Healthy eating and Metropolitan’s diet

In the days of quarantine, many of us thought about our diet. If not, it’s worth doing. Balanced diet will not protect you from infectious diseases but will make your body stronger in the fight against them. Recently, it was developed and officially approved by the Center of Public Health of the Ministry of Healthcare of Ukraine a “plate of healthy food” (https://phc.org.ua/promociya-zdorovya/proekt-prozdorove). Based on this, you can choose the right products and portion size. 250 years ago in the eighteenth century there was another situation. At that time, the population of the territory of Ukraine focused in the selection of food products on their own income, household, culinary traditions and church posts. The last thing concerned especially the clergy and their head -the Metropolitan of Kyiv. We are not able to find out the detailed diet of the bishop, but we know for certain the products he consumed. The purchase of certain foods is recorded in the reports of the cathedral shafar (major-domo, housekeeper). The Metropolitan did not buy products, cook or set the table personally, the bishops had novices for this. Shafar was busy with purchasing products and other necessary things for Kyiv Metropolitan’s House. Literate monks were appointed to this position. It was the shafar who went shopping to Kyiv merchants and Zhytniy market. Later he wrote reports on the funds spent. Looking at such reports for 1759 (at that time Arseniy (Mohyliansky) was the Metropolitan of Kyiv), we see that many kinds of food were bought for the Metropolitan, namely perch, pike, bream, pikeperch, ide, gobio and others. At that time, these species were available for fishing in the Dnieper waters, and therefore the bishops received a daily supply of fresh fish. Loafs, bagels and eggs were frequent purchases. Seasonal products were also addressed. So, in the summer months, they bought crayfish, fifty pieces or more at a time. Strawberries and other berries were added. Meat purchases are fixed in rare cases. In addition, Metropolitan had in disposal fruits and vegetables grown in the gardens at his country villas in Shulyavka and Kudryavka.

More information about the diet of Kyiv Metropolitans of the 18th c. and about their novices you will be able to find out after the end of quarantine on excursions and lectures of scientific team of “St. Sophia Institute” department.

The author: Denis Borysov