The medical side of fasting. Publication of the "Clergy Committee" in England

The Medical Aspect of Fasting. By a Committee of clergy. London 1897, pp. 38. With the increase in ecclesiasticalism, noticed recently in England, between the aspirations to restore church rituals lost during the Reformation, a desire to restore church discipline in all its severity also appeared. One of the most flagrant violations of this discipline, under the influence of the spirit of extreme Protestantism, was noticed in relation to the ordinance of fasting, and, despite the fact that in the Church of England this rule was preserved in its missal, or so-called “Book of Public Prayer,” in reality, however, it was rarely observed by anyone; and in general there was such confusion in England in this regard that no one really knew how binding this charter was, or how to understand its provisions. Things have come to the point that in many places even the custom of abstaining from food and drink before communion has fallen out of use, and this was greatly facilitated by the widespread views in society that such abstinence in the morning is even harmful in hygienic terms - and what is harmful to health cannot be pleasing to God. The named book, compiled and published by a special “Committee of the Clergy,” is directed against this extreme view, obviously aimed at the indulgence of the flesh, and also with the goal of restoring the former church discipline among the people. It examines in detail the false opinions about fasting as an unhygienic institution, and mainly from a medical point of view, and persistently puts forward the idea that violation of fasts established by the church, without being at all justified by medical science, is an obvious carnivore and an insult to the mother church, which established fasts for the spiritual good of her children. For us, this last argument is especially attractive, indicating that a serious process of growing the spirit of churchliness is taking place in England, and we can only rejoice at this. Editor Prof. A. Lopukhin