Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ (1865-1925), whose relics rest in the large cathedral of the Donskoy Monastery, dedicated one of his talks to vegetarianism, calling it “a voice in favor of fasting.” Questioning certain principles of vegetarians, on the whole, the saint speaks out FOR the refusal to eat all living things.
We consider it expedient to quote in full some passages from the conversations of St. Tikhon…
Under the name of vegetarianism is meant such a direction in the views of modern society, which allows eating only plant products, and not meat and fish. In defense of their doctrine, vegetarians cite data 1) from anatomy: a person belongs to the category of carnivorous creatures, and not omnivores and carnivores; 2) from organic chemistry: plant food contains everything necessary for nutrition and can maintain human strength and health to the same extent as mixed food, that is, animal-vegetable food; 3) from physiology: plant food is better absorbed than meat; 4) from medicine: meat nutrition excites the body and shortens life, while vegetarian food, on the contrary, preserves and lengthens it; 5) from economy: vegetable food is cheaper than meat food; 6) Finally, moral considerations are given: the killing of animals is contrary to the moral feeling of a person, while vegetarianism brings peace both into a person’s own life and into his relationship with the animal world.
Some of these considerations were expressed even in ancient times, in the pagan world (by Pythagoras, Plato, Sakia-Muni); in the Christian world they were more often repeated, but nevertheless those who expressed them were single individuals and did not constitute a society; only in the middle of this century in England, and then in other countries, whole societies of vegetarians arose. Since then, the vegetarian movement has been growing more and more; more and more often there are followers of him who zealously spread their views and try to put them into practice; so in Western Europe there are many vegetarian restaurants (in London alone there are up to thirty), in which dishes are prepared exclusively from plant foods; Vegetarian cookery books are published containing meal schedules and instructions for preparing more than eight hundred dishes. We also have followers of vegetarianism in Russia, among whom is the famous writer Count Leo Tolstoy…
…Vegetarianism is promised a broad future, since, they say, humanity willy-nilly will eventually come to a way of eating vegetarians. Even now, in some countries of Europe, the phenomenon of a decrease in livestock is noticed, and in Asia this phenomenon has almost already taken place, especially in the most populated countries – in China and Japan, so that in the future, although not nearby, there will be no livestock at all, and consequently, and meat food. If this is so, then vegetarianism has the merit that its followers develop ways of eating and living that sooner or later people will have to join. But in addition to this problematic merit, vegetarianism has the undoubted merit that it presents an urgent appeal to abstinence to our voluptuous and pampered age …
… Vegetarians think that if people did not eat meat food, then complete prosperity would have been established on earth long ago. Even Plato, in his dialogue “On the Republic”, found the root of injustice, the source of wars and other evils, in the fact that people do not want to be content with a simple way of life and harsh plant foods, but eat meat. And another supporter of vegetarianism, already from Christians, the Anabaptist Tryon (died in 1703), has words on this subject, which the author of the “Ethics of Food” quotes in his book with special “pleasure”.
“If people,” says Tryon, “stop strife, renounce oppression and what promotes and disposes them to it – from killing animals and eating their blood and meat – then in a short time they would weaken, or maybe be, and mutual murders between them, diabolical feuds and cruelties would completely cease to exist … Then all enmity would cease, the pitiful groans of either people or cattle would be heard. Then there will be no streams of blood of slaughtered animals, no stench of meat markets, no bloody butchers, no thunder of cannons, no burning of cities. The stinking prisons will disappear, the iron gates will collapse, behind which people languish away from their wives, children, fresh free air; the cries of those who ask for food or clothing will be silenced. There will be no indignation, no ingenious inventions to destroy in one day what was created by the hard work of thousands of people, no terrible curses, no rude speeches. There will be no needless torture of animals by overwork, no corruption of maidens. There will be no renting out of land and farms at prices that will force the tenant to exhaust himself and his servants and cattle almost to death and yet remain indebted. There will be no oppression of the lower by the higher, there will be no need for the absence of excesses and gluttony; the groans of the wounded will be silent; there will be no need for doctors to cut bullets from their bodies, to take away crushed or broken arms and legs. The cries and groans of those suffering from gout or other serious illnesses (like leprosy or consumption), except for the ailments of old age, will subside. And children will cease to be victims of countless suffering and will be as healthy as lambs, calves, or cubs of any other animal that does not know ailments. This is the seductive picture that vegetarians paint, and how easy it is to achieve all this: if you don’t eat meat, a real paradise will be established on earth, a serene and carefree life.
… It is permissible, however, to doubt the feasibility of all the bright dreams of vegetarians. It is true that abstinence in general, and in particular from the use of meat food, curbs our passions and carnal lusts, gives great lightness to our spirit and helps it to free itself from the dominion of the flesh and subdue it to its domination and control. However, it would be a mistake to consider this bodily abstinence as the basis of morality, derive all high moral qualities from it and think with vegetarians that “vegetable food in itself creates many virtues” …
Bodily fasting serves only as a means and aid for acquiring virtues – purity and chastity, and must necessarily be combined with spiritual fasting – with abstinence from passions and vices, with removal from bad thoughts and evil deeds. And without this, by itself, it is not sufficient for salvation.