CRCulver:Thanks for sharing that:
Here in Romania, one of the products of the annual village hog slaughter is black pudding, and I've not heard the Church ever complain. You'll pry sângerete from my cold, dead hands. :-)
Similarly, in Finland it's not unusual to see the black pudding called mustamakkara at large Orthodox events.
I'm surprised to hear you describe blood pudding as so good.
What does it taste like? The name Sangerete sounds like a word for blood, like there is I think a similar root in the word "sanguine."
So eating blood foods is common among the Romanian and Finnish Orthodox communities, suggesting that the canons about blood foods are in disuse there.
I believe you when you write:
If some Orthodox do such things, they do it in spite of Church teaching. The Church does not shy away from regularly condemning polygamy (good luck finding someone to marry you three more times), insufficient fasting and shirking from church. However, the preparation of black pudding is done in the view of, and with the blessing of the Church. Village hog slayings here often have the priest on hand to say a prayer, and the blood is drained away and kept separately to make black pudding as he's standing there.
I am not sure what you mean by ritual purity here when you say: "Figures in the Church have on various occasions reverted to Jewish belief in ritual purity". If by that you include rules against touching sick people, then I highly doubt it, because Jesus himself touched sick people to heal them, as did some apostles I somewhat remember.
So I doubt that
"These might have ended up in a canon somewhere or another", and so if they did it seems you could be right that
"they don't form any lasting part of Orthodox belief and practice."You commented:
"Anyway, as God commanded St. Peter in Acts as He showed him all the things previously forbidden: "Kill and eat"."It seems to me that this could just apply to kinds of animals. As I remember vaguely the vision was of the animals themselves, not certain blood foods. So this vision could have allowed Peter, as a Jew, to avoid the specifically Jewish kosher rules discussed in the Council of Jerusalem, while still keeping in place the preparation rules against eating strangled animals and about blood foods that were mentioned at the Council of Jerusalem. That the Canons as well as St Augustine mentioned the rule against blood foods suggests to meal that such a rule wasn't included in Peter's vision.
Regards
Shanghaiski,Your picture is pretty.
It makes sense when you say:
Some Orthodox have four wives, don't fast at all, charge interest, take bribes, don't even go to church...so the argument that because some Orthodox do it (or even all, God forbid) and there's an injunction against such behavior does not make it right or mean that the injunction no longer exists
One problem is that Fr. George wrote on
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=32071.0;wap2that some canons became voluntary because they fell into disuse. So in fact the argument that some Orthodox do it (or even all, God forbid) could mean that the injunction no longer exists and make it at least ok.
One reason why the examples you gave don't apply is that Scripture goes against them and is treated with high deference. On the other hand, Scripture also goes against Christians eating blood foods.
So it sounds like the situation with blood foods is that scriptures opposes them, the canons oppose them but have fallen into disuse, and that Christians eat blood foods despite the Scripture to the contrary.
Peace
Agia MarinaYou commented:
"We have a blood sausage called 'morcela'. Is it forbidden? If so, I have no choice but to give it up. 
" The sad smiley face here is cute. It seems like you would have to give it up, at least in order to conform to the Scriptural customs.
One counterargument could be that either:
(A) as with women wearing veils in church, the prohibition on eating blood foods is customary, or that
(B) the blood food rule is part of Moses' Law, which puts it in the category of law, like observance of the Sabbath. I think that in Orthodoxy there is at least some recommendation to keep the sabbath, but I'm not sure why it isn't usually treated with significant importance, except that in practice Sunday is enough as a day of rest for people who don't observe the Sabbath.
It seems that there is in Christianity an attitude that rules about wearing veils, Saturday observance, and now apparently blood food, are more customary, rather than strong doctrines.
So also Bulgaria's Orthodox Christians have a national blood food, morcela.
I believe you that
"We slaughter our own hogs, and make our own pork and blood sausage. Additionally, blood sausage is sold at our local stores and butcher shops . It sells very well"You could be right when you responded to the claim that "blood dishes are shrinking" by saying:
Not in my culture.
But on the other hand, it could be that the Bulgarian community doesn't eat it on the same scale that it did 100 years ago. In such a case, it could be possible that it sells very well at local stores and shops where you are in America, but that not as many stores sell it in America as before, since the Bulgarian community could be smaller and more Westernized than in te past.
On the other hand, there are more higs and more Bulgarians than 200 years ago, so you could still be right.
Health to you
Ialmisry:You're right when you comment:
There are canons against consuming blood (I can't cite the specific one off hand: I just know I had to look this up one time on a question. I wouldn't come near the stuff). It gets mentioned in patristics.I had Polish duck blood soup once. It was okay. The Canons of the Holy Apostles mention the blood food rule, as does St Gregory. However, I don't know of anyone who mentions it later than he.
One claim could be that if other Orthodox writers don't mention it, that it's fallen into disuse as a practice of our Church. But on the other hand, the claim seems possible that its falling into disuse violates the Church's own principles.
Alpo:You asked:
What's OO and Assyrian stance on the issue? I don't know, but at least the rule is part of our scriptures, which we share with them.
You asked: "RC's accept it but what about the other traditional churches?"
I think Protestants don't care about it, and Scotland, which is part Protestant, has a national food called Haggis.
The commentator Karl Josef von Hefele, cited on Wikipedia, commented:
"the fact that its decree has been obsolete for centuries in the West is proof that even Ecumenical canons may be of only temporary utility and may be repealed by disuse, like other laws."This comment suggests that the view in Western Christianity-Catholic and Protestant- is that the rule doesn't matter anymore.
However, Roman Catholicism is somewhat legalistic, and the Orthodox Church does have respect for its canons and Councils so I somewhat doubt about whether simply disusing an Ecumenical decision or canon over time actually repeals it.
Thanks for posting Canon 67 of the Quinisext council, 692 AD:
The divine Scripture commands us to abstain from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication. Those therefore who on account of a dainty stomach prepare by any art for food the blood of any animal, and so eat it, we punish suitably. If anyone henceforth venture to eat in any way the blood of an animal, if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be cut off.
So here we have the Canon on one hand from over a millenium ago, and a contrary occasional folk practice among Orthodox today, whereby those in breach of the Canon aren't excommunicated. It seems like this would mean the Canon has been repealed by disuse, since Fr. George elsewhere suggested that some Canons could be seen as irrelevant to today if they fell into disuse, although I'm not certain that such a kind of repeal happens in Orthodoxy.
Regards.
Podkarpatska,I wrote:
If Greeks lack such foods, that would suggest the blood foods in slavic countries are of pagan origin.And You asked: "Why would you make such a conclusion about the Greeks and the Slavs? The Greeks had pagan origins as well."
You're right that both Greeks and Slavs had pagan origins. I don't remember exactly why I concluded this. But perhaps I concluded this thinking:
Greece lacks blood foods, but Slavic countries have them. So why would the Slavic countries have them if Orthodoxy goes against it? They wouldn't have taken such a national food from Greek culture, since Greek culture lacks it. Slavic countries also probably didn't develop blood foods after they became Orthodox, because Orthodoxy would go against them making a new invention like that. In other words, if it didn't exist in Slavic countries by the time it was Orthodox, they wouldn't have invented it afterwards, because starting a folk-food like that would be hard due to their Orthodoxy. The conclusion is that the food neither came from Orthodox Greece, which lacked blood foods, nor would it come from the Christian West, where blood foods are relatively rare. Also, the cultural contacts with Asian countries were weaker than with Christian and Muslim countries,and I doubt that blood foods are common in Muslim and Asian cultures. Therefore, the conclusion from the above is a suggestion that such a food would have existed in pre-Christian Slavic countries, at which time they were pagan.
You asked
"Perhaps the warmer climates of the Greek lands had something to do with the practice?" I guess it could, but I'm not sure how. Like I guess people in warmer climates could like the taste of blood foods less, but I'm not sure why.
You commented:
"The Greeks partake of lamb on Pascha, the Slavs had nothing to do with lamb. So what?"
So to me it suggests some possible implications. The difference about eating lamb could suggest that lambs and sheep are more common in Greek culture than in slavic cultures. And this idea suggests to me that your statement could be incorrect. In Bulgaria for example, the cuisine includes lamb. So it seems that traditional Bulgarian Pascha meals could include lamb.
Another possible implication is the possibility that Greek culture took the custom of eating lamb at Pascha from an earlier Christian custom of eating it at Pascha, since it's common among Palestinian Christians at Pascha, and that they in turn took the custom from the fact that Jewish Passover meals included lamb. Part of this implication would be a possible explanation that slavic nations didn't include lamb in their Pascha because they came to Orthodox Christianity at a date much later than Greeks did, at which point eating lamb in particular then seemed even less important.
It's funny when you write:
I grew up in a Slavic background family and we never had any blood pudding or the like. I do recall that my grandfather liked 'head cheese' and I think that is a blood product????but my grandmother and father thought it was gross!
As in "Yum, blood cheese."
Well, it sounds like whatever slavic background he had included blood foods.
You are right that
"I would again urge that we ought to worry less about the minutiae of what we or our neighbors may eat or drink and more about how we live and treat our neighbors and family with love, patience and grace... Like I always say, if your conscience is troubled, consult your spiritual advisor."
On the other hand, I don't know if
" Anyone can read the Rudder and other sources and fall into a deep dilemma about one thing or another", since I don't think I ever read the Rudder, although I assume it can easily include sources that imply things that could cause a mental dilemma, like say, the dilemma in the concept of ekonomia.
It's true that
""Sola patristics" is definitely not an Orthodox belief or practice" -by which you bring up the Prpotestant idea of "sola scriptura, because in Orthodoxy we use both scripture and tradition as authority.
Health to you
Augustin717,I would assume you're right that:
Blood dishes are shrinking; growing up, my grand-parents would mention it when we slaughtered the pig before Christmas, but never made it. I ate some though from some relatives. I still prefer the "sangereti" without actual blood.
I've never tried sagereti, but I tried a Polish blood sausage called kishka and preferred another version of kishka that wasn't made with the blood. The blood one was dark brown like clotted blood, while the other was pink like ham.
I assume you're right that they're shrinking because they seem more like a folk dish rather than a modern one, and eastern Europe is becoming more Westernized and modernized.
Regards
