Not Quite the End of Sacrifice

Christianity brought the “end of sacrifice,” the replacement of the bloody animal sacrifices of paganism and Judaism with the sacrificial feast of the Eucharist.

But not quite the end, or at least not quite everywhere. In a 1903 article, Fred Conybeare explored the “survival of animal sacrifices inside the Christian church.” The Armenian church is a case in point. When King Irdat was converted by the preaching of Gregory the Illuminator, himself the scion of the “leading pagan priestly family” that had made chief pagan shrine part of the family estate, Gregory gave advice regarding the distribution of sacrificial perquisites to Christian priests: “Your portions of the offerings shall be the hide and right-hand parts of the spine, the limb and fat, and the tail and heart and lobe of lungs, and the tripe with the lard; of the ribs and shank-bones a part, the tongue and the right ear, and the right eye and all the secret parts.”

This custom long outlasted the age of Gregory, which was the age of Diocletian.

In the late 12th century, the Armenian Patriarch Nerses Shnorhali defended animal sacrifices against the criticisms of Byzantine theologians. He cites Gregory as authority: “He enjoined the people to substitute for the oblations which they had been wont to offer to filthy idols, oblations of animals sacrificed to the only God; with these oblations was to be mingled salt duly blessed, and such offerings were to be made on the Pascha of the Resurrection, on every Dominical Feast, on the Feasts of illustrious Saints, and lastly, in commemoration of those who have died in Christ, as almsgivings to be eaten in their name by the hungry.”

Unsurprisingly, at the same time Armenian priests continued to form a priestly caste: “the common village priests continued for centuries to be taken from the old priestly families; indeed, it is doubtful whether the idea of a man’s taking holy orders, not because his father had them before him, but because he has a serious call, has even yet established itself in the far East, so firmly engrained in the popular mind is the idea of priestly families.”

In Armenia at least, the process of weaning culture away from “flesh” – animal sacrifices, genealogical qualifications for priests – was centuries-long.