The Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian; Our Venerable Father Arsenius the Great. All-Night Vigil Feast.
Abstention from meat and foods that contain these ingredients.
Acts 15:5-34; 1 John 1:1-7; John 10:17-28; John 19:25-27; 21:24-25.
Read Acts 15:5-34
Acts 15 stands at one of the great crossroads of Christian history. The question was simple and enormous: must the Gentiles become Jews in order to belong to Christ?
The apostles answered with divine clarity. They did not bind the Gentiles to the full ceremonial weight of Israel. They did not demand circumcision. They did not require them to carry every cultural custom of the old covenant. Christ had opened the door to the nations.
But the apostles did not say, “Enter, and bring your old life with you.”
They gave the Gentiles requirements: abstain from idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. Some of these were minimal Jewish table practices, meant to preserve fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers around the common meal, and most especially around the Eucharistic table. They were matters of charity, peace, and ecclesial patience.
But sexual morality was different. It was not a custom, or some Hebrew habit to be quietly retired once everyone became more comfortable. It belonged to holiness itself.
The apostles removed the fence where it merely divided men. They kept the fence where it kept men from falling off a cliff.
Modern Christians often pride themselves on having outgrown the old ceremonial boundaries. Fair enough. The Church herself, in Acts 15, showed that Gentiles need not live as Jews. But our danger is much deeper. We have not merely discarded old cultural practices; many now discard the sexual morality that stood at the center of the apostolic decree.
That is Malachi all over again.
Israel did not always cease to worship. She simply made worship cheaper. The blind lamb became acceptable. The lame sacrifice was considered good enough. God received the leftovers.
So now, many Christians offer God a minimized faith: liturgy without obedience, identity without chastity, communion without conversion.
Acts 15 was not permission for minimum Christianity. It was mercy without moral surrender. Its message remains for us today as laity in the pew or high ranking churchman: enter freely, but enter changed.