Cheesefare
Sunday received it's name because the previous week we did not eat meat, but
only dairy products, such as milk, cheese, etc., as well as eggs and fish.
Many find
this rule of the Church to be "unreasonable", saying: "How is
milk of a lamb allowed but not the meat of the lamb, since milk is produced by
the lamb? How are eggs allowed and not chicken, since the first are produced by
the second?"
Of course
these people would have a point, if we maintained that the meat of the lamb or
fowl was tainted and for this reason we do not eat it. Then we should not eat
what is produced by them, since these also would be tainted. But through our
Church no food is tainted. This is what is taught by the apostle Paul in his
First Epistle to Timothy (4:3-5). Rather the Church simply divides food into
greater or lesser consumption towards self-restraint and, at certain times,
allows the one and forbids the other.
An
accurate response towards those who say the above has been answered by
Athanasios of Parios, a wise and important teacher of the Church, when he
writes to a certain doctor:
"You
criticize your friend because during Cheesefare he eats eggs, yet does not eat
the chicken which gives birth to the egg...? But what similarity can be made
between an egg, which is not alive, and a chicken, which is alive? The egg is
much lower than the fowl. And as proof I appeal to your own opinion, that is,
the opinion of a doctor. To whomever is sick and begins to approach the stages
of recovery you prescribe as food small and delicate chicks and not tough fowl.
For what reason do you do this? Because, you say, the fat and greasy foods will
harm him who now begins to recover from his sickness, since his stomach does
not have the strength to endure and digest heavy foods. If therefore there is a
difference between a small chick and a big chicken and the chick is, as a food,
much lower in strength than the chicken, and no doctor has ever said that the
egg of a chick or chicken is the same food or equally suitable for the sick, is
it not clear that unreasonable are those who criticize us for eating eggs and
not fowl?... They criticize us also that we eat olives, but not olive oil, even
though inside the olives is the olive oil. But within grapes is wine also. Yet
however many grapes we eat we will not get drunk; at most we will become
stuffed in our stomachs...."
Besides
this, it is well-known that with olive oil we are able to cook innumerable and
delicious foods, though olives are considered xerophagy (dry foods). Xerophagy
is to not eat cooked foods, but unprepared ones, such as bread with olives or
dry fruit, etc.
By Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos
Translated by John Sanidopoulos
Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/03/why-only-no-meat-during-cheesefare-week.html
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