the abbess of one of the Spanish monasteries by the Virgin Mary on the night before Christmas. Pumpkin fibers (in which the seeds are hidden) are boiled in sugar syrup along with pureed hazelnuts. ‘No,’ the nuns said, ‘we haven’t heard, but we also make jam from pumpkin fibers, which most housewives simply throw away. You just need to separate the fibers from the pulp and seeds, dry slightly (air-dry). Prepare sugar syrup, pour it with fibers, leave for a day, and then cook like our jams - five minutes: 3-4 times for five to seven minutes, (It is important to completely cool the jam after each cooking and only then put it on fire again.) and cook monastic cuisine at home. Perhaps then the upcoming post will not seem so insipid and difficult.

To the question Why the Orthodox can eat meat, but the monks - no. Never at all, and not only in the post? given by the author Irina the best answer is Dear Irina, this is an ancient tradition of Russian monasticism. The tradition is useful (it is easy to see why), but not universal. Now in Russia there are many monks and bishops who eat meat and do not hide it at all.
I pray for the late Hierodeacon Kallistos. He was very simple and kind person from village. He, a monk, was arrested and severely beaten. During interrogations, he was asked: Did you speak badly about Stalin and the Soviet regime? ! He, like a child in the simplicity of his heart, answered: No, no. I never said that. He was starved and beaten for several days, not allowed to sleep. Then the "decoy duck" (a secret agent of the NKVD from the prisoners) prompted him: and you admit it. He admitted. He was given SAUSAGE to eat, was sentenced to 6 years in prison and sent to a camp to cut down and fell wood. This simple and sincere monk ate meat and had no doubts, because otherwise he would have died. Some of today's monks and bishops eat meat, apparently for a different reason. It is not for us to condemn them.
By the way, it will probably be surprising for you to know that the Greek clergy and some Greek monks smoke. And in Greece, this is perceived as quite normal. But in Russia this is not accepted among the clergy and monks.

Answer from twig[guru]
without vegetarianism, it is very difficult to become a saint. Meat and an aphrodisiac, and a dead body and a deception for the stomach - lies in the stomach for 3 hours and creates the illusion of satiety.
This is for whom it is said: "Demons (passions) are cast out only by fasting and prayer?"
Probably, monks who have tasted (especially if the constant secret eating is private) the meat of the monks run away into the world.
After all, it is very easy to see how a person feels and what he achieves in spiritual life in accordance with his diet.

Answer from awake[guru]
the monk renounces life according to passions in general. He enters, as it were, into the Host of Heaven. If we approach formally, then three vows can be distinguished: vow of obedience - renunciation of life according to one's will; vow of non-possession - renunciation of personal property; and a vow of celibacy family life. Ideally, the rupture of these ties with the "world" should give a person freedom for spiritual work, cut off all worldly concerns. The monk is guided by the words of the Savior Himself: "... Deny yourself, and take up your cross and follow Me." As a sign of renunciation of the world and a new spiritual birth, the monk is given a new name.
The non-eating of meat by the monks is a tradition. But it is also born of spiritual experience. Real ascetics knew well the close connection between the spirit and the body. Through the body it is possible to influence the soul, and relaxation of the body immediately relaxes the spirit. The understanding of fasting in Orthodoxy is based precisely on the knowledge of this connection.
For monks, fasting has never been an end in itself, only a means. But very strong and effective. Therefore, meat - as the most "hot blood" product - was directly prohibited by many monastic charters.

Answer from ....I....[guru]
A person who became a monk made a vow to God of a fasting life, therefore he always fasts....

Elder Dionysius was one of the most revered confessors of Athos, one of the last pillars of the "old school" of Hesychasm. He was called the "Patriarch of Athos" and people of various nationalities came to him from all over the world. Father Dionysius passed away into eternity on May 11, 2004 at the age of 95, of which he spent 81 years in a monastery, including 78 years on Mount Athos, 67 of them in the cell of St. George "Kolchu", and for 57 years he nourished numerous spiritual children from all over the world. We bring to the attention of our readers a conversation with an elder dedicated to fasting.

Yes, everyone fasts as he pleases. But not everything happens the way we would like.

The fasts were established by the holy fathers at the seven Ecumenical Councils, and if we observe them, we are given great Divine grace. If you do not observe them, then it begins: “Ah, Petrov fast! Yes, it's not that important. Assumption Post! Yes, the Mother of God knows that we cannot fast. great post! Oh-oh-oh, well, this is already too much: a whole seven weeks. And so you invent all sorts of excuses for yourself and completely move away from fasting. But if there is no post, there is nothing! After all, fasting is divine grace.

And look, after all, the post was emasculated a long time ago. Even in those days when I was little, at school, during Great Lent they fasted only on the first week and on Passion, and in the interval between them everything was allowed to eat. But this is far from the truth, and if you have moved away from the truth, then we have already begun to limp. You limp first on one leg, then on both legs, until you say at all: “Come on, God knows him! I will live like everyone else."

See? You need to have some attention. A little attention - and God will help us.

Yes, what kind of a Christian is he if he does not honor fasting? Then it doesn't matter what faith you are. You say that you are a Christian, but if you do not fast, then how are you different from a pagan?

Do you see how evil progresses? Catholics did not fast, and justify themselves with evidence from Scripture, as they understand it, that fasting is not needed at all. And although there were Catholics at the seven holy Ecumenical Councils - after all, there were no divisions between us then - but little by little they came to the point that they no longer had fasting.

In Romania in 1939, I was talking to a Catholic nun, and she told me: “If I can, I don’t eat meat on Good Friday. If I can; if not, then eat.

On Good Friday, when the Savior was taken to the Cross, Catholics say that there is nothing wrong with eating meat! They, too, were orthodox Christians, like us, but look what happened?

So, I told you this as an example. After all, look, when a person starts to go down the mountain, he almost runs, because when you go down, it is more difficult to stop. It comes to the point that a person says: “Why should I fast? It is written in Scripture: what goes out of a person, that also defiles him, but what enters a person, this does not defile him.

Yes, it is - yes it is not. All fasts were established by the holy fathers, so that by fasting you would belittle the passions. You fast, honoring the passions of the Savior: “I fast because the Savior suffered for me,” and so on. Well, in the state in which humanity is now, what else to expect?

They say this: you can’t fast now because if you fast and don’t eat meat, you won’t be able to work in the field.

You see, people think so, but it's a delusion. This is a deception of the enemy, because human nature is now full of passions. And passions, if they settle in the mind, heart and thoughts of a person, become second nature. If they have become second nature, then the person begins to say: “If I do not eat meat, then I will die. That's it, this is the end." And with such thoughts, he really will die!

But this is not true. This is a passion imposed by the tempter, who manages the warehouse of all evils and plants the seed of evil deeds in our soul and heart. And if our nature is inclined to one of those evils that he throws at us, then he will continue to “help” us with this (evil). If you want to drink vodka, he “helps” you with this! If you want to eat more excellent dishes, he also “helps” you with this, until evil settles in the soul of a person. If you want to tell a lie, he “helps” you with this as well, until passion takes root, until it hatches, and if it hatches, then it already takes root in the soul and heart of a person. And if it has taken root, then this root is already becoming second nature, and you are already convinced that if you do not eat or drink what you want, then you will die. But this is not true! This is the action of the tempter.

That is, the passion that has taken root in the heart of a person, has taken root, it is already more difficult to eradicate it. Therefore, the holy fathers teach that every evil thought that is in our soul and heart is obvious, and we must be sure that it is from the tempter, and hurry to the confessor and say to him: “This is what my mind tells me, father. Here, my mind is inclined to this and that, ”for the spiritual father to give you instructions on how the grace of the Holy Spirit will enlighten him.

And by this you shame the enemy, because if you do not go to confession, then the passions that he brought into your soul and heart will destroy you. And when you can’t find a priest in any way, then confess to each other, as the holy apostles say, in order to at least get help and be healed, for otherwise you cannot be healed.

- Is there a chance of salvation for those monks who eat meat?

Look: the holy fathers initially decided that monasteries should be built away from people, that is, in the desert, so that a monk who performs repentance could keep his five senses pure, close to God.

The monk left the world in order to be closer to God, because a person, living in the world, slips into the wickedness of the world.

The holy fathers decided that monks should not eat meat, because it inflames passions more than any other food. A monk, if he eats enough, drinks enough and sleeps enough (sleep is especially important), then woe to him - he can no longer be clean. You will be fought by passions, carnal passions, which are colossal passions; therefore, the holy fathers set a limit for you to keep yourself: do not eat food that kindles carnal passions.

You also need, as a monk, not to sleep enough, because you, as a monk, do not need to sleep for eight hours. You need to ascetic, because the monastic life exists for this, so that you ascetic. After all, look at how the holy fathers write: even if your food is humble, as it should be for a monk, but if you sleep enough, passions will again fight you with terrible force.

Therefore, watch and pray in order to enter the Kingdom of God, that is, do not sleep as much as the body wants, but let us humble it with prayer and fasting so that passions do not kindle in us.

But what if they eat meat in the monastery? Obedience to the abbot or go to another place where he is not eaten?

The temptations of the enemy will not leave you alone, wherever you go. If you leave a monastery because they eat meat there, and go to another, then the enemy has already prepared other temptations for you there. But since you cannot correct the situation, then show obedience, and in time, maybe the leaders will decide that they no longer eat meat here, because, thank the Lord, the monks in the monastery have something to eat besides meat. If they cannot refuse meat, then eat so that only you can be seen what you eat, but not so that you are full.

Meat is not unclean food, it is food given by God, but the holy fathers decided that in monasticism they should not eat meat under any pretext, so that it would be easier for you to struggle with carnal passions. Therefore, they established a punishment for those who eat meat.

But since people have changed and there are disturbances in some monasteries, if the monks do not eat meat, then you better do your obedience, sit down at the table and eat, if this is a cenobitic monastery. But eat in such a way that only others see what you are eating, and do what the doctors advise you to do - get up from the table with some desire to eat more.