Christian LivingJesus and First Christians were Vegetarians and Friends of Animals
A Christian Living Article from All-Creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth.

By Moris Hoblaj (Edited by Damjan Likar of The Society for the Rights and the Liberation of Animals, Slovenia)

It is almost impossible to believe that an organization, such as the Catholic Church, has been killing, prosecuting and, as at the time of inquisition, slaughtering people and animals for almost two thousand years, without people being able to fight against it, and all this in the name of Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

Moris Hoblaj was born in Štrukovec near Čakovec in Croatia. He went to high school in Zagreb and studied philosophy, theology and sociology in Zagreb and München. Today he lives near Würzburg and is engaged in production of vegetarian food. In his free time he writes critical articles about church.

He left the Church as theologian – teacher of religious studies because he believes that the Catholic Church with its hierarchic absolutistic arrangement and rigid dogmatic teaching is not even close to the message of Jesus of Nazareth. He says that the Bible clearly shows that Jesus of Nazareth was a democrat and a pacifist and that the religious caste of that time prosecuted him with the help of the authorities because of his teaching and at the end crucified him.

Moris says: " think the same thing would happen today if Jesus of Nazareth would come to Vatican and asked for what is written in the Bible – to respect only one Holy Father or for people to stop slaughtering and eating animals."

Does God’s commandment "Do not kill!" refer only to people or also to animals?

It is difficult to picture Jesus telling people that slaughtering and torturing animals is alright!
God is perfect and when he says "Do not kill!," he means everything that lives and feels. This commandment includes every living creature, both people and animals, and in broader sense even plants. God let us know through His prophets that He does not want us to kill the animals. Prophet Isaiah wrote: "Killing an ox is the same as killing a person." It is interesting that the Catholic Church does not respect this part of the Bible, has nothing against killing animals and does not support vegetarians.

In the Middle Ages, at the time of inquisition, Catholic Church was even prosecuting and killing the members of all religious communities, where vegetarianism was a part of religious belief, such as Manicheans, Cathars, Bogumils and several others. It is known that members of these communities were against torturing and killing animals for food out of their belief and respect for animals.

The Catholic Church should therefore fight for the rights of animals. Why is this not so?

The reason seems to be that the self called followers of Jesus Christ with different mitres and tiaras, Holy Fathers, Excellencies, Cardinals and Bishops preferred power over people and animals to the succession of Jesus Christ, who was a pacifist and loved animals. Almost every Christian Institution betrays Jesus Christ and His teaching with its attitude to animals and definitions of animals. This is stated also in authentic historic documents that confirm that Jesus of Nazareth and first Christians were vegetarians and friends of animals. The Bible includes the words of Jesus: "Whatever you do to one of the living beings, you do it to Me." Jesus was not a hunter as many of His self called followers, who are proud that they were or are passionate hunters, which are murderers of the animals, such as Cardinal Franc Rode.

Why does the Church have such underestimating attitude to animals and people with different views?

This is a wide-ranging issue which reaches the core of state Catholicism in history as well as today. Today it is no secret that the bloody history of the Church is founded on the so called theological doctrines, such as doctrine about a fair war, existence of eternal curse, non-existence of soul before birth in the case of humans as well as animals. Just by reading the Bible anyone can be sure that the prophets and Jesus of Nazareth loved animals, while religious castes and their followers did not or loved just their dead bodies. They used dead bodies of the animals in pagan ritual worshiping of God, such as blessing of meat at Easter or Hubert’s masses.

In order to hide from the followers the non-acceptance of the prophets and Jesus of Nazareth, instead of prophetic divine declarations the clergy created its own absolutistic and forced dogmatic theology, which is far from divine.

You are asking, why the Church underestimates animals?

It is known from prophetic essays that animals are constantly connected to their Creator, that they are constantly worshiping Him and that He immensely loves them. This may be the reason for its underestimating attitude to animals. Church theology convinced people that animals have no soul and thus people learned to have materialistic attitude to animals.

To people, animals became merely soulless dead objects that can only be used for food and clothes and towards which theology allows any possible brutality, such as laboratory tests. Although people, especially politicians, should know from the Bible that religious caste caused Jesus of Nazareth a great deal of problems, prosecuted him, slandered him and at the end crucified him because of his teaching that God and people do not need clergy, these religious people and politicians remain faithful, throughout the history and today, to the clergy, who according to facts manipulates them from religious as well as from political and economical point of view. It is true that today the Church cannot kill people, who oppose it, or burn them at the stake, but it can discriminate and slander them and together with its political vassals and different insulting and dangerous concepts, such as sect or sectarian, makes them look bad in public.

It is obvious that parts about Jesus’ love for animals were deleted from the Bible. When and why?

In all religions power and money always play the key role. Historical facts tell us that in year 313 Constantine’s edict replaced religious leaders, who were the carriers of prophetic words, with managers of material properties of the first Christians – deacons, elders and Bishops, who made a pact with Constantine. With his help they became leaders of a privileged religion and formulators of state authority. For these favors the Emperor Constantine requested counter favors of the new state religion, which he also got.

Thus, in comparison to the first Christians, who were not soldiers and were against war, the state church, later Catholic Church, promised to Emperor its support in recruiting soldiers. It promised the Emperor support in warfare and to fight against everything that the Emperor would not approve of, among other things also against other religious movements. This newly based state religion also needed a certain authorized Holy Book, the Bible, in which the Christians would have to believe and which would bring power to clergy over everything and everybody as well as wealth and luxury.

Many experts and theologians are of the opinion that a lot of today’s Biblical Essays were manipulated at the very beginning of their formation, as also tell us authentic historical records and authors or translators – formulators of today’s Bible.

Can you state an example of forgery of God’s word?

One example is St. Hieronimus who was given a task by Pope Damasus to formulate and translate a unique work. This work is today named the Vulgate or the Bible. Hieronimus wrote to the Pope: "…I have several different translations of which I have to make one uniform work, which is impossible, therefore I have to formulate something completely new and that will probably make me a forger of holy essays."

Hieronimus had to formulate the Bible in accordance to the teaching of the state church, which means he could not include some basic truths of the written teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, which was known at that time. These truths were especially essays of reincarnation, nonexistence of eternal curse, truth about the animals in relation to Jesus' love for them. All this was not allowed to be included in the Bible, which today many Christians think is the authentic God’s word, so that there could exist a privileged state religion that has nothing in common with the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, except for His name, with which the Church manipulates religious people.

Where can be found more about Jesus’ vegetarian life and His living in harmony with animals?

First, there are apocrypha from the time of the first Christians. These are not part of Biblical texts. Then there are many Roman state documents from the time of the first Christians and Christian movements that talk about the prosecution of these movements because they followed the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and vegetarianism as one of the main truths. These are foremost essays of Manicheans, Cathars, Bogumils or the essays of the Grand Christians in Universal Life.

In one of the most recent leaflets Great Gabriella’s letter No 4 it is stated that the great Church Father Hieronimus (331–420 A.D.) wrote about vegetarianism in one of his essays the following: "Until the Flood, consumption of animal meat was unknown. From the Flood on our mouths are full of fibers and smelly juices of animal meat… Jesus Christ, who came when the time was right, made ends meet again and now consumption of animal meat is not allowed anymore."

The Apostle Paul wrote in his official letter to Romans: "We know that all beings breathe and suffer together. Beings await in fear for people to recognize themselves as God’s children, as all beings shall once be freed from the slavery of circle of mortality into the ultimate freedom of God’s children."

John the Goldenmouth (354–457 A.D.) describes life of a certain group of Christians of that time: "They do not shed blood, slaughter and cut meat… There is no horrible smell of meat… no raging and terrible uproar. They only eat bread they earn with their work and drink spring water. When they wish for a luxury meal they eat fruits and enjoy more than at King’s table."

I know a lot of historical researches about life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, but the most authentic and comprehensive is the book This is My Word. Alpha and Omega. The Gospel of Jesus. A Christ-Revelation which the world does not know., in which He, who walked this Earth as Jesus Christ, explains in details about what really happened at the time of His life.

In one of the newspapers there was an interview with former Slovenian Archbishop, Cardinal Franc Rode, in which he said that he was once a passionate hunter, but the new hunting law does not allow him to shoot wild animals as much as before. How do you comment on his statement?

This surely is not something Jesus Christ would approve of. Those, who on vile impulse treat animal like this, kill them with a gun, slaughter and at the end eat them, as Archbishop said in the interview, are well described in the statement of the first president of the Federal Republic of Germany, Theodor Heuss (1884–1963): "Hunting is a definition of a very cowardly murder of a helpless being. Hunting is a parallel form of a mental illness." Jesus of Nazareth, in whose name Franc Rode thinks is acting, did not teach nor do so. He was a pacifist and loved animals. Unfortunately, the hunting of Franc Rode is not the only wickedness toward animals in connection to torturing and killing animals that has full support of the Church. There are also the so called Hubert’s masses. These are offered by his college Bishops and priests in front of dead bodies of animals that are blessed at the end of the mass.

Tolstoy said: "As long as there are slaughter houses there will be wars!“ Is the Catholic Church, which abuses the fifth commandment, also responsible for violence and wars all over the world?

Even the late Pope John Paul II obviously did not doubt it, otherwise he would not ask for forgiveness of the victims, who were killed by sons and daughters of his organization. Many historians and free-thinking people are of the opinion that the Catholic Church carries a great deal of responsibility for wars that happened in the last 1700 years because it was ethically-moral institution of the authority or it was the authority itself, which means that it was actively deciding for wars. It is a historical fact that churches, which claim to be the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, from the time of their establishment in year 313, have caused only suffering, problems and deaths to people as well as to animals and nature. Just think about the Crusades, the Middle Ages, burning of witches at the stake, massacre of Catholic Croatians over Orthodox Serbs in a period 1941–1943 in Yugoslavia – former Pope asked for forgiveness for this crime in Banja Luka.

It is almost impossible to believe that an organization, such as the Catholic Church, has been killing, prosecuting and, as at the time of inquisition, slaughtering people and animals for almost two thousand years, without people being able to fight against it, and all this in the name of Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

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