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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 religious protests, we met for the first time a vegetarian stand in 1809 at a religious group calling itself the Christian 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 style is 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 different problems. In the West there are many groups of vegetarians 1 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 19th 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 the vegetarian 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 we have 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.

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

2 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 verse 29: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the 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 4 say, "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 subtitled Abraham receives the Holy Trinity at Mamre, a very important chapter both for as a triadic 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 it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they

3 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 all places 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 prophets Elijah, 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 was reincarnated in John the Baptist and the denial that was taken to heaven and is alive even nowadays.

Arriving in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark tells us about St. John the Baptist: "And John 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 world with 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 and eat." (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 nor strangled, 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.