During Cheese-Week we are supposed to eat cheese. Of course, there are the exception for monks under certain circumstances. Canon XXXII of St. Nikephorus states:
"Monks must fast on Wednesday and Friday of Cheese Week; and after the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy is dismissed, they must eat cheese wherever it is available or on the market, or, in other words, wherever it can be had, in refutation of the heresy of the Jacobites and that of the Tetradites."
St. Nikodemus includes something parentheses in the above Canon, his parenthetical remark says, "For on those days a Pre-Sanctified Liturgy used to be celebrated, just as Symeon of Thessalonica states, and see c. XLIX of Laodicea."
The note on this Canon by Nikodemus of the Holy Mountain states:
"This Canon is mentioned also in the Typicon in the rubric for the Triodion ch. 27; and if we want to be exact, and do not pamper our stomach, as John of Kitros says, this Canon ought to be understood in the same sense as are the fast-breakings of Artzibourious, or, at any rate, it ought to be kept wherever there are Jacobites, or, more explicitly Armenians and Tetradites, and not where there are none. That explains why a certain synodical decision is extant in manuscript on various heads, which also contains the following observation: 'Monks must fast du ring Cheese Week in the Monastery where they are, on Wednesday and Friday. If, however, one of them goes elsewhere, and sits down at a table provided with cheese, let him eat it.' And this is what I think is meant by the Canon's saying 'wherever it is available,' or, in other words, wherever it happens to be found outside of the Monastery. See also Ap. c. LXIX. But what is the origin of the Jacobites? For this see the Proleomena to the 4th Ec. C. As for the term Tetradites, according to Blastaris, these are those who did not break their fast when they were celebrating Easter, but kept on fasting, just as we fast on Wednesdays in pretended imitation of the Jews, who eat unleavened wafers and bitter herbs during their Easter, or Passover."
The Armenian Jacobite (Monophysites) had an extra week of Lent, so that Cheese-Week was also a week of strict fasting. The eating of cheese (with exception for monks) was done in this week to be a sort of counter-active to the Monophysites, and to root out any tendencies in people for such sympathies. As to whether the Armenian Monophysites keep this still or not, I don't know. The note seems to say that this Canon is important to be kept wherever there are Jacobites.
Yet, the liturgical assumptions of the Canon seem to no longer be observed by any Orthodox that I am aware of (the celebration of Pre-Sanctified Liturgies in Cheese-Week). It seems it has fallen into abeyance, but, abeyance does not mean of necessity abolition. The Canons are the work of God, not just men, and so must be listened to.
In Christ,
Fr. Enoch