Daily life of the Russian medieval monastery Romanenko Elena Vladimirovna

Chapter 9 The Monastic Meal

Monastery meal

The charter of deanery

Since ancient times, there has been a saying in Russia: “With your charter, you don’t go to someone else’s monastery.” The charters of different cenobitic monasteries really differed greatly from each other. But, despite all the differences, there were a number of common strict rules that formed the basis of order in any cenobia. These rules included a mandatory common meal: everyone from the abbot to the novice had to eat at the common meal and not even keep drinking water in their cells.

This rule greatly distinguished kinovia from a special monastery, where each ate separately, according to his personal income, as well as from a suite, where the monks received food from the abbot, but prepared their own food each separately and ate in their cells, with the exception of major holidays.

The rules of conduct at a common meal were the same for all monks. The first and main thing is to always be satisfied with the proposed "nature": "whatever they put, don't grumble about it." Food and drink were supposed to be the same for everyone and in equal quantities. The monks began to eat only after the abbot "lays his hand on the brush or drink." Everyone sat in silence and attentively listened to the reader, who, with the blessing of the rector, read the lives of the saints or the writings of the holy fathers. For laughter and conversations in the refectory in the Volokolamsk monastery, they were punished with a penance of 50 prostrations or one day of dry eating. Only the rector, the cellarer and the servants were allowed to speak at the meal, and even then only about the necessary.

At the table, everyone looked in front of him, and not to the sides, he did not take anything from the other brother and did not put his own in front of him, so as not to lead the neighbor into the sin of gluttony. Those who showed inappropriate curiosity or concern for another monk, according to the charter of the Volokolamsk monastery, were punished with one day of dry eating or penance of fifty prostrations. The monk had to know “his satisfaction” (his measure) and “not to ask”, and also “not to ask for comfort (consolation, some kind of delicacy. - E.R.) or prigarinok ”(what burned and was not served on the table). In the event that the trapeznik himself (serving at the meal) offered an additive or some additional dish, he was supposed to answer quietly and humbly: “God's will, sir, and yours!” If the monk did not want an addition, he would say: “From me, sir” (that is, enough from me, sir).

Even if the monk was sick and could not eat what all the brethren ate, he did not dare to ask, but waited for the servant himself to ask him what he wanted. Hearing the question, the sick monk answered: "Give, for God's sake, this or that." If he didn’t want anything at all, then he would say: “I don’t want anything, sir” ( RSL. Und. No. 52. L. 365).

The following situation could well have happened in the monastery: the serviceman, out of forgetfulness or wanting to test his brother's patience, carried around the monk, that is, did not give him any food or drink. There are many such stories in ancient patericons; in a similar way, the elders tested the patience not only of novice monks, but also of experienced ascetics. The Monk John of the Ladder observed in the monastery of St. John Savvait how the abbot called to him at the beginning of the meal the eighty-year-old elder Lavrenty, white with gray hair. He approached and, having bowed to the ground to the hegumen, took the blessing. But when the elder got up, the abbot said nothing to him, and he remained standing where he was. Dinner lasted an hour or two, but Elder Lavrenty stood still without an answer or a greeting. The Monk John of the Ladder writes in his Ladder that he was even ashamed to look at the elder. When dinner was over and everyone got up, the abbot dismissed the elder ( Ladder. S. 30).

According to monastic rules, if a monk was surrounded at a meal, he had to humbly sit at the table and not ask for anything. And only in case of extreme hunger or thirst could he say to the employee: “They didn’t give me, sir” ( RSL. Und. No. 52. L. 365v.). But this is only as a last resort.

Monks were forbidden to be late for a meal without a blessed reason. In the Volokolamsk Monastery, latecomers were punished with a day of dry eating or prostrations, 50 in number. If a monk did not have time for a meal for prayer for some worthy reason, then, upon entering, he silently stood and waited for the servants to put him. And if they didn’t, then he humbly chewed bread and salt and waited while all the brethren ate.

The most severe punishment was imposed on those who brought something of their own to the meal or, on the contrary, endured it, hiding it at lunch or dinner. The monk of the Volokolamsk monastery, who came to the meal with his "nature", received a penance of one hundred prostrations. If one of the monks took something at the meal without the blessing of the rector or the cellar and repented of it, then he did not dare to touch the shrine: to eat antidor, “bread of the Virgin”, prosphora, until he received forgiveness. If a monk was convicted of sin by other monks, he was punished with dry eating for five days. In the case of repeated repetition of such a sin, the monk was expelled from the monastery or imprisoned in iron fetters ( VMC. September. Stb. S. 12).

Except for lunch and dinner, the monk was not allowed to eat or drink anything, not even berries in the forest or vegetables in the garden. In case of thirst, the monk could, after asking for blessings from the elder, go to the refectory and drink water there. If, after lunch or dinner, a monk needed to visit another monk or elder in his cell, and he wanted to treat him to some “eating, or drinking, or vegetable,” then the monk had to refuse such consolation: “I don’t dare, sir, I don’t compel me, for God's sake." The elders taught the novice that such hospitality is not brotherly love, but an enemy (demonic) attempt to lead the monk into sin; true monastic brotherly love consists in loving everyone equally and moving away from everyone ( RSL. Und. No. 52. L. 368v.).

It would seem that a simple rule is to eat only at a common meal. But from the lives of the saints it is clear how much strength the abbot needed to keep this order inviolable. In the Volokolamsk monastery, those who were seen in such a sin were deprived of the shrine until they received forgiveness from the abbot. And having received forgiveness, the monk had to make a hundred prostrations in the cell in order to completely blot out the sin. If a monk did not repent, but was convicted by someone else, then the punishment increased three times: the monk received a penance of three hundred prostrations or “dry food” for three days. If this happened again, then he was expelled from the monastery.

However, there were cases when gluttons were healed of sin miraculously. And this punishment turned out to be the most effective. Two monks from the monastery of St. Paul of Obnorsk left the monastery at one time and labored for a long time in the monastery of the Special Order. Then they returned to their monastery, but they did not leave their old habits. One day the monks decided to cook their own food in their cell. One remained to cook brew in a pot, and the other went to the refectory to secretly get bread. When the second monk returned, he saw that the friend was lying on the floor, and foam was flowing from his mouth. The terrified monk in an instant realized his sin and mentally appealed to the Monk Paul of Obnorsk, asking him to forgive them. As proof of his repentance, he grabbed the ill-fated pot and, throwing it over the threshold, began to kick it with his feet with the words: “I will never do this again for the rest of my life” ( VMC. January. Stb. 547). Another monk of the same monastery was obedient in a kvass brewery and decided to make kvass for himself. Taking a bucket of wort, he carried it to his cell, but he had to go past the tomb of St. Paul of Obnorsk. Here his arms and legs suddenly weakened, he screamed out of fear and began to beg the reverend for forgiveness. He ran to the cell safe and sound, but already without a bucket, and in the morning he repented to the abbot.

These stories ended happily, but another monk of the Obnorsky Monastery, Mitrofan, remained crippled until the end of his life because he secretly ate and drank in his cell. Once, when Mitrofan was standing in the church in the service, suddenly his arms and legs became weak, and he fell. The brethren served for his health a prayer service to St. Paul and the Holy Trinity, after which the monk felt better and was able to repent. As a result, he could move, but one of his arms and legs was never healed for the edification of the rest of the brethren ( There. Stb. 540).

In order to prevent idle curiosity, discontent and not to bring the monks to the sin of secret eating, the monks were not allowed to enter the refectory during the day without work and blessing. At the refectory there were so-called shegnushi - pantries in which they kept kvass and all sorts of food. At the appointed time, the monks gathered on the porch of the shegnushi to drink kvass, but at the same time, long standing at the shegnushi or idle conversations were forbidden. In addition, it was also not allowed to enter the shegnush itself. Shegnusha communicated with the refectory through a service passage, which was intended only for servants. The monks entered the refectory either from the courtyard through the porch, or through the church doors, if the refectory was arranged at the church.

About meal times

The time of the meal probably varied in different monasteries. But you can imagine an approximate schedule for a meal at the Novospassky Monastery in Moscow. This routine was entirely determined by the service: the more significant the feast was, the earlier the meal began on that day. On Sundays and great holidays, lunch was arranged quite early - at the end of the third hour of the day (that is, about ten in the morning according to our calculation), since on these days, according to the charter, dinner was also allowed. On Saturdays, dinner began a little later - at the beginning of the fifth hour of the day (that is, at the beginning of twelve, if the sunrise that day was around seven in the morning). On major holidays, the meal was at six o'clock in the afternoon, that is, about one o'clock in the afternoon (according to our calculation). On small holidays or fast days, when one meal was supposed to be, it was arranged in the middle of the day - at nine o'clock, that is, about four in the evening (according to our calculation) or even later. At the same time - at nine o'clock in the afternoon - lunch began at Christmas Lent (in reality, this meant about five or six in the evening) and on Peter's Lent (about two o'clock in the afternoon, if you count from sunrise).

In the monasteries, they always arranged two meals at different times. For the first, the monks with the rector ate, for the second (last) they ate the cellar, the reader and all the servants who served the monks at the meal: a large bearer, “smaller bearers”, a bowl (a monk who was in charge of drinks and a cellar), a collar (a kind of clerk; the one who “turned things around”), as well as monks who were late for a meal. Weak or sick monks ate in their cells or in the hospital during the first meal. They were brought food by large and smaller carriers, and specially assigned servants served them in hospitals. If a sick monk wanted to taste something else during the day, then, with the blessing of the abbot and the cathedral elders, a large bearer served him: taking food from the under-kalarnik, and drink from the chalice, he brought it to the patient. Also, the bearer, with the permission of the abbot, carried food to those monks who, for some reason, did not have enough food at the common meal.

During the second meal, those servants who were responsible for cooking also had lunch and dinner: a podkelarnik (assistant cellarer), who was in charge of the warehouse of kitchen utensils and a tent, from which food was given out for part of the brethren - apparently, the "second shift" and for guests; “cooking vytchiki” (howl - share, plot; vytchik - the one who is responsible for a certain section of the cooking process); shtevar (we can definitely say that he cooked jelly, maybe also cabbage soup?); podchashnik (assistant bowler); dining rooms. All these servants ate in the closet. Separately, the last meal was served for the laity, servants, monastic artisans, Cossacks, who were served by the trappers. In addition, in the monastery refectories, as a general rule of all monasteries, the poor were always fed. There was even such a thing as "recorded beggars", that is, those who were assigned and regularly fed at the monastery. In the 16th century, in the Volokolamsk monastery, from 20 to 50-60 “recorded beggars” or “as many as God sends” passers-by were fed daily.

Refectory interior

Refectory chambers in monasteries were liked to be arranged at temples. It was convenient: warm air from the basement of the refectory was supplied to the church and heated it. Such a church was called a warm, “winter” church, and all monastic services usually took place in it in the winter season. In the 16th century, stone one-pillar refectories were built in wealthy monasteries: cylindrical vaults rested on a large pillar in the center of the chamber. One of the first such refectories at the church was arranged in the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery in 1519. It was a rectangle, the eastern wall of which separated the church and the refectory. In this wall there was a door through which the monks could immediately go to dinner after the church service. An iconostasis was always arranged on the eastern wall, so that the refectory itself was, as it were, a church, and some divine services, as we saw above, were held in it. In the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery in the iconostasis of the refectory there was a deesis, to the left and right of the door - local icons, and above the door - a large cross "The Crucifixion of the Lord", on a pillar - the image of Hodegetria with saints and reverends (according to the inventory of 1601). A large copper chandelier hung in front of the deesis, and a set candle stood in front of the local icons. So poor was the illumination of the rather large ward. In the refectory there were tables decorated with tablecloths (for ordinary days and holidays, they relied on their own tablecloths), and benches. According to some researchers, six people sat at each table in the Kirillovskaya refectory, since some dishes were prepared and served for exactly six people: on Easter, “six eggs in brine”, they baked “bratskoy shesterovaya bread” ( Shablova. About the meal. S. 27).

The quality of the dishes used at the meal depended on the prosperity of the monastery. They liked to paint wooden utensils: plates, brothers, ladles, spoons, ladle handles were decorated with carvings. The monastery inventories list spoons and ladles of various shapes: spoons - onion (similar in shape to a turnip, resembled a flattened ball decorated with cuttings from a fish tooth, “undercut”; ladles - burl (made from burl - a growth on a birch), onion, elm ( elm - one of the most flexible trees, in addition to dishes, rims, skids, etc. were made from it), "shadra", "small Tver", "tin", copper, "what yeast draws", "skortsy" (skobkari) - ladles hollowed out from the rhizome of a tree and covered with drying oil.In the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, the monks ate from birch plates, dishes; kvass was poured into ladles at stakes (stavets - a cup that looks like a glass, a cylindrical "vessel with a flat bottom" - see: Zabelin. S. 90) or brothers (brother - a large tub-shaped cup with a false lid). Feet were also used for drinking (large metal glasses without a handle, expanding upwards). Varivo was brought in “pickles” (a deep dish with a lid), “vessels”, “on a mise”; drinking - in "copper yandows" (yandowy - a copper vessel, tinned inside, with a handle and a stigma), bowls.

Favorite dishes

The invariable dish of the monastic diet was cabbage soup, which was eaten almost every day: both on fasting and non-fasting days (except for days of dry eating), on holidays. Shchi was cooked from fresh white cabbage, "borscht" (that is, with borscht - pickled beets), with sorrel (sorrel), seasoned with pepper, served with eggs on Easter and other holidays. Sometimes cabbage soup was replaced by tavranchug - a special stew made from fish or turnips or "ear" - ear.

If, according to the charter, two “brews” were allowed, then the second “boiled food” was usually porridge. The monastic table is aptly characterized by an old Russian proverb - "shchi and porridge are our food." Porridge could be replaced by other “foods”: “bat peas” or “chicken peas” (pea thick), cabbage, pea or sour noodles. The most varied was the meal on non-fasting and holidays.

The most important and favorite product was, of course, fish. The fish table of rich monasteries was very diverse. In the glaciers of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery in 1601, barrels of “sudochin, hazel, pike”, salmon, black caviar were kept; here lay "long sturgeon" from the Volga and Shekhon (from the Sheksna River). In the dryers above the glaciers there was a supply of dried and dried fish: “plasti bream, yaz, pike, sturgeon”, salmon, many bundles of elm (red fish tendon), small and smelt, and “four pray Zaozersky”.

The bikhodnik of the Novospassky Monastery mentions salmon, white salmon, sturgeon, beluga, stellate sturgeon, pike, pike perch, susch, sterlet, black and red caviar - whitefish. The sterlet in this monastery was considered a "common fish", it was served mainly to the monastery servants and wanderers ( CHOYDR. 1890. Book. 2. C. 2).

Fish dishes were also very varied, but most of all they loved fresh fried fish, which was served in pans on great holidays. In addition, fish was baked on grills, boiled and served with boiled water, mustard and horseradish. Freshly salted fish was a rare treat and was served only a few times a year, even in such a rich monastery as Iosifo-Volotsky. The favorite fish dish of the monks of the Kirillo-Belozero monastery was “crumbs”. The cellarer's notes especially note the days when "the krushki live on the brethren." It is difficult to say what this dish was, but judging by the fact that the word “crunchy” in the old Russian language means brittle, crispy, apparently, it was thinly sliced ​​fish fried until crispy. When the “crumples” were fried, they were hung with canvas, apparently from splashes of boiling oil.

Among the fish dishes in the monastic everyday life, there are also “sturgeon heads”, fried bream “with a body with a boil and pepper”, “ladozhina with vinegar”, pies with elm, “loaves” with fish, black caviar with onions and red with pepper. In the Novospassky Monastery, several varieties of porridge with fish were cooked: porridge with pieces of salmon, porridge with smelt, porridge “with vandysha” (small fish), porridge “with a head” (with heads and cartilaginous parts of fish), porridge “with navels”, “ porridge in the ear "( CHOYDR. 1890. Book. 2. p. 2).

Pies (with cheese, cabbage, carrots, peas, porridge, mushrooms), loaves (battered with carrots, turnips), kalachi, pancakes, fritters, and "brushwood" greatly diversified the monastic table of different varieties.

The favorite drink in the monasteries was traditionally kvass, on holidays they drank it at lunch and dinner and before Compline. In addition, in the Volokolamsk Monastery, starting from the Presentation and until the very feast of the Intercession of the Mother of God (October 1), the brethren were allowed to drink kvass even at noon (except for the first and Holy weeks, as well as the fast days of Great Lent). On Candlemas, according to folk beliefs, the sun turns to summer, the day lengthens significantly, so the brethren received permission for an additional bowl of kvass. “And from Intercession to Sretenev, they don’t drink kvass at noon, ponezh (since. - E.R.) the day is small, ”the everyday life of the Volokolamsk monastery says ( Gorsky. S. 394).

Kvass was prepared in several varieties. In the Volokolamsky Monastery, barley and oat kvass were used as the most popular kvass, on more solemn days - “sychenoy” - from saty (sweet wort, which was prepared from flour and malt) and honey. There was also "molasses kvass", which was served on great holidays. Treacle kvass was prepared from pure, unmelted honey - gravity flowing from honeycombs. Monastic kvass was valued not only as tasty, but also as an extremely "energy" drink, necessary to maintain strength. So, on the days of extended services (on the Twelfth Feasts and days with an all-night vigil), priests, deacons, heads (kliros monks) and the usher received additional bowls of honey kvass “on the cellar”, and psalmists received “fake kvass”. The same kvass was relied upon by great servants and sick brethren in hospitals. The rest of the brethren received "like bowls." "Good" kvass was a consolation during the holidays. So, on the feasts of the Assumption, St. Cyril of Belozersky, the Introduction, on the days of the angels of the king and members of the royal family at dinner, an additional healthy bowl for a birthday with honey kvass was relied ( Shablova. About the meal. S. 31).

Honey kvass was fermented in two ways: 1) with hops and yeast; 2) a simple soft roll ( There. P. 41. Approx. 23). In the first case, intoxicated kvass was obtained, in the second - ordinary. In those monasteries where "drunk" drinking was forbidden, kvass was fermented with kalach. Domostroy tells recipes for making various kvass, including ordinary honey kvass: Yes, strain it cleanly with a sieve, and put it in a measuring cup (vessel. - E.R.), and ferment with a simple soft kalach, without yeast, and when it sours, pour it into barrels ”( There. P. 42. Approx. 23).

In 1550, the Stoglavy Cathedral forbade the preparation of intoxicated kvass and hot wine in monasteries, but this rule was often violated. So, in the 17th century, some Solovetsky monks, contrary to the ancient charter of the monastery, used to take out sychyon kvass from the refectory and ferment it with yeast in their cells. Things got to the point that in 1637 Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich sent a special letter to the Solovki hegumen demanding that this pernicious custom be eradicated ( Dositheus. T. 3. S. 270). In those monasteries where intoxicating drinks were allowed (sometimes by special order of the bishop), intoxicated mead and beer were prepared. In the 17th century, Athanasius, Archbishop of Kholmogory and Vazhsky, allowed the Krasnogorsk Monastery to brew five brews of beer a year for the brethren and "honor" visiting chiefs and noble people: the first - for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the second - for the Great Charm, the third - for Easter, the fourth - on Trinity Day and on the fifth day - on the patronal feast of the Georgian Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, it was not allowed to buy wine in the monastery, as before, and henceforth ( Description of the Krasnogorsk Monastery. S. 31).

According to the ancient charters of the Joseph-Volotsky, Kirillo-Belozersky, Nilo-Sorsky, Korniliev-Komelsky monasteries, in these monasteries "drinking, which have drunkenness, did not keep anyone." However, in the 16th century in the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery the covenant of its founder was no longer fulfilled, on the twelfth, great and great holidays, the brethren regularly received a cup of wine.

Special note

Russian monks never used meat. According to ancient charters, it was strictly forbidden to even bring meat to the territory of the monastery or cook it in the monastery kitchen. How strict this rule was is confirmed by a miracle from the Life of St. Paphnutius of Borovsky, which happened to the famous icon painter Dionysius. He was invited along with his retinue to paint a new stone church in the monastery. The icon painters lived in a village not far from the monastery. Since they were worldly people, the Monk Paphnutius ordered them not to bring any of their food to the monastery. Once the icon painters forgot about the commandment of the monk and, going to the monastery to work, they took with them a leg of lamb stuffed with eggs. In the evening they sat down to supper, and Dionysius ate first. It is not difficult to imagine his state when he saw worms instead of eggs in a leg of lamb. The leg was thrown outside the monastery to the dogs, but after this meal the artist fell seriously ill. His whole body was covered with scabs, so that he could not move. Realizing his sin, Dionysius repented before the monk. He, having taught the icon painter the edification not to violate the monastery rules in the future, ordered to hit the beater and call the brethren to the water-blessed prayer service. Dionysius wiped his whole body with consecrated water and, exhausted after the service, fell asleep. He woke up completely healthy Life of Pafnuty Borovsky. S. 125). Lay people who worked for the monastery, on non-fast days, when hard work happened, were fed with meat dishes. In the Cyril Monastery, they were given meat “for a hryvnia” (there were 51 days in a year when a meat-eater was allowed - see: Shablova. About the meal. S. 27). But if in the 16th century meat was cooked and eaten outside the monastery, then in the 17th century this prohibition was no longer in effect, and lay monastic people could eat meat at the second monastic meal.

Bread, cooks, kvass

The preparation of “nature” in large monasteries with numerous brethren and pilgrims was a laborious and difficult task. Therefore, hot food was prepared only once - for dinner. If dinner was supposed to be on that day, then the brew left after dinner was put in the oven on coals and served warm for dinner.

Many monks, novices, and all kinds of monastic servants worked in the cloister cookhouses and bakeries. Obedience here was considered the most difficult, and if a monk endured it patiently, without grumbling, then this work in the eyes of the abbot and brethren was worthy of the deepest respect. Before his death, the Monk Daniel of Pereyaslavsky called his disciple Cassian to him and, handing him two of his sackcloths, ordered them to be handed over to the monastery cooks - monk Eustratius and monk Irinarkh. Explaining his choice, the monk said: “You yourselves know the virtues of Eustratius. From the time he took the tonsure, he achieved perfect obedience, fasted and prayed without laziness, and went through all the monastic services without grumbling, and most of all, the cooking service. And then the abbot told how at one time he wanted to change obedience to Eustratius, but he fell at his feet and begged him not to change anything and not to deprive him of great spiritual benefit. The Monk Daniel was surprised at such zeal and left Eustratius in the kitchen. Now, before his death, he asked Cassian to convey to the new hegumen Hilarion his order not to transfer Eustratius to another service. Another monastic cook, Irinarkh, according to the hegumen, labored in the same industrious way, following the example of Eustratius. Giving them his hair shirts, the monk said: “I hope that they will pray to God for me, a sinner, and for their prayers, the merciful and philanthropic Christ Our God will forgive me many of my sins” ( Smirnov. pp. 70–71).

The refectory, together with the kitchens, bakeries, glaciers, barns, dryers and all sorts of tents adjoining it, formed a separate city on the territory of a large monastery. Under the refectory of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery were the famous bread-baskets. Their dimensions were almost the same as those of the refectory itself: in length - seven fathoms with a half fathom, and across - seven fathoms with a quarter. Here they baked bread in two large ovens of three “kvashons”. 500 kilograms of flour were dissolved in each sourdough, the sourdough was covered with canvases sewn into four panels, and allowed to approach, then three sours were dissolved in the fourth ( Nikolsky. P. 191. Approx. 2). Fourteen linen scrolls, in which flour was sifted, and twelve pairs of mittens were kept in the breadboxes. Apparently, the same number of people were employed in the process of baking bread. All the necessary utensils were in the bakery: a copper cauldron in which water was heated, two “scratches, than they scrape kvass”, a scraper, a chisel, a spade, a mowing knife, with which they pinched a torch to kindle a fire in the furnace, copper washstands with tubs, a Kumgan (a copper washstand in the form of a jug, with a spout, a handle and a lid), an ice pick (with a pick they went to the lake for water; it was an iron pointed tool, at the top there was a tube that was mounted on the handle). The “bread elders” were in charge of the bread, they lived not far from the refectory, in three cells near the barns, where rye flour was stored ( Nikolsky. S. 195). One of the elders gave out scrolls and mittens to the workers. Shtevars were located in a separate room, they had at their disposal a cauldron, a copper frying pan in which jelly was cooked, and two kumgans. Not far from the bakery, near the monastery wall overlooking the lake, there was a small tent in which water was heated when it was necessary to put the sourdough. Next to the bakery, under the refectory, there was a tent where already baked bread was stored.

The large bakery of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery was built along with the refectory in 1519, but very soon its capacity became insufficient, and then several more bakeries were set up in the lower tier of the Church of the Transfiguration, where they baked prosphora and kalachi, as well as cookies and pies. The Church of the Transfiguration was not chosen by chance for these purposes. It is located near the fortress wall overlooking the lake; “small gates” were arranged on the wall, through which water flowed through the gutters into the bakery.

The basement of the Church of the Transfiguration consisted of two rooms: in the first large tent they baked cookies, rolls and prosphora, in the second - pies. To that part of the room where the prosphora was made, a small tent was attached, where the prosphora were stored in winter. And another tent adjoined the church porch near the fortress wall, in which kalachi were kept. On its upper floor lived the elders who were in charge of the kalakh, and there was also a closet where they kept crackers. Against the wall stood a barn in which flour was sifted. In the bakeries there was a variety of kitchen utensils: sieves for sifting flour, “hooks” for removing pancakes from butter, long frying pans, “cloth nasovs in which they cook a circle of rolls” (nasovs - armlets worn during cooking; aprons, work clothes) , ladles-skobkari, aspen boxes.

Food was prepared in the kitchen, located next to the refectory. At the end of the 16th century, in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, in addition to the main kitchen, there was also a kitchen, a shooting room, a princely room (food was prepared for guests in it), and others. Cooking elders who lived nearby were in charge of the kitchens. In the large kitchen of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, six hearths of boiler rooms and an oven were arranged. Cauldrons hung over the hearths on iron chains, in addition, large iron tagans (a hoop with legs) were placed on the hearths - bases for boilers. A large number of utensils were stored in the kitchen: "ladles", iron grates for baking fish, large boilers and "small pots", ladles, knives and service clothes. Food was cooked, apparently, in special "service cassocks". The functional variety of kitchen utensils is striking, there were several types of knives alone: ​​“onion mowers”, “cabbage axes”, “maples” for cutting fish (knives with a short and wide blade slightly bent to the butt), “large knives, but they cut them noodles and fish."

More than a dozen knives, axes, copper frying pans, copper baking sheets with straps, several dozen “birch plates” and “rossimilar dishes”, “stavs”, “wooden dish stands”, a washstand, a tub, a hand-held iron pepper mill, “dining vessels”, salt shakers, “tin pickles”, a copper milk pot. The main stock of cereals and fish necessary for the needs of the cookery was in the dryer: “several four hemp seeds, peas, barley groats, buckwheat and millet groats, five “sagging” sturgeons, 250 layers of yazevy, one hundred bunches of vyaziga, dried mole loskovo (mol - small fish; sometimes also called dried smelts; the mentioned fish were caught in the area called Loza-Altushevo. E.R.) ten quarters, five quarters I pray Belozersky "( Nikolsky. S. 222. Approx. one).

Kvass was prepared in a special room - a kvass brewery. The ancient kvass factory of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery has survived to this day: “In the middle of the cover ... rises a square in plan and hollow inside, a tent that serves as a conductor for steam and smoke accumulating in the building from the kvass hearth. At the top, this tent ended with a quadrangular pipe in plan, and at the bottom it rested on a closed vault with two strippings along each wall ”( Nikolsky. S. 226).

In the middle of the kvass brewery stood a copper cauldron (it held 300 buckets) and three large vats: in one vat, 20 four-quarters of malt was mashed (grain that was allowed to germinate in warmth and dampness, which gave it a sweet taste), the other two contained wort, and three large troughs were placed under the vats. Behind the kvass cookery was a barn where the wort was chilled, there were five vats and six troughs. And near the kitchen there was a three-story building, the lower part of which was adapted for a kvass glacier, where they kept "kvass about the brother of wheat." In the Cyril Monastery there were five more stone glaciers, in which kvass was cooled in the summer, fish and various products were stored. Kvass was kept in one glacier: “medvenoy” (honey), molasses, sycheny, oatmeal, “polyyan kvass”. Various ladles, feet, yands, a copper ladle, “what yeast scoops up”, a copper cauldron for 12 buckets, “and they boil satiety in it” and a small copper “kettle, in which molasses is heated for pancakes”, were also stored here. In the other three glaciers they kept fish, above one of them there was a tent where they kept honey and molasses, and in the fifth cellar - sour cream, milk, eggs and cow's butter.

Cooking in monasteries, like any other business, was necessarily sanctified by prayer. Early in the morning, before matins, the cook and baker came to the church and bowed to the earth three times in front of the Royal Doors. After that, they asked the ecclesiarch for fire, he lit the "torch" from the lamp in the altar of the temple and passed it to the cook and baker. And already from this “honest fire” logs were lit in the ovens of the cookery and bread, so that everyone who ate food would receive Divine grace and sanctification along with it. It is no coincidence that the preparation of a meal was always a purely monastic obedience; worldly people in this matter could only be helpers.

Especially reverent in the monasteries were baking bread. This process is detailed in the Studio Charter. In Russian monasteries, everything was done, most likely, in exactly the same way. Since the prosphora should be baked already for the liturgy, and bread for dinner, they started baking bread very early. At the very beginning of Matins, after the Six Psalms, the kutnik, having bowed to the ground near the abbot, went to gather the brethren for obedience to the bakery. First, he approached the monks who stood on the right side of the church, then crossed to the other side. Everyone gathered in the center of the temple in front of the Royal Doors and went to be blessed by the abbot. Having made a bow to the earth, they said: “Bless, pray for us, holy father.” The abbot answered: “God will save,” and the monks went to the bakery. Here, while kneading the dough, they sang psalms, the canon, and other prayers that were supposed to be at matins. In addition, in Russian monasteries they also read a special prayer “always knead the dough for bread in the monastery” ( Prilutsky. S. 355). Having put the dough, the monks went to the church, where they continued to pray with the rest of the brethren, but the senior monk remained in the bakery to monitor how the dough fit. After the service, he went around the cells of the monks who kneaded the dough, and they again gathered in the bakery to now bake bread ( Pentkovsky. S. 387). Perhaps, thanks to these prayers, the bread baked in the monastery was especially tasty, and the monastery's kvass cured the most incredible diseases.

Meal order

When the brethren with the singing of the 144th psalm entered the refectory, everything was already ready: the necessary utensils were on the tables, on a separate large table, also called the “meal”, there were warm bread, salt shakers with salt and drink. The abbot blessed the meal with the cross and read the prayer: “Christ God, bless the brew and drink of your servant now and forever and forever and ever.” After that, everyone sat down, and the priest, standing up, blessed the reading of the lives of the saints: "Blessed is our God always, and now, and forever, and forever and ever." The reader answered: "Amen" - and began to read. This custom has long existed in all monasteries so that the monks listen to what they read with much more pleasure than eat food and drink, so that “the mind is visible, not preoccupied with bodily pleasures, but rejoicing more with the words of the Lord” ( Basil the Great. S. 254).

Having received the blessing, the servants brought the brew and put it on the refectory table. The cellar and the chalice keeper approached the abbot and bowed before him in turn, asking for a blessing for the distribution of the brew. Then the cellar personally brought the abbot a brew in a vessel, and a cup of drink (honey or kvass). The rest of the servants were distributing the same brew to the brethren, and the cup-bearer was bringing drinks to everyone. After everything was distributed, the servant closest to the abbot handed him a spoon, and the cellarer said: “Lord bless”, the abbot hit the “candea” (a metal vessel like a small bowl on a leg with a pallet, used as a bell).

The monks got up, and the priest read the prayers set before the meal: “Our Father”, “Glory, and now”, “Lord have mercy” (twice), “Lord bless”. At the end of the prayers, the abbot blessed the food and drink: “Christ God, bless the food and drink of your servant now and forever and forever and ever.” Everyone sat down and began to eat, but only after the abbot had begun to eat. A separate blessing was required for each “brashno”, therefore, during the meal, the “candea” was usually hit “thrice”: the first time after the introduction of the varia, the second after the introduction of the second food - sochiva, the third time - at the end of the meal. After each call, everyone prayed, as before eating brew.

If there was a “consolation” at the meal - a bowl of intoxicating drink, then the cellarer would say before eating it: “Lord bless.” The monks stood up, holding bowls in front of them. The abbot blessed, and the monks, mentally reciting the Jesus Prayer, drank them. At the end of the meal, the cellarer said a prayer: “For the prayers of our saints, our fathers (the modern pronunciation of the prayer: “Through the prayers of our saints, our fathers ...”. - E.R.), Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. The abbot struck the "candea", the reader stopped reading, made three bows to the earth in front of the abbot and, having taken a blessing, left. The abbot, taking the “Bread of the Virgin”, handed it over to the deacon to perform the rite of the Panagia. After eating the “Bread”, the hegumen read thanksgiving prayers: “Blessed be God, merciful and nourishing us from His rich gifts, with His grace and philanthropy, always, and now, and ever, and forever and ever.” The brethren answered, "Amen." The abbot thanked the servants for the meal: "God will forgive and have mercy on those who served us." The brethren bowed to the ground before the abbot and dispersed to their cells, not stopping in the refectory.

Fasts and holidays

The monastic meal, as we have said above, is closely connected with worship. The number and composition of dishes, meals during the day - all this depended on what icon marked this day in the liturgical charter. If the great holiday happened on Wednesday or Friday, then it was allowed to eat fish, oil and wine (where intoxicating drinks were allowed). On an average holiday there was permission for wine, oil and noun. If a small holiday with doxology happened on a fast day, then they did not eat fish, but only food cooked with oil and wine. There were also such small holidays in which there was permission only for wine at the meal, and the food was cooked “without sweetness” - without oil. This is how this statute was actually embodied in the everyday life of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery. On the twelfth holidays there was always a dinner with fish, even if this day fell on Wednesday or Friday. On a great holiday, for example, in memory of St. John the Theologian (September 26), fish and rolls were also relied on, but if it coincided with Wednesday or Friday, then dinner was canceled, although fish was left at dinner. On the holidays of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Savvatiy of Solovetsky, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. Alexy of Moscow, the brethren ate fish on the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. But, again, if the holiday fell on a fast day, then there was only lunch, and for dinner they served no longer fresh fish, but existing fish. In memory of St. Paul of Obnorsk, the charter of the meal was the same as on the feast of St. Savvatiy of Solovetsky, but on Lenten day they served caviar rather than sushch (that is, the feast was rated an order of magnitude lower).

Most of the days of the Orthodox calendar are fast: Wednesday, Friday (with the exception of solid weeks - those weeks when fasting is canceled), and in monasteries it is still Monday, as well as four long fasts: Great (seven weeks before Easter), Christmas or Philippov ( from November 15 to December 24), Petrov or Apostolic (begins a week after the Trinity and ends on July 11) and Assumption (from August 1 to 14). In addition, the feasts of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Beheading of John the Baptist, and Epiphany Christmas Eve (Eve of Theophany) are also fast days. Each post has its charter, but in different monasteries it acquired its own characteristics.

Monastic food, according to the charter, was supposed to be simple and inexpensive. From the canteens of the monasteries, it can be seen that the food was quite varied and as useful as possible, such as to restore strength even in the most exhausting fast. Moreover, it was necessarily taken into account that not everyone can eat the same food, therefore, equivalent food was offered for exchange. For example, milk porridge or milk could be exchanged for eggs, turnips for cucumbers, etc. Duplication of dishes was not allowed at the meal: if loaves were served, then kalachi was canceled.

In the monasteries they ate once or twice a day. According to the general rule, on fast days - Monday, Wednesday and Friday - there was only lunch, supper was not supposed even on the fast days of Pentecost.

The usual Lenten lunch of a monk of the Volokolamsk Monastery consisted of half soft bread for a brother and two boiled dishes without butter: cabbage soup with white cabbage or borscht and porridge (instead of porridge they sometimes served “batted peas” or “chickpeas”, that is, pea thick), or “porridge in the ear”, the second dish could be changed for cucumbers. Before Compline, the monks of the Volokolamsk Monastery gathered to drink kvass at the shegnush. However, according to the charter of the Monk Kornily Komelsky, the monks of his monastery were not allowed to drink kvass on fast days either after dinner or before mephimon; these days everyone except the sick drank only water. If on a fast day there was a big or small holiday with a doxology, then soup with butter was served: cabbage or noodles, or “chickpeas” and, in addition, a quarter of kalach as a festive dish (if fed with noodles, then kalachi was not served ).

On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday there were two meals: lunch and dinner. The diet of dishes varied greatly depending on whose healthy or deadly food fell on that day (they did not suit food on fasting days). In the Volokolamsk Monastery, the sterns were also divided into several ranks: the sovereign is large, medium, small. When they fed for the health or repose of the sovereign, the monks had fresh fried fish on the table, two brews with butter, two fish dishes with “broth” and mustard, white kalachi “too much” (that is, unlimited), pies of two types: some - with egg and pepper, others - with cheese - and two pancakes with honey per brother.

If the food was average (princely, boyar or great people), then the monks were supposed to have two brews with butter, three types of fish dishes (one serving for two), cheese pies, pancakes with honey, rolls in excess and honey kvass. If the food was smaller, then the brethren dined with one brew with butter (for example, cabbage soup), two fish dishes, pies and rolls in excess, and drank sychen kvass at such a dinner. In the books of the cellar of the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery, large and large sterns are mentioned "from the crumbs" (crushes). The large feed corresponded in importance to the Volokolamsk average, it was arranged on the days of memory of especially revered saints (for example, St. Sergius of Radonezh), for the repose of the boyars and princes, on special memorial Saturdays, and the large one with bowls was usually arranged on the twelfth holidays. So, on September 1, on the feast of St. Simeon the Stylite, in the monastery there was food for Prince Semyon Ivanovich Velsky. The brethren served kalachi, fish with an additive, a bowl of sycheny kvass and a bowl of barley kvass. On the memorial Dmitrov Saturday, a large meal consisted of kalachi, two types of pies, large fried fish, which was served in pans, and two types of kvass: honey and barley. On Sabbath meat-fare, in addition to the food of the brethren, alms were also given to the monastic workers who worked in numerous courtyards: people were given three bowls of kvass poluyan (probably barley kvass, mixed half with rye or oatmeal) and "overcooked" from honey. On the feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, they arranged a large fodder with grains, on this day kvass was better than on September 1: one bowl of honey kvass, the other - barley ( RNB. Cyrus. - Bel. No. 84/1322. L. 46–46 rev.).

At dinner on a non-fasting day, cabbage soup and milk were served at a fraternal meal; this dish could always be replaced with three eggs or porridge or kvass; drank barley kvass at dinner. On Sundays, the monastic table differed in variety and abundance of dishes from other non-fasting days. For lunch, they served a quarter of bread, cabbage soup with white cabbage or borscht, or sour soup with garlic or onions, two eggs or “beaten cows” (loaf - wheat bread with milk, butter and eggs) or lisni (perhaps puff pies) - one for four brothers, or loaves with fish - one for two brothers; the second brew for the Sunday meal was scrambled eggs (then eggs were canceled for cabbage soup) and milk porridge (if desired, the monk could change it for the same two eggs), instead of loaves and foxes, kalachi were sometimes served.

In the Orthodox calendar, there are two twelfth feasts when strict fasting is observed - the feasts of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. At the Exaltation in the Volokolamsky Monastery, they served a quarter of bread, cabbage soup with fresh white cabbage, carrots or turnips with butter (they could be replaced with cucumbers), a quarter of kalach and honey kvass. If the holiday fell on Saturday or Sunday, then the charter allowed dinner and the food was somewhat more varied. At the Kirillo-Belozero monastery, at a festive dinner, the brethren ate kalachi, cabbage soup with pepper, noodles, caviar, and a bowl of honey kvass. On this day, dinner was served, at which the monks received kalachi or white bread, cabbage soup and honey kvass.

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Monastic lunch

The nuns meet the third morning of Great Lent without breakfast, they allow themselves only a little prosvira - consecrated bread. For lunch, lean borscht, without meat, boiled buckwheat, black bread and pickles - tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms with onions and tea.

“We usually have dinner with what is left from dinner,” says the nun Nila (Semernya), who manages the monastery.

The refrigerator in the monastery kitchen contains mainly canned vegetables. “Sometimes there is both cheese and meat here,” nun Nila smiles. Fast foods will not appear in the temple for almost two months, until Easter.

- The principle of cooking during fasting is very simple: cook the same soups, but do not put meat in them, cook the same dishes, but without prohibited products - dairy, eggs. It's actually very tasty! the manager of the monastery assures.

This year, the patriarch blessed to eat fish on Saturday and Sunday, in the past, fish was on the menu only on Sunday. Sunflower oil is excluded on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

The most severe restrictions are the first 3-4 days of Lent and its last - Holy Week. Ascetic monks these days lead a particularly ascetic lifestyle and diet - they include only prosvir and holy water in the menu. The assistant to the manager of the Annunciation Women's Church, nun Susanna, who has been observing Great Lent for 18 years in a row, now refuses hot drinks and does not even drink tea - she eats potatoes in their uniforms, boiled beets, and vegetables. Matushka is 66 years old, annual abstinences have made her tastes unpretentious. “I don’t remember when I last ate sausage, although I used to love it very much. I thought I would never be able to wean from it, I bought it for the last penny. And then, when she accepted monasticism, apparently, the grace of God came down, ”she says. However, priests are also tempted.

- The first week I really want to eat something. Especially after Shrovetide, pancakes with sour cream. The body is rebuilt for a long time and is difficult, but with prayer God helps, - admits the nun Nila.

Maybe candy

Many are mistaken, perceiving fasting as a diet. “This is a very wrong approach. Fasting is not a preparation for the beach season, but a means of helping us fight our passions,” exhorts the nun Nila. By the way, this year the rules of abstinence are a little softer.

- The Patriarch blessed to eat fish on Saturday and Sunday, last year the fish was on the menu only on Sunday. Sunflower oil is excluded on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the temple manager notes.

Therefore, the weekend for fasting people turns into a feast of the stomach: they cook dishes stewed with butter, baked in the oven and fried. And it is precisely during dietary restrictions that nuns, on the contrary, often gain kilograms. “Because there are practically no proteins on the menu, more carbohydrates,” explains the nun Nila. Appetite increases during fasting - often low-calorie borscht is poured not into a plate, but into two. Moreover, there are no portion prohibitions in food for the Orthodox.

— We had more than 50 jars of pickles prepared for the winter. We will eat 15 of them during Lent,” the manager of the monastery counts.

Also, nutritious food is not prohibited in fasting: cereals, pasta and even sweets. In the temple of Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia, they prefer caramel to tea.

Who can not fast

“It is better to eat meat than to eat your neighbor. Fasting is not in food, but in the soul, ”the nun Nila derives the main rule. Beginners in the monastery are advised not to fast without the blessing of the priest and choose a shorter period of abstinence. In total, Orthodox Christians have four multi-day fasts a year - in addition to the Great, Assumption, Christmas and Petrov. It is better to start with the Dormition Fast, which is two weeks long. It is possible for the laity to fast without being limited in food. “Make it a rule to quit smoking during Lent, it will be much more difficult. Or do not swear with a neighbor: always greet her and smile, no matter what scandal you are with her. This is a great spiritual work!” mother remarks.

“We need to limit ourselves to entertainment, not go to restaurants, spend more time with family, pray for the dead and our neighbors, repent of sins, pay attention to our neighbor — help those in need, visit the sick,” advises the assistant to the manager of the temple, nun Susanna.

Even deeply religious people can afford not to refrain from fasting on special occasions - if illness or profession does not allow certain foods to be excluded. “These are hospital workers who are on duty around the clock, truckers. If the driver refuses to eat, he will feel dizzy, an emergency will be created. It’s better to fulfill your duties, on which people’s lives depend,” says the nun Nila. Fasting cannot be forced, so in Christian families they can cook according to the usual recipes for children.

- In ancient times, during the Great Lent, babies were even weaned. Now children from the age of seven receive communion and confession, it is desirable that from this year they observe fasting,” notes mother Susanna.

Curiously, Great Lent today has gone beyond the scope of Christian culture. It is often followed by secular people. “The soul is a Christian for everyone, but some keep it like in a cage. They say: "Yes, I do not believe." We all believe! Something happens, we say: “Lord!”. If a person fasts, it is not just like that. In time, little by little, he will come to God. Many come to him already in adulthood, - mother Susanna is sure.

Fasting people are allowed shrimp and chocolate

It is a myth that during a long Lent, Christians get tired of the same food. “Once we made a list of dishes for fasting, and in seven weeks we did not have time to cook them all!” Mother Susanna is surprised. The list of lean recipes includes borscht, cabbage soup with sauerkraut and fresh cabbage, pickle, all kinds of soups with different cereals. In the spring, okroshka is put on the table in the convent.

“We cook it on carbonated water, add grated forehead, potatoes, fresh cucumbers, onions and mayonnaise sauce, which does not contain eggs,” says nun Susanna.

Fasting is not a preparation for the beach season, but a means of helping us fight our passions.

There is a wide choice of salads: you can cut a vinaigrette, lean Olivier (without sausage), and on fish days - “Herring under a fur coat”. Vegetables are baked, fried with soy meat, stuffed. “We stuff peppers with rice or millet with carrots and onions, we cook cabbage rolls according to the same principle,” nun Nila gives an example. There are a lot of pastries on the lenten menu. The dough is prepared on water, without eggs and milk. “To make it soft, you need to add a little vegetable oil,” the nun shares gastronomic subtleties. And you can cook dumplings and pies with cabbage, potatoes, mushrooms and berries.

From sweets, you can honey, jam, drying, any lean pastries and even chocolate. From drinks - compotes, fruit drinks, juices, kissels, kvass. Some exotic dishes for our table can also be called lean - for example, tofu cheese or shrimp. “But the table should be simple, moderate. It is better to avoid expensive dishes and give alms,” says the nun Nila.

Dumplings with radish

— Once we cooked dumplings with black radish. The radish needs to be grated on a fine grater and soaked in water several times to remove the bitterness. Then salt it and add butter to the filling. The dumplings are juicy and tasty,” says Mother Susanna.

“It is very important to learn Christian asceticism.
Asceticism is not life in a cave and constant fasting,
austerity is the ability to regulate, among other things, one's own consumption by ideas and the state of one's heart.
Asceticism is the victory of man over lust, over passions, over instinct.”
© Patriarch Kirill
From the speech of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on the air of the Ukrainian TV channel "Inter"

Now the Russian holy fathers of the Russian Orthodox Church, who are monastics (black clergy), are the main determining and guiding force for the modernization of the entire great democratic Russia and the pious transformation of the spirituality of the wise and heroic Russian people.

A group photo of the faithful Supreme Teachers and Russian Reformers before a banquet in the Grand Kremlin Palace:

The monastery meal is a collective ritual. The monks ate twice a day: lunch and dinner, and on some days they ate only once (although this "once" could be very long); for various reasons, it occasionally happened that meals were completely excluded. The main thing was not the quantity of food, but the quality of the dishes: fast or modest, the role of the dish in rituals, the time of eating.

Lean baked cold fish with decoration with lean mayonnaise and chopped vegetables.

Sturgeon baked whole without skin
(before baking, carefully remove the skin from the base of the head to the tail from the fish).

Pike-perch stuffed with mushrooms, avocado, potatoes (avocado and potatoes 1:1) and herbs and baked in the oven. The monks consider pike perch the leanest fish, because. it has only 1.5% fat.
Additives to the monastic diet of fat-rich avocados, olives, and nuts make it possible to make up for the lack of fat on fasting days, on which, according to the monastic charter, dishes without oil are supposed to be eaten.

Representation of the ceremonial monastic dinner of the middle of the 19th century. allows you to compile a list of dishes that were served at the table on November 27, 1850, the day of the celebration of the memory of the founder of the monastery.

“Register of food on the feast of St. James 1850 November 27th
For an appetizer at the top
1. 3 kulebyaki with minced meat
2. 2 pike steamed on two dishes
3. Jellied perches with minced meat on two dishes
4. Boiled carp on two dishes
5. Fried bream on two dishes
In the fraternal meal for lunch
1. Kulebyaka with porridge
2. Pressed caviar
3. Lightly salted beluga
4. Botvinya with salted fish
5. Shchi with fried fish
6. Ear from carp and burbot
7. Pea sauce with fried fish
8. Fried cabbage
9. Dry bread with jam
10. Kanpot from apples
Snack for the white clergy
1. Caviar and white bread on 17 courses
2. Cold head with horseradish and cucumbers on 17 dishes”

Serving examples:

Lenten monastic table setting for dinner.
Tomato slices with lean soy cheese, lean fish sausage slices, fish and vegetable snacks, hot lenten portioned dishes, various monastic drinks (kvass, fruit drink, fresh juices, mineral water), fruit plate, savory and sweet monastic pastries.

Monastic culinary recipes
St. Danilov Stauropegial Monastery
What is the fundamental difference in nutrition between laymen and monks - the former simply love to eat deliciously, the latter do the same, but with a deep charitable meaning and with lofty spiritual intentions. Of course, this great spiritual wisdom is not easily understood by ordinary lay people.

Blaming the contemporary atheistic Russian intelligentsia, Fr. Pavel Florensky said this about her attitude to food:
“The intellectual does not know how to eat, let alone taste, he does not even know what it means to “taste”, what sacred food means: they don’t “taste” the gift of God, they don’t even eat food, but they “burrow” chemicals.

It is likely that many do not clearly understand the importance of food in the life of a Christian.

A modest monastic lunch:

Cold snacks:
- figured vegetable cutting,
- painted stuffed pike perch
- tender salmon of own special salting
Snack hot:
- julienne of fresh forest mushrooms baked with bechamel sauce
Salad:
- vegetable with shrimps "Sea freshness"
First course:
- fish hodgepodge "monastic"
Second course:
- salmon steak with tartar sauce
Dessert:
- ice cream with fruits.
The drinks:
- branded monastic sea
- kvass
And, of course, for dinner are served:
- freshly baked bread, honey cakes, various savory and sweet pastries to choose from.

Serving examples:

Monastic lenten snacks for the common monastic table.

Semuzhka own special monastic ambassador.
Monastic cooks recommend wrapping a lemon for squeezing juice with gauze to prevent lemon seeds from getting in.

Lenten fish hodgepodge with salmon.

Lenten fish hodgepodge of sturgeon with pie stuffed with burbot liver.

Steam salmon with lean mayonnaise tinted with saffron.

Lenten rice pilaf, tinted with saffron, with slices of fish and various seafood, which God sent today for dinner to the monastic brethren.

Fruity bouquet for a common monastic table.

Monastic lean chocolate-nut log.
Chocolate-nut masses of three colors (from dark chocolate, white chocolate and milk chocolate) are prepared as indicated in the previous recipe "Monastic Lenten Candy Truffles". Then they are poured in layers into a mold, previously neatly covered with plastic wrap.
The widespread use of various nuts and chocolate in the monastic diet makes it possible to make monastic food tasty and quite complete.

Monastic fasting sweets-truffles.
Ingredients: 100 g of dark dark chocolate, 1 teaspoon of olive oil (on days when oil is prohibited, do not add olive oil, but the sweets will turn out to be somewhat harder), 100 g of peeled nuts, 1 teaspoon of good cognac or rum, a little grated nutmeg.
Peel the nuts in a mortar, heat the chocolate with the addition of olive oil, stirring, in a water bath to 40 gr. C, add crushed nuts, grated nutmeg and cognac, stir; take the warm mass with a teaspoon and spread it on a plate with cocoa powder (to taste, powdered sugar can be added to cocoa powder) and, rolling in cocoa powder, form balls the size of a walnut.

Recall that in monasteries they do not eat meat very often, in some they do not eat it at all. Therefore, the "spell" "Crucian, crucian, turn into a pig" does not work.

On great and patronal holidays, the brothers are blessed with a “consolation” - a glass of red wine - French or, at worst, Chilean. And, of course, dishes are being prepared for a special holiday menu.

breakfast menu of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia on one of the days of April 2011.
Menus of patriarchal nutrition are carefully developed and balanced by nutritionists to maintain proper energy in the patriarch, which is necessary for the tireless conduct of his enormous spiritual, organizational and representative work.
In the patriarchal menus, all raw materials and ready-made dishes undergo the same check as in the Kremlin kitchen. All the dishes on the patriarchal table are the fruit of a long analysis, discussions and endless tastings of the highest class chefs, sanitary doctors and nutritionists.
For Patriarch Kirill's indispensable faith in God's mercy and protection is a high spiritual matter, and the work of the patriarchal guard from the FSO and the corresponding doctors and laboratories is a daily earthly matter.

Cold dishes:
Sturgeon caviar with buckwheat pancakes.
Caspian sturgeon, smoked, with galantine from grapes and sweet pepper.
Salmon stroganina with parmesan cheese and avocado mousse.

Snacks:
Pheasant roll.
Calf jelly.
Bunny pate.
Pancake pie with blue crabs.

Hot appetizers:
Fried grouse.
Duck liver with rhubarb sauce with fresh berries.

Hot fish dishes:
Rainbow trout poached in champagne.

Hot meat dishes:
Smoked duck strudel.
Roe deer back with lingonberry galantine.
Venison grilled.

Sweet foods:
Cake with white chocolate.
Fresh fruits with strawberry galantine.
Baskets with fresh berries in champagne jelly.

The monastery chef is happy to share his recipes for vegetable salad with shrimp and fish hodgepodge.

First of all, in order for everything to turn out tasty and pleasing to God, you need to start cooking by reading a prayer. Have you read? Now to business!

Serving examples:

Layered lenten salad according to the monastery recipe.
Lay the salad in layers, each layer under lean mayonnaise, salt to taste.
1st layer - canned crab meat, finely chopped (or crab sticks),
2nd layer - boiled rice,
3rd layer - boiled or canned squid, finely chopped,
4th layer - Beijing cabbage, finely chopped,
5th layer - steamed stellate sturgeon, finely chopped,
b-th layer - boiled rice.
Decorate with lean mayonnaise, caviar, green leaf and serve to the monk's table.

Vinaigrette according to the monastery recipe.
The composition of the vinaigrette includes: baked whole in the oven, peeled and diced: potatoes, carrots, beets; canned green peas, onions, pickles, olive oil.
Sometimes monastery cooks prepare a vinaigrette with the addition of boiled beans and mushrooms (boiled or salted, or pickled).
To taste, finely chopped salted herring can be added to the vinaigrette.

Lenten portioned dish of lobster boiled in vegetable kurt-broth (dip a live lobster upside down in boiling kurt-broth of carrots, onions, herbs, salt and spices, lobster boil time is 40 minutes, then let it brew for 10 minutes under the lid) with a side dish of boiled rice, tinted with saffron, and vegetables with a lean flour sauce from sturgeon broth, served separately in a cup, with the addition of onion, mashed through a sieve, simmered until transparent (avoid browning) and spices; garnish with a slice of lemon.

There is still a lot of interesting things about products, dishes and those who eat these dishes.

Despite the fact that modern Old Believer calendars contain precise indications regarding fasting and fasting days of the year, the true Old Russian traditions of eating and fasting are still little known. Today we will talk about fasting in the monasteries of the Russian Church before the church schism, and on the basis of old documents we will reconstruct now forgotten monastic dishes.

Small home charter

The nutritional guidelines of the modern Old Believer calendars of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, the Russian Old Orthodox Church, the Old Orthodox Pomeranian Church relate to the use of certain types of products on the days of the church year. Attention is concentrated mainly on five parameters of the meal:

fast food;
fish food;
food with oil;
food without oil(meaning without vegetable oil);
xerophagy(today this refers to uncooked food, fresh vegetables or fruits).

It is believed that all these instructions are taken from " Small house charter”- a book compiled in the 19th century and which became a kind of collection of statutory instructions regarding fasting, meals and private prayer. And although there is an opinion that the “Small House Rule” unites a certain amount of pre-schism church tradition, including the customs of ancient Russian monasteries and parish churches, in fact, its instructions go back mainly to one book - Typikon (“Church Eye”), published in 1641 under Patriarch Joseph and, according to legend, connected with the ancient charter of the Jerusalem monastery. It should be noted that the New Believer charter in terms of fasting does not differ in any way from the Old Believer. They are completely identical because they have the same source.

Pea slurry

However, neither in the "Small House Rule", nor even more so in modern Old Believer calendars, can one find information directly related to the food tradition of pre-schismatic Russia. What did ordinary people eat in Russia on holidays and fasts, what did the clergy, and what did the boyars eat? What dishes were served in numerous monasteries? Almost nothing is known about this, and studies and documents that talk about it are not widely available. Small remarks, occasionally published in popular historical literature, provide very modest information on this topic and are mainly limited to general words about the piety of ancient Russia. Usually in such cases they quote, oddly enough, foreigners. Thus, speaking of the diet of Great Lent, one usually recalls the writings of the archdeacon Paul of Aleppo who visited from Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, at the invitation of Patriarch Nikon, Moscow in 1654-1656:

“During this fast, we endured great torment with him, imitating them (Russians - ed.) against our will, especially in food: we did not find any other food than a slurry similar to boiled peas and beans, because this post is generally completely do not eat oil. For this reason, we experienced indescribable agony.”

Also, information sometimes slips that in northern monasteries, like Solovetsky, “dry” (dried fish) was allowed during Great Lent, because there was absolutely no bread in those places, and the monks were forced to eat fish. However, due to the lack of widely known and published historical documents, information about "sushi", like any other fish used in the Great and Assumption Lent, is criticized by some zealots. According to such authors, the Studite Charter, which indeed allowed the repeated consumption of fish during Great Lent (not only on the Annunciation, but also on the day of the 40 martyrs, the acquisition of the head of St. John the Forerunner, St. Alexis, the man of God, the righteous Lazarus and some others) has not been used in Russia for a long time. They note that even centuries before the church schism, the ban on fish in monastic institutions fully met the requirements of modern church calendars, and during Great Lent, indeed, the main dish was pea mash, mentioned by Paul of Aleppo.

Secrets of the monastery habitants

Unfortunately, it so happened that there is no full-fledged research work devoted to the daily meal in ancient Russia, both monastic and parish, in different strata, different classes of the population. In order to compile such a study, you need to study dozens, if not hundreds of documents. To a greater extent, the documents of the monasteries have survived to this day. These are various kinds of inventories, daily routines and charters. It takes years to study all that have survived, so let's try to see what lies on the surface. On the website of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, in the section "The main collection of the library of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra", we find the "Obykhodnik" of 1645. It contains not only liturgical instructions, but also food. We find there an indication of the food charter of the first Saturday of Great Lent:

« Boiled with butter for the brethren, and dry rubbed in a sour brew, and not fish. And we drink the wine set for the glory of God, if two cups are received. Likewise, in the evening, two bowls. In the evening shchi and dry peas mixed with a lot of butter».

What conclusions can be drawn from this? Sush (dried fish), apparently, was used not only in the regions of the far north, where there is “no bread at all,” but, as we see, in the central monastery of the Russian state. The indication “dry land, not fish” clearly means that in other places (which are not indicated) fresh fish was allowed, and the indication was made in order to avoid mistakes in cooking according to the monastery charter of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Unfortunately, “sush” (dried fish), popular before the schism, is not mentioned at all in church calendars today, although you can buy it in most Russian grocery stores. You can also pay attention to the solid number of bowls of wine consumed in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery.

In the "Obikhodnik" of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery there are not so many indications of a domestic nature. But there are other "Obikhodniki", with a more detailed description of household charters. One of them belongs to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

This document is well known and was even published by the Indrik publishing house in 2002. This "Obikhodnik" gives a detailed description of almost every day of Great Lent, as well as other days of the church year. Skip the liturgical instructions, let us look at the refectory regulations of this famous monastery concerning the second week of Great Lent.

On Monday: On that day, the brethren eat brotherly bread, retka, kvass, in bowls in large water, cabbage crumbled with horseradish, oatmeal, turnips, or mushrooms or milk mushrooms with garlic. And on which days the brethren are dry-eating, then there is no serving and a bowl of kvass.

Tuesday: The brethren eat in tables for a quarter of brotherly bread, crackers, borscht shti with juice, kvass from a smaller cellar in large bowls, peas or porridge juicy. If on this Tuesday or on any other days of Great Lent the Finding of the head of Ivan the Baptist, or the 40th martyr, or new saints: Euphemia of Novgorod, Demetrius of Prilutsky, Alexei Metropolitan, Macarius Kolyazinsky, Jonah Metropolitan, then eat white bread, barley kvass in large bowls , shti, in a bowl, lips in juice or cabbage are heated with butter, grated peas with butter, caviar or korowai, porridge juicy or pea noodles with pepper, chetsu serving.

On Wednesday: Eat dry food: broth bread, retka, kvass, in large bowls water, cabbage with horseradish, oatmeal, turnips or mushrooms or milk mushrooms with garlic.

On Thursday: Eat in the tables for a quarter of bratskoy bread, shti borsch juicy, crackers, bratskoy kvass, peas or porridge juicy.

At five: Eat dry food: bracket bread, kvass, in large bowls, water, cabbage with horseradish in bowls, oatmeal, turnips or mushrooms with garlic.

On Saturday: They serve as a cathedral for Tsar Ivan, for his burial for the brethren of food: white bread, a bowl of fake kvass, shti with pepper, tavranchyug sturgeon or porridge with salmon, grated peas with butter, caviar or korovai, pies, but if there are korovai, otherwise there are no pies . They make food for people. In dinner, brotherly bread, shti, kvass in large bowls from a smaller cellar, at the rate of kvass.

In the 2nd week of fasting: Eat white bread, shti, in a bowl of barley kvass, in bowls, lips in juice or cabbage greta with butter, grated peas with butter, caviar or korowai, porridge or Gorokhov's lopsha with pepper. On the same day, in dinner, brack bread, shti, a bowl of kvass yachnovo in large bowls, kvass in staves.

What's interestnigwe seeabout the pre-schism monastic life, in terms of modern cliches?

First of all, although the Kirillov Monastery belongs to the northern monasteries, there was bread at the meal of the monks. And there was no lack of it. On holidays, instead of rye, white bread or pies were served, the filling of which depended on the charter of the day.

Secondly. The monastic meal was very varied not only on fast days, but even on the most strict fast. On the harsh days of “dry eating”, a sufficient selection of dishes was offered: “bratsky bread, retka, kvass, in large bowls, water, cabbage with horseradish, oatmeal, turnips or mushrooms or milk mushrooms with garlic.” This, by the way, partly refutes the story of Archdeacon Pavel of Allepsky about the extreme severity and unbearability of the Russian fast.

On festive, fast days in the Cyril Monastery there was the following list of dishes. The first dish consisted of ear soup (soup), borscht or cabbage soup, cabbage soup with pepper, cabbage soup with pepper and eggs; tavranchuga (stew): fish and turnip. Second course: cereals, peas, pea flour noodles, mushrooms: salted, dried, in their own juice. A special article was a variety of fresh, dried, salted, dried fish, the quality of which was incomparably higher than modern; black and red caviar, kalachi, pies with various fillings: berry, vegetable, mushroom and fish; pancakes, milk, cheese, etc.

In addition, according to the decisions of the Stoglavy Cathedral, in some cases other indulgences were allowed in the monasteries:

Yes, in the great and honest monasteries, princes and boyars and orderly people, great and infirmities or in old age, give in exchange great and patrimonial villages for their souls and for their parents in an eternal commemoration, and therefore, for infirmity and for old age, laws are not supposed to be refectory walking and cell eating; put them to rest after reasoning with food and drink, about such keep kvass sweet, and stale, and sour - whoever demands what, and the food is the same, or they radiate their own peace, or send from their parents and do not torture them about that.

Thirdly. Kvass played an important role in the monastery meal.. It was served on almost all fasting days, not to mention fast days. Even on Holy Saturday, at sunset, the brethren gave counterfeit kvass and ukrukha (buns) at a rate of “strength for the sake of the body, and not for lust and satiety of the stomach.” Everyday kvass are called: ordinary, fraternal. As researcher T. I. Shablova writes, fraternal kvass probably means the simplest and most inexpensive oat and rye kvass. Festive kvass were of 4 varieties: honey (honey, honey), counterfeit (barley, mixed in half with honey), barley (barley, wheat) and semi-yan (probably barley, mixed with oatmeal or rye). Kvass was served in bowls or staves (glass-like vessels) with a volume of about 150 grams. Today, kvass and mead have practically disappeared from church life and have become secular drinks.

Fourth. In the middle of the weeks of Great Lent, on revered holidays, caviar was supplied. In the charter of the Kirillov Monastery, such holidays were: "heads of Ivan the Baptist, or 40 martyrs, or new saints: Euthymius of Novgorod, Demetrius of Prilutsk, Alexei Metropolitan, Macarius Kolyazinsky, Metropolitan Jonah." Also, caviar was supplied on Palm Sunday along with fish. Rudiments of this ancient tradition can be observed in individual Old Believer parishes, in which it is allowed to cook fish “if the rector blesses” on patronal feasts.

Fifth. On all Saturdays of Great Lent (except Great Saturday, which, in fact, does not apply to Fortecost), fish was supplied to the Cyril Monastery. There are also indications about fish in the charter of Palm Sunday:

Food for the brethren: white bread, frying pans with ear or shti with pepper, fake kvass, two fish, pancakes with honey, similar bowls. On the same day, in dinner, brotherly bread, shti, to the extent of barley kvass in large bowls, two fish, topping.

The fish table was timed, as a rule, for funeral fodder: Saturdays 1 and 2 - for Tsar Ivan the Terrible, 3 and 5 - for Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich (son of John IV and Anastasia Romanovna), and 4th - for Abbot Christopher (3- hegumen of the monastery, disciple of St. Cyril). In addition, on the 1st Sunday of Great Lent there was a healthy fodder for the king, also with fish. In total, according to the Cyril Charter, fish was supplied 8 times during Great Lent.

Tavranchuk. Recipe

One of the most interesting and mysterious dishes mentioned in the "Obikhodnik" of the Kirillov Monastery is called "tavranchuk". Soviet historian V.V. Pokhlebkin(1923-2000) talks about this dish like this:

“Tavranchuks are both meat and fish, because the meaning of this dish is not in its nutritional composition, but in the method of preparation. It is more correct to call it taganchuk - something that is cooked in a tagan, that is, in a ceramic, clay pan-bowl, in a crucible. Tavranchuks were cooked in pots, in a Russian oven, with long languishing. The liquid environment was minimal: a little water for fish, sometimes half a glass of milk, onions, roots - parsley, dill; for meat - a glass of kvass, onions, pickles and the same spicy herbs. The fish was chosen differently: pike perch, pike, perch, carp; meat - mostly lamb brisket.

The pot was placed in the oven, and as soon as it warmed up (after a few minutes), it was poured over with beaten eggs (for fish tavranchuk) or, in addition, a rag was tied around the throat of the pot, which was covered with dough. Then the tavranchuk, sealed in this way, was placed in a heated oven for several hours to languish. The elimination of the Russian stove, first in cities and then in the countryside, led to the disappearance of tavranchuk as a dish, because in other conditions, in a different way, this dish did not turn out tasty».

In the "Obikhodnik" of the Cyril Monastery, tavranchuk is mentioned quite often. But interestingly, it was prepared for the Saturday meals of Great Lent as one of the options for a fish dish: “ tavranchyug sturgeon or porridge with salmon". Under the monastery tavranchuk, one must understand fish tavranchuk, without meat, sour cream and other products that can be used only on fast days. Here are the main ingredients of tavranchuk, a dish very popular in the monastic diet of the 17th century.

It is better to wash and soak salted milk mushrooms before cooking, because a sufficient amount is already present in pickles. Also, parsley root, celery root, black pepper, currant or bay leaf, onion are used as ingredients, depending on desire and taste.

All this is cut into cubes.

Prepared products are stacked in layers in a pot or cauldron, and then placed in a Russian oven, as an option - in an oven at a temperature of 170 degrees and languish for several hours. Some recipes suggest pouring additional water or kvass. Others advise languishing in their own juice, adding vegetable oil.

There are many tavranchuk recipes on the net with the indicated proportions of products, which, however, differ significantly from each other and not all of them are equally good. Much depends on the amount of liquid, temperature and languishing time in the oven. However, with due skill, experience and, most importantly, desire, you can try a real monastic dish that our ancestors ate in the 15th-17th centuries.