Our daily bread: a small bakery at the church on Chernyakhovsky works according to old recipes (photo; video). Fashionable experiment: baking monastery bread at home

If you know the Lord's Prayer, you will undoubtedly remember the words “Our daily bread...”. Bread is one of the symbols of Christianity and has great importance. Since ancient times, monasteries have been the guardians of history, culture, and literature. And thanks to this, the ancient recipes according to which our ancestors baked bread have survived to this day.

In the Middle Ages, baking bread was considered honorable and important matter Almost every monastery had its own mills and bakeries, and bread was baked with obligatory prayer and a request for God’s blessing. Until the 12th century, black bread was not known in Rus'; it was mainly baked White bread, which was kneaded from the leaven of old dough. They also baked buns with honey, cottage cheese, poppy seeds, and pies with various fillings. Of course, prosphora was baked at the monasteries.

Interestingly, the bakery of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery provided delicious and fresh bread over nine hundred people. There are no tricks to making delicious bread as such. But the monks kneaded the bread with prayer, putting their soul and love for God and people into baking the bread. Blessed water was added to the dough, the bread was baked at a certain temperature conditions on fire from an unquenchable lamp in dishes made of certain materials.

And below I will write you a recipe for making bread from the 19th century from the monks of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, which has survived to this day. This bread is made, as I already wrote above, using sourdough from previously prepared dough. The recipe contains Old Russian measures of mass and volume. I decided not to change this, but I will indicate the meaning of each measure: deja - a wooden tub for fermenting dough; tub - a measure of the volume of liquids is approximately 20-25 liters; a quarter is equal to about 210 liters (a measure of volume friable solids); pound - 400 grams.

To prepare a solution for 1 quarter of flour, you should take a starter from the previously prepared dough in the amount of at least two loaves. Next, the starter is dissolved in a container with a volume of 25-35 liters of water, which is prepared as follows - for 6 buckets of water, take 1 bucket of boiling water. Then a wire sieve is placed over the bowl, and half a quarter of the flour is sifted in this way. Next, the sifted flour is mixed with the leaven using wooden paddles until the dry flour completely disappears.

After that, the dough solution is lightly sprinkled with flour on top and the bowl is covered with a wooden lid. This is done so that carbonic acid gases and heat do not escape from the bowl, so the solution sours faster. It is important to know that the solution must rise to the very top of the bowl, then fall to half the previous height of the volume. Next, the bowl is opened, a sieve is placed on it, and half a quarter of the flour is sifted. Salt is added to the starter for taste.

After which the sieve is removed from the bowl, and the dough is kneaded with your hands along with flour; a separate tank is placed nearby to wet your hands. Knead the dough until the baker's hands are completely clean of dough. Already ready dough After kneading, it is smoothed, the bowl is covered again with a lid.

Photo taken from hram-petraipavla.ru

Now you should prepare the oven for baking bread. The oven is heated with wood, and before firing the oven, the iron molds for baking bread inside are moistened with hemp oil. The dough should be transferred to the molds when it rises to the very top in the bowl. The molds are filled with dough to two-thirds of their height, from the bottom to the top edges. Next, the forms with the dough are placed in the already heated oven. It should be noted that before heating and baking bread, the oven must be cleaned of ash and coal. The readiness of the oven for baking bread was checked by pouring bran into it, if the bran burned without a flame, then you can bake bread, and the oven is heated properly.

When baking bread, it is important to carefully ensure that the oven damper is not closed, but only slightly open. After all, when the oven damper is closed, water vapor from the bread will not have a free exit, and the bread will definitely burn on top.

Already baked bread in molds is taken out of the oven and placed in a cold place. Next, the top crust of the bread is moistened cold water, and the bread itself is laid out from the mold in the same order in which the bread was removed from the oven. In this case, the bread is placed with the bottom crust facing up on a hard surface.

“Not to beg, but to help,” is how Priest Vladislav, rector of the church in honor of Spyridon of Trimifuntsky (Chernyakhovsky, 13a), explains why a bakery was organized at the church. The production is small: 700 buns are made here per day, and then sold to stores in the city. The proceeds are enough not only to pay staff salaries, but also to partially maintain the church and Sunday school, and to help those in need. VL.ru correspondents watched how Monastic bread is baked.

“Temples and monasteries often do not have the opportunity to earn money themselves. We created a bakery so that we could provide not only for employees, but also for the people who come to the temple: the poor, the needy,” says father Vladislav. And he says that on the territory of the temple he wants to organize a center to help women who find themselves in a difficult situation due to an unplanned pregnancy. Now a small temporary church has been opened on the territory of the parish on Chernyakhovsky (Orthodox Christians all over the world are collecting money for a new church in honor of the saint St. Sergius Radonezhsky). There is a Sunday school at the church. And this year a bakery was launched. It produces yeast-free bread using natural rye sourdough. It is dietary, almost without sugar and salt.

Three people work in a small one-story room - baker Sergei and two assistants - Vladimir and Andrey. Bread, 700 rolls each, is produced every other day - more and more often cannot be produced, production is quite labor-intensive. The cycle, says bakery manager and deputy rector of the church Evgeny Matveev, takes about 24 hours. With the same labor costs, it would be possible to bake 2500-3000 loaves of yeast bread per day.

It all starts with the priest consecrating the flour. Bakers make a leaven of water and flour, keep it at certain temperature. While it ferments, natural yeast and lactic acid bacteria are born in it - industrial yeast and additives are not added to the sourdough and dough. Father Vladislav says that leaven destroys everything harmful bacteria and fungi. “I wondered: how did monks used to live on bread and water? But it turns out that in rye bread“40% of the substances necessary for humans,” he argues.

“From scratch” the loaf is baked in 8-9 hours. The dough is mixed in a special bowl, then the craftsmen cut it into pieces - 600 grams, no more and no less. Smooth ellipses are formed from them and laid out in molds. Sprinkle with seeds as needed. And they put it in the oven. The finished bread sits overnight and cools: you can’t pack it hot, because the bread will shrink. Baker’s assistant Andrei especially asks: “Tell people so that they know: it happens that the crust of bread breaks during baking. Many people don’t understand why, they think the bread is bad. On the contrary, he is good! It’s always smooth and even only if you add chemicals.”

The head of church production, Evgeny Matveev, adds that they decided to use old recipes, without chemicals. “We found technologies for baking with sourdough, like they used to bake in Rus'. This is a rather complex and labor-intensive process—it took a year and a half to complete. This bread is, of course, more expensive than usual. But its peculiarity is that it does not contain industrial yeast, baking improvers or additives. It is natural: water, flour, malt, rye sourdough. If you eat it every day, the heaviness in the stomach and heartburn disappear.”

Now the bakery produces four types of bread: rye “Sergievsky”, rye with malt and molasses “Muromsky”, wheat “Trapezny” and rye-wheat dietary “Danilovsky”. Orthodox manufacturers themselves figured out how to package goods, studied graphic editors and made up labels. They sell products to supermarkets and markets. They are also sold in the icon shop at the temple. Some residents of the area sometimes come to the church specifically to buy bread. One loaf costs about 50 rubles.

VIDEO:

We were taught that bread is the head of everything. Therefore, it is extremely unpleasant to throw away moldy bread. It spoils so quickly that it has to be stored not in a bread bin, but in the refrigerator. Now more and more parishioners are paying attention to healthy eating. And some even bake homebaked bread, which, unlike store-bought ones, does not grow moldy for a long time. Elena Logunova shares her experience.

Well forgotten old

There is a debate on the Internet about the benefits or harms of yeast bread and store-bought baker's yeast. You can delve into this for years and decide whether to eat bread or not. I know one thing for sure - I have not seen a single article about the dangers of homemade sourdough bread. But you need to eat bread, because it is full of essential nutrients for humans.

In this matter, I decided to listen to my body and observe how my family reacts to the appearance of homemade bread in the house. I want to say right away that this activity is for those who are patient; they need stability over a long period of time. Then the result will be noticeable.

I often heard stories about how bread used to taste better, that it could be compressed and returned to its previous shape, that it didn’t mold on the third day, and much more. The Russian woman did not have the opportunity to buy yeast in the store, and there was no refrigerator to store the dough there. How was the bread baked? Some monasteries still keep recipes for sourdough bread. For example, in the Sanaksar monastery they make incomparable bread and very delicious kvass... They say that the bride used to be assessed, among other things, by her ability to maintain the bread leaven. My grandmother mentioned that she makes kvass with “flour mash”, but I didn’t attach any importance to this, only recently I realized that this is the same bread sourdough.

There are many sourdough recipes; each housewife kept her own family traditions, and the taste of the bread turned out different. The general principle is that the starter is grown by natural fermentation (like wine or barrel cucumbers), without the addition of chemicals. Its base is flour and water. To speed up the process initial stage overripe fruits, raisins, hop infusions, etc. can be added there. All this helps to start the fermentation process. Then the starter needs to be “fed” with flour and water, so we get an almost eternal basis for homemade bread.

Sourdough is like a pet. She does not like dirty hands and dishes, drafts. She doesn't like it when people forget about her. He may get sick or even die. You need to put your soul into the bread, then it will delight you with its porous, fragrant crumb and crispy crust.

My son eats homemade bread with great pleasure, and his appetite has generally improved. The condition of everyone's hair, skin, and nails has undoubtedly improved (this is the opinion of my cosmetologist). In principle, I cannot eat store-bought yeast; it makes me feel bad. I thought that the delicious bread was forgotten for me forever. However, I eat homemade sourdough bread quite calmly. You can add flaxseed, oatmeal and other healthy types of flour to bread. There is a lot of talk about the benefits of sprouted wheat germ. What about the malt that is added to bread? These are the same sprouts, only ground into flour. Malt is very useful for a pregnant woman, a nursing mother, a small child, a teenager during a period of rapid growth, and the elderly. All this was in our traditional Russian bread... I just forgot a little.

I studied the traditions of the peoples of the world. The traditions of bakers in Italy were the most interesting. There they grow the so-called “lievito madre” - levito madre, mother yeast. This is some analogue of sourdough on water and flour. In the grocery section of a supermarket in Italy they sell a huge number of different yeasts, including sourdoughs in dry form. Housewives bake delicious and aromatic bread there. The Czechs also bake sourdough bread, sometimes using brewer's yeast (in general, it is not suitable for bread, although it is useful for human nutrition). There are plans to study the traditions of the Germans.

Technology + good mood

And now - specifics. Sourdough can be made like this: 100 gr. live yogurt and 100 gr. mix the flour (7-10 minutes) until it forms a uniform lump; put in clean glass jar(0.7 l is best); cover tightly cling film and be sure to poke 5-6 holes in it with a toothpick (carbon dioxide should escape and not peroxidize); leave it all for 48 hours. I start the starter in the evening.

After 2 days we remove the film. Gently separate with your fingers upper layer leaven (as if skimming milk) and throw it away. There was contact with air, and unwanted impurities could join. You can't bake anything from this dough yet.

We feed the starter at the rate of: per 100 grams. sourdough (try to take from the center, there is the purest product, throw away the rest, don’t regret it, otherwise everything will bloom and turn sour) 100 gr. flour and 50 gr. warm water. Place all this again in a clean jar and cover it with film with holes (by the way, the jar cannot be washed detergents). Leave for 24 hours. The next evening we feed the starter again according to the same scheme. Next you need to feed in the morning and evening, it only takes 10-15 minutes. This will continue forever. This leaven should be kept at room temperature; under no circumstances should it be placed in the refrigerator (using cold produces a completely different type of leaven). Around the sixth day, the starter is ready for baking bread.

You need to choose a rhythm that is comfortable for you. For example, we put bread to proof in the evening.
To do this, leave part of the starter after feeding it (except for the top layer). Pour approximately 100 g. water, 2 tbsp. spoons of sugar, a little flour, knead until sour cream thickens. The dough should come up twice. This will take an hour and a half, then it will be faster when the leaven gains strength. Next, add as much flour as the dough will take, a pinch of salt, so that the bun is not very dense, but does not stick to your hands. Can lubricate your hands olive oil and add it to the dough for taste. Sourdough behaves differently than yeast. Then, when the mechanism becomes clearer, it will be possible to mix in different herbs and other goodies.

I put the dough in a non-stick cake pan. I cover it again with film with holes and leave it overnight. In the morning I wake up early, turn on the oven to preheat at 220 degrees, and remove the film from the mold. Further - little secret. Our grandmothers baked bread in a stone oven. The humidity there is different, the stone gives off heat differently. In the oven the bread develops a thick crust. To create an oven effect, you need to place a container of water in the oven. Next, I put a cast-iron cauldron for pilaf, put a mold with risen dough in it, and cover it with a lid. Inside the cauldron, the effect of a Russian stone oven is obtained. After 30 min. The lid must be removed so that the thin crispy crust has time to brown in the remaining time. The aroma in the house is unique. If you are not lazy and get up early, you will have fresh bread for breakfast.

A bread maker is not my option; such bread seems orphan to me. They didn’t knead it with their hands with love, prayer and hope, they didn’t give away the warmth of their hands... I make the dough only with my hands. You can't get down to business bad mood, you need to remember all the time that homemade bread is alive, it is responsive to love.

In addition from the editor. Another parishioner, Natalya Shevlyagina, has been baking yeast-free bread with malt sourdough for two years, which is stored in the refrigerator. Every six months she purchases sourdough in dry form at the Nizhny Novgorod Orthodox Fair. The starter bag comes with detailed instructions and recipes. When asked whether homemade bread affected the health of the household, Natalya noted that health had improved somewhat, but did not directly connect this with yeast-free bread.

or “Bread of Happiness”, “Pochaev Bread”, “Jerusalem Bread”, “Athos Bread”...

For many years, a strange sourdough has been circulating throughout Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine, which is called “Pochaev bread”, “Kiev-Pechersk sourdough”, “Jerusalem”, “Athos bread”, and also “the test of happiness”, “the sourdough of well-being” “, etc. For many years, the priesthood has been explaining to superstitious people that this leaven is from the evil one, that this “monastic leaven” has nothing in common with monasteries, but, on the contrary, is the work of unclean-hearted people. However, thirst the easy way to find the happiness everyone desires is so strong among the people that the arguments of common sense turn out to be of little effect, despite cases of poisoning with this strange bread.

The starter spreads from hand to hand. According to the recipe, which is recommended to be followed very strictly, it is ready a few days after it comes into the house. The dough must be properly cared for. Before baking, the mixture, which has increased in volume several times, should be divided into four parts. Bake bread from one, distribute the rest good people. They, in turn, should do the same. It is very reminiscent of a “letter of happiness”: rewrite it three times, etc. Actually, this is a “letter of happiness”, only in a culinary version. In the same way, the “Pochaev dough” appeals to prejudices and superstitions, promising good luck if the message, that is, the dough, is multiplied, and misfortune otherwise. Only the “happiness test”, in comparison with a letter, has one big drawback: it is a food product that can spoil.

What microbes live in the “happiness test”?

One question to think about is: how safe is the nomadic “happiness product”? This leaven is a whitish liquid substance that smells unpleasantly sour. The smell is not bready, more like beer. What comes out of the mysterious sourdough is not ordinary bread, but something similar to a cupcake, and, if you strictly follow the attached recipe, it is very sweet.

Our colleagues, having received the sourdough, contacted the bakery asking what it might contain and whether it was hazardous to health. They were explained that we were apparently no longer talking about pure culture. Passing from hand to hand, from house to house (by the way, one of the conditions for obtaining happiness is to let the starter “get used” to the house within 24 hours), it collects other microorganisms. The cultures coming to the bakery are sterile. All procedures at the plant itself are carried out in sterility. In addition, it is necessary to update the culture of microorganisms from time to time. In the case of “monastic leaven”, it for a long time is not updated. Bread baking specialists were surprised that the sourdough was so durable.

The obvious unsterility of the sourdough that passes from hand to hand should serve as a signal to everyone who decides to try the pseudo-Pochaev bread. It is unknown which microorganisms cause fermentation. Foreign pathogenic microbes could also get into the starter.

The Myth of the Church Origin of Leaven

First of all, let’s debunk the myth about the church origin of the so-called “bread of happiness.” “Pochaev sourdough” travels in our region, that is, it is assumed that it is directly related to the Pochaev Lavra. However, for several years now, a message to the brethren has been posted on the official website of the monastery, warning about the blasphemous deception of naive people. The text of this message is as follows:

“Beware that no one deceives you...” (Matt. 24:4)

Dear brothers and sisters!

As we know, for some time now the so-called “bread (sourdough) from the Pochaev Lavra” has been distributed throughout the dioceses of Ukraine. The brethren of the Pochaev Lavra bring to your attention that this phenomenon has nothing to do with the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, but is a manifestation of spiritual ignorance, superstition and speculation on the authority of our Great Shrine.

The use of this test is strictly prohibited, as it can lead to spiritual damage and have mystical ritual significance. Since the manufacturers of the mentioned bread are deceitfully hiding behind the authority of the Pochaev Lavra, and lies are initially the offspring of the devil, it is therefore obvious that this whole undertaking is the work of people led by demonic power. Therefore, we ask you to be very careful in such phenomena and take the blessing of local priests for everything.

“They deceive unsteady souls; their heart is accustomed to covetousness; these are the sons of the curse" (2 Peter 2:14).

“Evil people and deceivers will prosper in evil, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Tim. 3:13)

Best regards, brothers
Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra

About corruption and sorcerers

In addition to promising all earthly blessings, the authors of sourdough promise the person who prepared the bread deliverance from all kinds of damage and generational curses. This is another reason why many people buy into the tale of the miracle bread. IN Lately enough a large number of people frivolously believe all kinds of magicians, psychics, fortune tellers, soothsayers and other figures of the occult sciences. And, as a result, these people use in their vocabulary all the newfangled occult terminology that occultists so tirelessly invent. There are all kinds of damage, crowns of celibacy, generational curses, love spells with lapels, and so on. And, of course, when such a person suddenly gets leaven for bread, which can relieve all of the above, and even consecrated in the very Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, or in the Pochaev Lavra, his joy will know no bounds. There is no need to go to fortune tellers and psychics to remove damage and generational curses, spending a lot of time and money on this. It’s enough just to bake bread, eat it, and the damage will be gone. Only these people forget that such faith in sorcerers and fortune-tellers was strictly condemned back in the days Old Testament. Even in those ancient times, God forbade the people who came out of Egyptian captivity to engage in witchcraft and go to wizards and sorcerers.

This is what Scripture says: “Do not use magic or guess.” (Lev. 19, 26), “Do not turn to those who summon the dead, and do not go to wizards, and do not bring yourself to the point of defilement from them.” (Lev. 19, 31), “There shall not be among you one who guides his son or daughter through fire, a soothsayer, a fortune-teller, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, a charmer, a conjurer of spirits, a magician, and one who inquires of the dead; For anyone who does this is an abomination to the Lord.” (Deut. 18, 11), “And you do not listen to your prophets and your fortune-tellers and your dreamers and your magicians and your astrologers... for they prophesy lies to you.” (Jeremiah 27:9–10). I believe that it would be useful for many to know that such actions or appeals to these individuals were severely punished: “And if any soul turns to those who call the dead and to magicians to walk after them fornicating, then I will turn My face against that soul and destroy it from her people" (Lev. 20:6), "Thou shalt not leave a sorcerer alive" (Ex. 22, 18).

The above quotes are quite enough to draw the appropriate conclusions about the sinfulness of judgments about the miraculousness of “Pochaev bread.” Once again, the spiritual illiteracy of our people is evident. Yes, 70 years of fighting against God have done their job. But for almost 20 years no one has forbidden studying Holy Bible and visit the temple of God. Laziness. Well, it's a sin again! Our people are lazy to read the Bible and listen to the sermons of priests. But with pleasure I am ready to believe that “Pochaev bread” will in an instant, in some incomprehensible way, bring wealth, happiness, fulfillment of desires to the house and deliver from witchcraft. But it’s not without reason that it says folk wisdom: “free cheese only comes in a mousetrap.”

On the origin of the “leaven of happiness”

Does anyone really need to involve Orthodox Christians in the distribution of miracle bread? A similar scheme of forgery is often used by figures in the occult sciences: fortune tellers, magicians, sorcerers, psychics and other dubious individuals. They often send their “clients” to temples for candles and incense, and read it themselves for show church prayers, sometimes they even send people to be baptized before the start of their sessions. All these actions are blasphemous. Candles and incense are used in magical rituals, church prayers are read along with conspiracies, and tempting a person after baptism with such actions is the “peak of pleasure” for the evil one, who acts through occultists.

In the case of the “Pochaev leaven,” the brethren of the monastery clearly defined the typology of spiritual substitution - speculation on the authority of the shrine. Under the guise of some good that is directly related to the shrine, people are taught some kind of nasty thing of unknown origin. Of course, this is not surprising. If the recipe for Jerusalem bread had stated that the leaven was mixed using sacrificial human blood in some satanic temple by a famous sorcerer, then it is unlikely that most people would have agreed to take this disgusting thing into their hands. By the way, one should not exclude the possibility of exactly this or a similar origin of the “bread of happiness.” Otherwise, why would the creators of sourdough hide so carefully behind the authority of the Church, hiding the true origin of the product?

There is a lie, and the father of lies is the devil. Can anything good come from him? No way! The apostle warns about such spiritual substitutions and their authors. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians: “Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light, and therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness.” (2 Cor. 11, 14–15).

Well, spiritual illiteracy bears fruit. Many people buy into the “church” origin of the leaven, thinking that since it was consecrated in the church, then there is no point in questioning everything else written in the attached instructions. And in vain! Ap. John the Theologian calls to all of us: “Beloved! Believe not every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1).

Note that Hare Krishnas also practice distributing food dedicated to Krishna (prasad) to everyone, regardless of religion. To do this, they even resort to such a trick as opening free or semi-free vegetarian cafes, whose visitors do not even suspect that they are eating food sacrificed to idols.

Another example is "Reverend" Moon, the founder of a famous sect. Food with his blood or (I apologize to the reader) sperm is prepared by the adherents of the sect and distributed at their meetings. It is quite possible that “Reverend” Moon, eager to feed the whole world with such food, has already begun some kind of secret policy and invented the “happiness dough”.

A number of other examples can be given, but there is no need. It is important to understand the main thing - someone specifically, under the teaching of the devil, is trying to mislead Orthodox Christians, hiding behind the screen of holiness. Therefore for Orthodox Christian Eating and distributing “Pochaev bread” is in no way acceptable. And if someone has already sinned in a similar way, then let him bring God the fruits of repentance. Fortunately, we have such an opportunity, and the Lord, how loving Father, forgives us our sins.

Dear brothers and sisters! Be careful in matters of spiritual life. To resolve such perplexities, contact the priests.

Prepared using Internet materials

“This is a sacred concept - bread! But at all times in Rus', bread was made with sourdough, with hops, and not with artificial yeast,” the candidate believes medical sciences Hieromonk Antipas (Avdeichev).

Dear editors!

In issue No. 7 of the Blagovest newspaper, in the article “Now the most important thing is the virtue of prudence,” the candidate of medical sciences, Hieromonk Antipa (Avdeichev), called yeast bread bad, albeit indirectly. Recently, due to my financial circumstances, I could only bring bread for the eve. And it is not true that “today almost everyone has the opportunity to purchase a bread machine.” I personally can’t buy it, and there’s no reason to, because I don’t have time to bake bread anyway.

I live where there are many retail outlets, selling bread, from large stores to kiosks, but it is not always possible to buy what you want due to time and circumstances. And most importantly, I am fundamentally against organizing such a showdown over bread. Bread is bread. After all, it is not from something unclean that should be avoided.

Your regular reader since the first issues of the newspaper

Evgenia Sadokhina,parishioner of the Holy Resurrection Monastery, Samara.

We asked you to comment on this letter and have your say on this topical issue candidate of medical sciences, rector of the temple in honor of the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessaloniki p. Syreik, head of the department for interaction with healthcare institutions of the Kinel diocese of the Samara Metropolis Hieromonk Antipas (Avdeichev).

The author of the letter is not aware of the current situation with mass baking of bread. Otherwise, she would not have simplified the problem to the slogan “bread is bread.” Rospotrebnadzor (a regulatory organization in Russia) took into account the conclusion of the Research Institute of Industrial and Marine Medicine, which does not recommend the use of yeast baked goods in food. I recently learned this information from a news release! What we conventionally call yeast today is actually not even yeast. These are not the plant fungal organisms that exist in nature, but they were created in laboratories using chemical technologies and manipulations with genetic code. The situation in the bread industry today is noticeably different from what it was 30-40 years ago.

Religious dissident and nutritionist Vitaly Vasilyevich Karavaev (1913 - 1984) during the war was a psalm-reader at the Pskov Spiritual Mission (we learned about it from the film “Pop”), for which he served ten years in the camps. And much later, he was forcibly placed in a “psychiatric hospital” for treatment for the fact that he stated the following: “In the absence of fermentation processes, there are no obstacles to the spiritual growth of a person.” This nutritionist scientist found that fermentation processes impede not only physical health, but even spiritual growth! Fermentation is decomposition organic matter with the formation of inorganic, i.e. carbon dioxide and final decomposition products. He was talking primarily about yeast bread!

- How do you feel about Vitaly Karavaev’s words that fermentation interferes with spirituality. Do you agree with him?

I consider these words about spiritual damage from yeast to be fair, and not only from a medical point of view. Modern yeast is ultimately mold. And mold grows on its own, without difficulty. It grows if a person begins to be lazy and begins to indulge his sinful inclinations. Instead of laboring (“by the sweat of his brow”) to obtain and wisely consume God-given products, he takes what is closest, what is given to him without labor. This is how mold forms and grows.

Back in the late 80s, the wonderful singer Zhanna Bichevskaya came into the hands of GOST for the production of domestic yeast. She showed a printout of the official GOST, according to which we still produce bread. The list of these ingredients is shocking; there are so many poisons and chemicals in there!

- Do you consider bread a sacred concept?

Yes, this is a sacred concept - bread. And I understand the pain of the author of the letter, who considered that I was encroaching on a sacred thing with my statement. But today, in essence, we are not talking entirely about bread. In any case, not about that “daily bread” that we ask from God in the “Our Father” prayer. At all times in Rus', bread was made with sourdough, with hops, and not with artificial yeast. And I believe that the sacred concept of bread refers only to that bread about which we know what it is baked from. And which has a strengthening effect on the body and does not harm the soul.

There is evidence that in 1938, even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, there were supplies of humanitarian aid from Germany to the USSR. And for some reason they compulsively brought us yeast from there. Later, a statement attributed to Goebbels became known: “if we do not break the Russians with weapons, then we will break them in leaps and bounds.” Whether this is true or not has not been established for sure, but the message itself is characteristic.

But the French scientist Etienne Wulf has already experimentally established that yeast is a powerful factor in the development of cancer. This researcher placed the tumor in a test tube, added yeast, and the tumor cells began to grow rapidly, increasing threefold in 24 hours. Then he removed the yeast, and the cancer cells died.

- It is believed that if bread prices are raised, the quality of life of low-income people will worsen even more.

Today we are all obsessed with cheap bread. We believe that “bread is bread,” and the less you pay for it, the better. But cheap bread is made from low-grade flour. In addition, before entering the bakery, flour is processed at a mill, at an elevator. The grain is ground, it passes through metal millstones, and sometimes metal shavings end up in the flour. These shavings can then enter our intestines. After all, if bread is cheap, then what do they save on? They don't put it powerful magnet for “assembling” metal shavings. Such cheapness will not benefit us!

You need to eat real bread. But real bread is expensive. It is prepared using non-yeast technologies, using sourdough, from high-quality wheat. Here is the simplest sign of how to distinguish unleavened bread: when you cut it, the crumbs do not fall off the knife. And if the bread is not real, yeast, then there will definitely be crumbs. Cheap bread is light in weight and shiny. It is beautiful, airy, but... in fact, it is harmful to health.

The well-known modern nutritionist Alexey Kovalkov (his book on methods of losing weight “The Kovalkoov Method” sold a very large circulation!) believes that modern artificial yeast is thermophilic (therme - heat and phileo - I love it), and they do not die when heat treatment. They enter our intestines with bread alive. There, the fermentation process takes place with the involvement of mineral salts and trace elements necessary for the body (magnesium, calcium, selenium, etc.). One of the hypotheses for the origin of hypocalcemia (a decrease in the content of ionized calcium in the blood serum) is the consumption of yeast bread, because calcium dies because of this. If yeast enters the intestines, it sticks to the intestinal walls, unlike sourdough bread. Bowel cancer mainly forms in the folds, that is, in transitional places where there are difficulties in digesting food. This is where cancerous tumors form.

Today in Russia, only a few companies bake real bread in large quantities: “Russian Bread” in the Ryazan region, and there are also several companies in the Far East. And small private bakeries that value their good name. They really high prices for bread for private consumers. And high-quality milled bread is not just a nutritious product, it is also very healthy. Therefore, such real bread is the head of everything!

We don't know what we eat, we're not even interested in it, and we call it bread. At the same time, we are ready to rush to the defense of bread with all sincerity. We don’t think about the fact that by consuming low-quality yeast products we are desecrating the body, which is given to us as a temple of the soul.

- How do they bake bread for church rites and sacraments today?

This is what Bishop Vissarion (Nechaev) writes in his book “Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy”: “The bread for the Eucharist must be clean both in the substance from which it is prepared and in the method of preparation. This is required by reverence for the greatness and holiness of the Sacrament" (quoted from: Holy Trinity-Sergius Lavra, 1996 (reprint edition). Bishop Vissarion of Kostroma and Galich wrote his fundamental work even before the revolution, when there was no mention of any yeast bread was not. So in these words of his one can see something prophetic, some kind of warning to today's church workers. It is no secret that in many modern prosphora rooms at large churches they bake prosphora with yeast. And therefore, every priest must remember that he is responsible for your parish and should not shift responsibility to someone else.And if it is possible to use leaven for baking prosphora, you should not neglect it.

Father Antipas, what is the difference in the way Catholics and Orthodox bake bread for the Eucharist? What are unleavened bread?

In our Church, only leavened bread is used for this great sacrament, while they use unleavened bread. Leavened (sourdough) bread is sour bread, it is a symbol of growth in faith, a symbol of the human soul, which rises - rushes to God. But Catholics have unleavened bread - flour with water, unrisen bread. During the earthly life of Christ, Jewish bread was most likely unleavened bread. On it, apparently, the first Eucharist at the Last Supper was celebrated by Christ Himself.

- Many devotees advise not to test the quality of food: “cross it and eat!”

Yes, prayer sanctifies everything... The famous book “Father Arseny” tells how this ascetic in the camp healed people... just with snow! “According to your faith may it be unto you...” But not everyone has such deep faith. This principle: “cross and eat”, it is more suitable for ascetics, not for us.

And here commerce imposes its principles on us. It is easier to deal with yeast than with sourdough. After all, the starter must sour for a long time. Real bread takes a long time to mature and reaches the table after a long period of time. The flour must be aged, all technological processes must be completed strictly. And the yeast bread was just put in, and it immediately rose, they baked it right away and gave it to you. The commercial benefit is undeniable. But the same cannot be said about the health benefits.

- How did you come to such sad thoughts about modern production of bread?

When I was just beginning my priestly ministry, a disk fell into my hands. There, in the documentary film, the priest and mother baked bread themselves. They showed how to make sourdough and how to store it in the refrigerator. They showed their entire simple technological cycle in great detail and carefully.

As a doctor and as a priest, I assumed that such an important area of ​​our lives could not be bypassed by the evil one. There will definitely be a catch! It is unlikely that the enemy of our salvation will be so reckless as to leave such a sacred sphere unaffected. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

The “substitution” of bread occurred in the post-war years. All this has long been fixed at the GOST level and has become almost mandatory consumption for all Russians.

I myself eat little bread. My son and I live together; one city loaf is enough for us for a week. And I advise everyone to do this. Find a store near your house that sells yeast-free bread. Then check and find out whether the bakery that supplies bread here actually bakes sourdough bread. To do this, it is better to meet the baker in person. If in fact everything is so, you need to establish with this bakery permanent relationship. And don’t save money if this - real bread - turns out to be a little more expensive. Here the savings will turn out to be a loss.

I have a friend who got cancer. And so he switched to eating according to Lebedev. And Lebedev recommends not eating yeast bread, replacing it with cereals. A friend of mine found a place where you can order and buy high-quality flour in Samara to bake your own bread. This flour is three times more expensive than regular flour, but he has no other choice. Now a friend of mine bakes bread in his oven. So there is no need to buy a bread machine.

There may be some harmful effects Is it good for your health if you give up bread?

Metropolitan Manuel did not like it when bread was called white or black in front of him. He said that there is no such bread, but there is wheat and rye.

Every word carries a spiritual load. Black is the color of hopelessness. And believers should not have hopelessness; we always have hope in God. Therefore, it is wrong to call bread black.

How to make hop starter

Hops are rich essential oils, which, being strong phytoncides, have anti-inflammatory, anti-allergenic and general stimulating effects on the human body. And yeast prepared on its basis is a source of protein, B vitamins, organic iron, trace elements, amino acids and minerals. You can prepare real (not chemical) yeast in two ways - from dried or from fresh hop cones.

Recipe No. 1

50 g dry hops, 2 liters of water, 5 tbsp. l. sugar, 500 g rye flour.

Take a small enamel pan (3-3.5 liters in volume), pour two liters of settled water into it and bring to a boil (the water settles for 24 hours). Place dry hops into the boiling liquid and, reducing the heat to low, cook for 3.5-4 hours, periodically immersing the floating hops back into boiling water. The volume of liquid should decrease by half. Cool the broth until room temperature and strain twice. Drain it into a glass (enamel) container with a capacity of 2-3 liters.

Add sugar to the strained broth and stir until completely dissolved. Take a small strainer and add flour to the broth through it in small portions, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula. Try to prevent lumps from forming. Cover the resulting homogeneous mass with a cotton towel and put it in a warm place for two days.

Gently mix the prepared yeast, pour into bottles (jars), leaving 2-3 centimeters to the neck, close the lid tightly and put in the refrigerator. Before using, the yeast must be shaken well, as it will separate slightly.

For 2 kg of flour take 100-150 ml of yeast.

Recipe No. 2

A liter jar of fresh hops, 2.5 liters of water, 1 tbsp. l. salt, 200 g sugar, 500 g flour, 250 g potatoes.

In a small saucepan, bring 2.5 liters of settled water to a boil cold water. Take a liter jar and fill it tightly with fresh hops - this will be the amount of hops needed for the recipe. Remove the hops from the jar, rinse thoroughly and place in an enamel pan (4-5 liter capacity). Pour boiled water, heat to boiling point and cook for an hour, covering the pan with a lid and reducing the gas to low.

Let the finished broth sit for three hours, then strain twice. Add salt, sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Gradually add flour to the resulting mixture, carefully breaking up any lumps that form with a spoon. As a result, you should get a homogeneous mixture with the consistency of thick sour cream. Cover the yeast with a cotton towel and put it in a warm place for 48 hours.

Peel and boil the potatoes, cool. Boiled potatoes rub through a sieve and add to the yeast solution. Mix everything thoroughly, cover again with a towel and put in a warm place for another 24 hours. Pour the prepared yeast into the prepared containers, not adding 3-4 centimeters to the edge, close the lids tightly and put them in the refrigerator.

To prepare dough for 2 kg of flour, take 100 ml of yeast.