Meat-producing. Meat Week

IN Church Slavonic language The word “week” refers to Sunday. If we talk about the word “week”, which is familiar to the Russian language, then it corresponds to the name “week”. That's why Meat week- This is the Sunday preceding Cheese Week or Maslenitsa. And after these seven days it begins Lent..

It is worth noting that it is on Sunday, in 2015 it is February 15, that you can treat yourself to meat once again, but then you need to refuse to eat meat dishes.

Meat week: what can you eat?

People who honor Orthodox traditions, one is usually interested in the question of what to eat during these seven days, when the body is preparing for Lent. Let's talk about everything in order. First, we will determine what you can eat on Sunday (the week in the church sense), and only then we will discuss the diet for seven days.

So, on Sunday you can eat quite familiar meat products:

• Pork;
• Chicken;
• Veal;
• Lamb and other meats can be served on the table.

On this day strict prohibitions no for dishes. If you want lard or fatty sausages, you can eat it. True, you shouldn’t be too zealous and lean on meat, as there’s preparatory week, and then Lent. It is important that your body is ready for the transition to a more modest diet that does not contain meat.

Next comes the meat-eating week (7 days), in 2015 it lasts from February 16 to 22. All these 7 days without meat products are called Cheese Week. After it, Lent will begin, where the menu of believers will undergo a number of changes. Fish dishes, eggs, and dairy products will “go away” from the diet. Therefore, remember that the last day when you are allowed to eat meat is February 15th.

It is worth noting that church traditions very wise. After all, if you properly prepare your body for fasting, it will benefit you. If you follow church canons and give up meat a week before fasting, and consume fish for the next 7 days, this will prepare the body for Lent. It will last from February 23 to April 11, during this period it will be possible to cleanse the body of “harmful substances”, improve well-being and mood.

In general, on February 15 you will still eat meat, and from Monday the basis of your diet should be plant-based dishes. Prepare various porridges, for example, buckwheat, millet, rice, eat bread, first courses in vegetable broth, dumplings, vegetable stew, pancakes and other dishes without adding meat.

In the old days, housewives often prepared sbiten; now you can also make such a drink. This requires honey, spices (cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger, etc.) and medicinal herbs. If desired, you can add wine and hops to the drink, and then let it brew. Sbiten has a beneficial effect on the immune system and nervous system.

During this period, you can cook something simple and light. If you wish, you can try to recreate some old recipe; you can purchase the necessary ingredients at your nearest store. And if you can’t get some component, then replace it with products that are similar in composition.

Some people are also interested in the following question: “ Is it possible to eat fish??. There are no fish bans either on Sunday or for the following week. But since Sunday is the last day when meat products are allowed, it is recommended to taste them, and consume fish already during Shrovetide week.

In addition to it, you should eat dairy products and eggs, because all this will not be possible during Lent. By the way, there are no prohibitions regarding the varieties and methods of preparing fish; do it the way you like best.

Delicious recipe for Lent

And finally, I would like to offer a recipe for making delicious and aromatic pies with mushrooms. They can be prepared both during Meat Week and during Lent.

To prepare the dough you will need:

• Flour – 600 g;
• Vegetable oil – 100 ml;
• Boiled water – 1 tbsp.;
• Fresh yeast – 25 g;
• Salt – 2 tsp;
• Sugar – 1 tsp.

For the filling take:

• Mushrooms of your choice – 500 g;
• One onion;
• Sunflower oil without aroma for frying;
• Salt to taste.

Wash the mushrooms and boil together with the onion until tender. Then place in a colander and let the water drain. When the vegetables have cooled, cut into small pieces and fry on vegetable oil Add salt until golden brown.

Mix flour (2 tsp), sugar, yeast and 50 ml of water together and let stand for a quarter of an hour. After this, add the remaining ingredients and replace the loose dough. Place it in a warm place, and when it rises, “siege it” a little with your hands. Do this manipulation twice. After this, you can make filled pies. They need to be baked for half an hour in an oven preheated to 180 degrees.

The penultimate Sunday before the start of Lent is called Meat Week and the Week of the Last Judgment.

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The rector told Vesti readers about the holiday Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, Vladyka Pavel.

Meat week 2017

Why meatless? Because on this day before Lent we fast on meat and meat products, that is, we prepare ourselves for the next week, on dairy products, on fish. That’s why it’s called meat-free, that is, release, the end of eating meat dishes and they should not appear before our eyes until Easter.

The second name is the Week of the Last Judgment. What you and I are often afraid of. "And indeed the Judgment of God is nothing more than a manifestation of absolute truth and absolute justice Divine love. The Lord would be unfair if he fulfilled what a person asked for himself. A person cannot do anything without the Divine will, and if he does something contrary to the will of the Lord, then he must answer for it,” explained Metropolitan Pavel.

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He recalled that we very often hide the truth even from ourselves. “We often think, that’s how good I am, I did so many good deeds, I helped my mother - and you have to, I helped a person cross the road - it’s your responsibility to help your neighbors, I did something else, but it’s your duty, and you you also expect human help in difficult moments. And a person who has lived his entire earthly life must still realize his sin, his untruth. There is more untruth in us than truth. And how we love to flatter ourselves. John Chrysostom testifies to this, discussing the topic “Truth and the highest justice,” he says amazing words, penetrating into the very essence of what judgment is, he said that just as it is impossible to run away from oneself, it is impossible to hide from the Last Judgment. because there is a Last Judgment God's Judgment, and God placed this Judgment in our soul,” Vladyka Pavel emphasized.

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The Last Judgment: how to save your soul

Icon " Last Judgment with the Creation of the world and the story of Adam and Eve." Late XVIII century

According to him, we often think that God does not know, does not see, but the Lord is the Knower of the Heart, He knows not only our deeds, but also our thoughts, how disgusting we are, that often we ourselves do not realize. Therefore, the atrocities that we commit will testify to us of our untruth.

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“We often think: “I will tell the Lord...” What can you say? If your conscience convicts you. In a conversation with one sectarian, I heard such words that a person at the Last Judgment will have a kind of star on his head and all his sins will be listed , and she will tell Christ that she did not sin because she did not do this... And I ask: “Have you tried to think and comprehend the words that you say? You may not kill in deed, but you can kill with a word, has that ever happened?” “Yes, I wanted to.” “But you don’t repent to anyone. Did you help your parents?” - “No.” - “What are you going to talk about and justify yourself to God, doesn’t He know?” Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you don’t need to relax yourself in the full sense of the word,” the abbot of the Lavra urged.

The Last Judgment: what awaits us

Painting "The Last Judgment". Stefan Lochner

The Canon reads: “A river of fire is coming, the book is unbending.” What book? Book eternal life. Nations will stand on both the right and left sides of Christ.

On the right are those who were worthy to be heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, to whom He said: “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Because you have toiled in earthly life, you have suffered so much earthly burden, care and malice, that is why I am today I give you joy, and I will be with you." As He said: “That I will not drink grape wine until I am in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

And those who will stand by left side, probably, they will also have some kind of seal like Cain, a curse, He will say: “Depart from me, you cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and all his henchmen.” “Who is he prepared for? God? No. He is prepared by the devil for his co-heirs. We read in the Gospel: “The Father has many mansions.” That is, the Heavenly Father has prepared, like an earthly child-loving father, the abodes of the Kingdom of Heaven for his spiritual children, and Lucifer, the fallen angel, has prepared suffering and torment for his sinners, for his sons, fiends and devils, you can’t call it anything else. Therefore, no one here will ask what you did or didn’t do, you will know for yourself, and your conscience will gnaw at you. you will go where you don’t even want to. You won’t want torment and suffering, but you will have no choice, you will have one path on the left side into that fire, where there is eternal torment, it will be like a conveyor belt, collecting sinners, and there are countless of them,” said the Metropolitan.

The Slavic word “myasopust” means stopping eating meat. IN Roman Catholic Church This concept corresponds to the well-known word “carnival” (from the Latin words carne and vale, literally “farewell, meat”).

This Sunday is followed by Cheese Week. It is called so because from this day on, according to the Church Charter, it is not allowed to eat meat, but only dairy products, eggs and fish. The meaning of this ancient custom is to gradually accustom yourself to retreat from pleasant foods and move on to Lenten abstinence without sadness.

On Wednesday and Friday of Cheese Week instead of Divine Liturgy A special service is performed, similar to the Lenten rite. On Saturday of Cheese Week, the memory of all the reverend fathers who shone in feat is celebrated.

This week, starting on Tuesday evening, at certain moments of the service the priest leaves the altar and, standing on the pulpit, facing Royal Doors, loudly pronounces three petitions, accompanying each of them bow to the ground. This is the Lenten Prayer St. Ephraim Sirina." Rising after the third bow to the ground, the priest makes twelve waist (small) bows, each with the words “God, cleanse me, a sinner.” At the end of them, straightening up, he loudly pronounces the prayer of St. Ephraim in full, all three petitions one after another, without interruption, and makes another prostration, after which he goes to the altar. Following the priest, imitating him, all those praying in the temple bow.

Prayer of Ephraim the Syrian

“Lord and Master of my life! Do not give me the spirit of idleness, despondency, covetousness and idle talk. Grant the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to me, Your servant. To her, Lord the King, grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother, for blessed are you forever and ever. Amen."

By reading about the Last Judgment, the Church reminds us that participation in “eternal joy” will be determined by how justified we are before Christ at the moment of the General Resurrection.

The story of the Last Judgment is called a parable, perhaps because it is on a par with two other stories that are really parables: “about the ten virgins” and “about the talents.” But when we hear the words of the Lord: “When the Son of Man comes and all the holy angels with him...”, we must understand that this is a direct revelation of God about how everything will be. Only the division of people into goats and sheep is figurative.

What is the difference between those who are likened to sheep and those whom Christ compared to goats? The former have love for God, the latter have love for themselves. How is this verified at the Court? Attitude towards one's neighbor. It is no coincidence that at the Judgment Christ equates Himself with his neighbor: what they did to their neighbor, they did to Me.

How are love for God and love for man connected? Why is our neighbor our “pass” to Paradise? Even among the Old Testament Jews, the commandments about love for God and neighbor were essentially inseparable: “... love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is similar to it: love your neighbor as yourself.” It is impossible, loving God, not to love your neighbor - the image of God. God is Love, and if a person has a reciprocal feeling for God, then it cannot withdraw into itself. A heart warmed by love is capable and strives to warm the hearts of others.

At the first steps of ascent to God, it can be difficult for a person to understand whether he truly loves God and what this love is. He goes to church, confesses, takes communion. God helps him and answers his prayers. And it may seem to a person that “everything is fine” with God: he sincerely loves the Lord, reading the Gospel or reflecting on His life, he has compassion for Him.

But Christ offers man an extremely simple criterion for testing this love: what did you do in My Name when your neighbor was in need? At the Last Judgment, Christ does not ask about the attitude of our neighbors towards us. His questions seem to be very simple: did he feed him, did he visit him in prison?.. And probably there is no person who would not do a “good deed” at least once in his life. However, the whole meaning of Christ’s judgment questions comes down to something else, but the most important thing: have you heartily pitied another person in your life? After all, what is important to God is not the “good deed” that a person has done, since God so commands, but how merciful our heart has become.

In what the main problem sent into eternal fire? Surely they, who knew a lot about God, honored Sunday, went to hospitals and prisons, and gave alms. But at the same time, their heart remained cold, unaffected by the pain of another, mercy somehow bypassed it, and therefore it remained unsuitable for a blissful eternity. But if our loved ones go into the eternal fire, can we be blissful in Paradise? The Apostle Paul was ready to sacrifice his salvation so that the Jews could be saved. Moses was ready to sacrifice himself, not to enter the holy land, just so that the people of Israel would have mercy. Indeed, such is a person’s love for God, such is his sacrifice for his neighbor.

What can we say about our hope? Everything beyond the Last Judgment is already connected with the mystery of the next century. One can only say with faith that God, who Himself is Love, in His power and strength is capable of resolving dramatic discussions about whether my neighbor will be saved “from the eternal fire.” We do not know. But God knows, and we believe, that if we worry about our neighbors because we love them and want their salvation, then how much more so will God, who ascended to the Cross for our sake.

Kontakion of the Week about the Last Judgment

Meat week is one of a number of preparatory events preceding Lent, which, in turn, is the threshold of the main Orthodox and ancient Christian holiday Easter, which personifies the greatest event - the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The entire preparatory period before Easter

Significance big holiday emphasizes the preceding Lent, during which a person prepares morally and physically for this event.

Great Lent itself is preceded by preparatory weeks (there are three of them) and Weeks (of which there are four). It is immediately necessary to make a reservation that, translated from the Old Church Slavonic language, a week is a week in the current understanding, and a Week is Sunday. The word is believed to have come from the verb “not to do,” which means prohibiting work and devoting oneself to God. All, speaking modern language, the preparatory cycle before Easter lasts 70 days. It begins with Sunday (the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee) and ends Holy Saturday which marks the end of Holy Week - last week. Lent in church usage has another name - Holy Pentecost. It is preceded, as noted above, by three weeks, during which a strictly defined order of services is carried out.

Four Sundays - four milestones

Actually, not all the days of these weeks have significance, but only Sundays, which are given names - about the publican and the Pharisee, about prodigal son, meat week and cheese week. The last Sunday coincides with the ancient, pagan and much-loved holiday - Maslenitsa, immediately after which, on Monday, Lent begins. The essence of these preparations is to prepare for a gradual transition to severe abstinence. This order itself is very ancient and has been known since the 4th century.

The meat-eating week, continuing a person’s spiritual repentance, begins to prepare him physically. It is the last day when you can eat meat. This day is also called the Week of the Last Judgment, because all 6 days preceding this Sunday, pages from the Gospel dedicated to the Day of Judgment are read at the liturgy.

Beginning of fasting for meat

What does meat week mean? This is the day after which the “vacation” of meat stops, so it was necessary to eat plenty of it. It was believed that on this day it was customary to slurp cabbage soup 12 times and eat meat 12 times. This is the Sunday that ends the Meat Week, which begins on Monday, after the Week (Sunday) of the Prodigal Son. This week is also popularly called motley or pockmarked. This happens because on two of its six days (Wednesday and Friday) they are already “fasting for meat,” that is, fasting. Thus, it differs from the previous week, when meat is eaten every day, and from the subsequent one. cheese week when it is not eaten at all.

Ecumenical Parents' Saturday

Meat week ends the week, which has another name - popularly it is called funeral week. On Meat Saturday, which is also called Ecumenical Parental Saturday, it was customary to go to the cemetery to remember the dead father and mother (in Belarus memorial days fell on Thursday and Friday). There are several other traditions associated with this period. These days stopped. There are many proverbs to confirm this. One of them is “To marry Motley is to become intermarried with misfortune.” In addition, it was during meat week that people went to their neighbors and invited them to their place to celebrate Maslenitsa. The day before, in some regions it was customary to thoroughly clean the house, cook festive table, that is, to wait for guests.

Traditions and customs associated with this week

What does meat week mean? This, on the one hand, is the eve and, on the other, Sunday, after which there are exactly 56 days left until Easter. Its shadow side includes some ambiguity and instability, unreliability associated with the names “motley” and “pockmarked”. Therefore, there are prohibitions on certain actions and behavior on these days. Among the people there have always been many signs and traditions associated with any holiday. Sometimes they were peculiar. Thus, in some provinces they began to celebrate “Little Maslenka” on Meat Saturday. They baked the first pancakes and left some of them for deceased relatives. The children had their own customs on this day, for example, collecting old bast shoes throughout the village, their own “chants”, with the help of which they called for spring.

It turns out that the meat-eating week, the week following it, like the previous two, are not only a preparatory period for Lent, but also a time of holidays, festivities and related folk beliefs, signs and customs, about which, in turn, there are dozens of proverbs and sayings.

February 19, 2017, Meat Sunday, about the Last Judgment, Metropolitan Volokolamsk Hilarion in concelebration with the parish clergy, he celebrated the Divine Liturgy.

After the special litany, the bishop offered a prayer for peace in Ukraine.

At the end of the service, Metropolitan Hilarion addressed the believers with a sermon:

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

During the four weeks preceding Lent, the Church prepares us for the path of repentance. On the eve of the Holy Pentecost on Sunday services sound specially selected gospel readings: the story of Zacchaeus, the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, the parable of the prodigal son, which we heard last Sunday, and the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ about the Last Judgment, which we heard today.

The Lord Jesus Christ says that judgment awaits every person: at the end of history, God will call all humanity so that everyone will give an answer to Him for the life they have lived. The Son of God will divide all people, both living and resurrected from the dead, everyone who has ever lived on earth, into two categories, separating one from the other, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The Lord will place the first right hand, and the second to the left. And to those who find themselves on the right hand, the Savior will say: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me" (Matthew 25:34-36)."

Then the righteous will answer Him: “Lord! When did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? (Matthew 25:37). And they will hear from the Lord: “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). Those who find themselves left hand Son of Man, they will hear from Him the exact opposite: “I was hungry, and you did not give Me anything to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me; I was naked, and they did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and they did not visit Me” (Matthew 25:42-43).

The Lord teaches us how we should behave towards our neighbors. If we see Christ in our neighbors who need our help, then we do all good deeds towards them for Christ. And if we do not notice people, if we pass by human grief and need, then we thereby reject the Lord Himself.

Christ also reminds us that each of us is responsible for the quality of our lives. We cannot be responsible for the number of days we live, because we have no control over either the hour of our birth or the hour of our death. But the quality of our life directly depends on us - how godly our life was earthly life which the Lord has measured out for us.

When the lawyer asked the Son of God what the greatest commandment in the law was, the Savior answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind: this is the first and greatest commandment” (Matthew 22:37). And although the lawyer asked Christ about one commandment, the Son of God adds a second one, similar to it: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Christ combined these two commandments together, for one cannot be fulfilled without the other: if we do not love God, we cannot truly love our neighbors; and vice versa: we cannot love God unless we love our neighbors. These two loves are interconnected.

The Holy Apostle John the Theologian reminds us: “Whoever says: “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (1 John 4:20). Our neighbor is the one whom the Lord sends to us; it is the one to whom we are called to help when he needs it. And we have a lot of opportunities to do good to our neighbors, for the Lord constantly sends us life path those who need our support.

The words of Jesus Christ do not need to be taken literally, for the Savior does not require us to necessarily go to prisons and hospitals, give someone water or feed them food, because there are many other ways to show mercy to people. We should not forget that the Son of God always speaks metaphorically, in general terms, and we ourselves must decide how to apply His words in practice, what opportunities we have for this. The main thing is to remember that the Lord will ask us for every day we live, and if our life did not bear fruit, then He will do with us as He did with the barren fig tree. And if our life bears fruit, then we will hear from the Lord: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

Let us pay attention to the words of the Savior: The kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. This means that for every person there is a place prepared in the Kingdom of Heaven, where no one will be crowded. But, despite the fact that places are prepared for everyone, not everyone will be able to occupy them, because, again, this directly depends on the quality of our earthly life.

Many people imagine the Last Judgment as some kind of grandiose event, when the Son of Man will come in glory to judge all people, and will pronounce judgment on every person. Everything will be so, but we must also remember that we prepare this sentence, which the True Judge will pass on us, for ourselves already in earthly life, and it depends only on us what it will turn out to be as a result.

Our Lord is merciful, and He created us not for eternal destruction, but for eternal life, so that we would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. And therefore, God expects from us that in earthly life we ​​love Him and our neighbors with all our hearts, be merciful to every person, so that we help people as often as possible in word or deed, and bring good and abundant fruits to the Lord.

Why does the Church remind us of all this on the eve of Lent? And why does she add to this Gospel teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ the words of the Apostle Paul that Doesn't food bring us closer to God?(1 Cor.8.8)

Through these readings, the Church wants to explain to us not only the meaning of our life, but also the meaning of the feat of the Holy Pentecost ahead of us.

When people are told about fasting, they usually ask: what can and cannot be eaten? Before the start of Lent, my TV show “Church and the World” receives the same questions from viewers: what can you eat during Lent? How to fast if you are sick, what restrictions are there? And it seems that people perceive the word “fasting” exclusively in a culinary or dietary sense: you cannot eat meat, eggs, cheese. While fasting, many carefully study the composition of a particular product: whether it contains additives, and so on.

Perhaps this is why the Church today reminds us through the mouth of the Holy Apostle Paul that it is not food that brings us closer to God. What then brings us closer? Of course, good deeds. But does this mean that we can not fast? No, this means that bodily fasting is an auxiliary means that is given so that we have the opportunity to destroy harmful mental manifestations and think about our spiritual health.

Often, when many people come to a doctor for a consultation, they hear: “You should eat less, you are overweight, have high cholesterol levels...”. And people deliberately go on diets; they even go to Austria for this purpose - so that they can be fed one bun a day and thereby restore their health. But we don’t need to travel to Austria or go to nutritionists, because our entire “diet” is prescribed in church charter: In addition to the 50 days of Lent, we are given three other fasts, as well as Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. All this allows us to keep our body in appropriate shape.

But, let me remind you once again, fasting is established not for the body, but for the soul. We fast not in order to remove harmful elements from the body, but, first of all, to eradicate sinful habits from our soul. Fasting is a spiritual journey that the Lord offers us every year, when spring comes, so that we cleanse not only the body, but also the soul.

Lent is a reminder of the purpose of all our lives. This is the one special period, when the Church invites us to repent for our evil deeds and practice good deeds. And we carry out all the nutritional requirements that the Church has established according to our strength, in accordance with our state of health, remembering that fasting is given to us primarily to heal the soul.

Let us listen attentively to the Gospel and Apostolic readings that the Holy Church offers us. Let us prepare spiritually and physically for Lent. And we will ask God for help in order to worthily pass the saving field of the Holy Pentecost and enter prepared into Holy Week, and then in the joy of the Lord to meet the bright Christ's Resurrection. Amen".