page_title: Christian culture
section_title: Cuisine
hierarchical_section_title: Christian culture / Cuisine
context_page_description: Christian culture is the cultural practices common to Christianity. With the rapid expansion of Christianity to Europe, Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Egypt, Ethiopia, and India and by the end of the 4th century it had also become the official state church of the Roman Empire. Christian culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Greco-Roman Byzantine, Western culture, Middle Eastern, Slavic, Caucasian, and possibly from Indian. Christian culture generally includes all the practices which have developed around the religion of Christianity. There are variations in the application of Christian beliefs in different cultures and traditions.
  Christianity played a prominent role in the development of Western civilization, in particular the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism. Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, and many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians.
context_section_description: In mainstream Nicene Christianity, there is no restriction on kinds of animals that can be eaten. This practice stems from Peter's vision of a sheet with animals, in which Saint Peter "sees a sheet containing animals of every description lowered from the sky." Nonetheless, the New Testament does give a few guidelines about the consumption of meat, practiced by the Christian Church today; one of these is not consuming food knowingly offered to pagan idols, a conviction that the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria and Origen preached. In addition, Christians traditionally bless any food before eating it with a mealtime prayer (grace), as a sign of thanking God for the meal they have.
  Slaughtering animals for food is  often done without the trinitarian formula, although the Armenian Apostolic Church, among other Orthodox Christians, have rituals that "display obvious links with shechitah, Jewish kosher slaughter." The Bible states Norman Geisler, stipulates one to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meat of strangled animals". In the New Testament, Paul of Tarsus notes that some devout Christians may wish to abstain from consuming meat if it causes "my brother to stumble" in his faith with God. As such, some Christian monks, such as the Trappists, have adopted a policy of Christian vegetarianism. In addition, Christians of the Seventh-day Adventist tradition generally "avoid eating meat and highly spiced food". Christians in the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and Orthodox denominations traditionally observe a meat-free day, and meat free seasons especially during the liturgical season of Lent.
  Some Christian denominations condone the moderate drinking of alcohol (moderationism), such as Anglicans, Catholics, Lutherans, and the Orthodox, although others, such as Adventists, Baptists, Methodists, and Pentecostals either abstain from or prohibit the consumption of alcohol (abstentionism and prohibitionism). However, all Christian Churches, in view of the Biblical position on the issue, universally condemn drunkenness as sinful.
  Christian cooking combines the food of many cultures in which Christian have lived. A special Christmas family meal is traditionally an important part of the holiday's celebration, and the food that is served varies greatly from country to country. Some regions, such as Sicily, have special meals for Christmas Eve, when 12 kinds of fish are served. In the United Kingdom and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal includes turkey, goose or other large bird, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, sometimes bread and cider. Special desserts are also prepared, such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, fruit cake and Yule log.
caption: Danish Christmas dinner
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