66. There is no trace of this abstinence left in the Latin churches, if we may believe Cornelius a Lapide (in Commentar. in Actus Apost., chap. 15, "and from blood"). But it is still strong in the Greek church which considers it praiseworthy to maintain the apostolic precept on abstinence from blood and strangled meat. So say Calmet and a Lapide. Christianus Lupus says further that "the Greeks too have for a long time afterwards observed unchanged this apostolic law" (Notes on Canon 67 of the Trullan Synod). This Trullan Canon 67 says, "The divine scripture has commanded us to abstain from blood, strangled meat, and fornication. We fittingly punish those who for the pleasure of the belly skillfully season, serve, and eat the blood of an animal. So if anyone henceforth eats the blood of an animal in any way, he should be deposed if a cleric and separated if a layman."

The Armenians alone, to Our knowledge, have publicly abandoned this custom of the Greeks upon entering into union with the Roman Church. For the schismatic Vartanes had persuaded them to abstain from certain foods which the Mosaic Law called unclean with the sole exception of pork; this he claimed had been allowed by St. Gregory the Illuminator, their first patriarch. He also instructed them to destroy vessels of oil and wine if a fly or suchlike drowned therein. Nevertheless the conferences which effected the union of the Armenians with the Roman Church decreed that "the Armenian fathers at both the synods of Sis and Adana in uniting their church with the Church of Rome have approved the Dogmatic Letter of Gregory, Patriarch of Armenia, to King Haytones, which rejects the Jewish distinction of foods by the words, "We command that all impure foods be considered purified, as St. Paul says, especially in the case of the poor. The lord Nierses, that is, Ghelajensis, also a Doctor and Patriarch of Armenia, taught that such foods should be blessed with prayers" (Galanus, vol. 2 De conciliatione Ecclesiae Armenae cum Romana).