Clean Monday
Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food, a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" () and the widespread custom of flying kites. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Orthodox Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted in European denominations. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, molluscs, fish roe etc.). Traditionally, it is considered to mark the beginning of the spring season, a notion which was used symbolically in Ivan Bunin's critically acclaimed story, "Pure Monday".
Vegetarianism
According to Genesis, consumption of meat was prohibited to human beings (1:29-30) though Noah was given permission to consume meat after the Great Flood. Some advocates of Jewish vegetarianism, such as Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, describe vegetarianism as an eschatological ideal to which all human beings must eventually return. A number of Jewish vegetarian groups and activists promote such ideas and believe that the halakhic permission to eat meat is a temporary leniency for those who are not ready yet to accept the vegetarian diet. For some commentators, such as Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz, the complexity of the laws of sacrifice and slaughter (shechita) was intended to discourage the consumption of meat and make it less painful for the animals.