Vegetarianism and Fasting

8/4/2019 Vegetarianism and Fasting

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VEGETARIANISM AND FASTING

Father Dan Bdulescu

... The New Age movement has convinced its most interested followers with a new lifestyle.

The New Age lifestyle is driven by several factors, among which the most widespread are the naturism

and the vegetarianism. In the history of Western Christian civilization, traumatized by various religiousprotests, we met for the first time a vegetarian stand in 1809 at a religious group calling itself theChristian Bible Church of England, unrecognized by the English state. They have adopted

vegetarianism put of spiritual reasons and not simply for health reasons. Of course, the vegetarian styleis already known in history as being proper to Asiatic beliefs, from where it is assumed to have been

inspired. The Ayur-Vedic Medicine recommends vegetarianism, also the macrobiotics preaches the

same thing in different stages of inner and outer cleansing, in various diseases or to solve differentproblems. In the West there are many groups of vegetarians1 who, besides doing a specific diet meals

propaganda on various stages, indulge in violent protests, even illegal, such as armed attack against

slaughterhouses or meat plants, animals release of farms, etc.Vegetarianism has always been based on certain philosophies of life. In India especially both

Buddhists and Hinduists do not eat meat and animals for the reincarnation belief in the possibility of

people in these lower forms of life, respect the principle of non-violence ahimsa and recognition of the

sanctity of life.In the modern sense vegetarianism has come into public consciousness in the 19 th century,

namely in 1847 when The Vegetarian Society, a nonreligious British organization popularized the term

vegetarian. In 1908 was founded The International Vegetarian Union, the union that includes all thevegetarian societies around the world in a series of congresses and still operates as a nonprofit

organization.

In the New Age there are a number of propagators of the way of vegetarian food. Of these wehave chosen the example of Anne Wigmore (1909-1994), a pioneer for a new conception of health and

founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston, U.S.A. Her "philosophy" continues in the

footsteps of Hinduism and Theosophy to argue that eating meat leads to selfishness and materialism,

while spiritual growth is guaranteed by the so-called "living food", i.e. raw vegetables.Also from Hinduism is taken and the new idea that animals are our friends keen, even our

brothers, who share with us the gift of life, and therefore should be treated well. Here are several New

Age assertions in this respect:- One reason for vegetarianism is mercy for animals.

- Another is that this diet promotes spiritual growth.

- A third is that we can feed more mouths if we live vegetarian.- In terms of health vegetarianism is far superior.

- The commandment thou shalt not kill includes of course all living things.

- Usually people who meditate intensively have passed spontaneously to vegetarianism.

1 There is also the notion of 'vegan' = strictly vegetarian without eggs and dairy.

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Faced with these assertions let us see what Scripture says about food. In Genesis 1:26, on the

human relationship with animals is written: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let

them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over

all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth". As they say on food at verse29: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which isupon the face of all the earth, and

every tree, in the which isthe fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.'" So here we see

so clearly the superior position of man relative to the animal, and the rest of visible creation. Indeed,the original food of the first people was a vegan one. But a few chapters further on, in Chapter 9, we

hear about God's covenant with Noah after the flood waters retreat. Keen to remind to ne-agers that

New Covenant is sealed until the end of time just with their favorite sign, the rainbow. Verses 3 and 4say, "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all

things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Here we have the

appearance of post diluvian time complete nutrition as we know it today, which certainly included the

beginning also the Hindu people.

Cap. 18 is subtitledAbraham receives the Holy Trinity at Mamre, a very important chapter both for as atriadic proto-theophany, as well as a dogmatic scriptural support of the only true Orthodox icon of the

Holy Trinity. Verse 8 describes the entertaining of the three "People": "And he took butter, and milk,

and the calf which he had dressed, and set itbefore them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they

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did eat." Here the Hindu-New-Age spiritualist foundation already crumble to the ground. If the

commandment: "Thou shalt not kill" in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:13) would include animals too, it

can not by no means explain the same chapter verse 24: "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and

shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in allplaces where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." The distinction between

food "clean and unclean" in Deuteronomy Cap. 14 has no relevance in this context.

Going again over few chapters and centuries, in the Book 1 Kings, Chapter 17, the prophetsElijah, verse 6 tells us that during the drought, "the ravens brought him (Elijah) bread and flesh in the

morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook." If the prophet Elijah holiness

is not normally put into question, we see that among the new-agers there is the belief that he wasreincarnated in John the Baptist and the denial that was taken to heaven and is alive even nowadays.

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Arriving in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark tells us about St. John the Baptist: "AndJohn was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts

and wild honey." (Mark 1:6). The Forerunner of the Lord is known that he lived almost 30 years in the

wilderness and fed of course in those unusual circumstances. The Saviour fed the people in the worldwith bread and fish (Matthew 15:34). And if all this were not enough, after the Resurrection the Lord

proves to His disciples terrified at the thought of seeing a ghost asking for food: "And they gave him a

piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them." (Luke 24:42-43)To all this it might be objected that anyway here was all about only fish. Therefore we go with

examples from Acts, Ch. 11, where the St. Apostle Peter tells the circumcised Jews his vision in Joppa

taken into ecstasy while praying: "I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts,

and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay andeat." (Verses 6-7). Environmentalists and animal friends need to think long on this passage, which

currently, they either do not know, or ignore it, because they do not agree.

The early Orthodox Church in its canons ordained the right attitude toward vegetarianism,fighting all the excesses of Bogomil type rigorists sectarians of later times. This refers to Apostle

canons 51, 53 and 66, Ancyra 14, Gangra 2, 21. Here is the content of Gangra Canon 2: "If any one

shall condemn him who eats flesh, which is without blood and has not been offered to idols norstrangled, and is faithful and devout, as though the man were without hope [of salvation] because of his

eating, let him be anathema." Comments in this regard have become superfluous now.

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