Lent & Pascha (Easter)

The divergence between the Eastern and Western calendars with respect to Lent and Easter is pretty much at its widest this year. Roman Catholics and those Protestants who observe Lent will mark Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Fast on the 17th instant, whereas on the Orthodox Calendar Lent begins on March 15th. Western Easter is on April 4th and we celebrate the Resurrections on May 2nd. One upside to the late date for us is that the Apostles Fast (no longer kept in the West) will be extremely short, just fourteen days for those on the Old Calendar. For those of us on the New Calendar... if you blink you will miss it. 

Lent is almost here - a note on fasting

As I sit at my desk, contemplating the four cheese vegetarian lasagna cooling on the kitchen counter, it occurs to me that our favorite time of year is now only a couple of short days away. And so a few quick points on fasting may be in order.

A general guide to the fasting discipline of the Church may be found here. Be aware that as with many other things in Orthodoxy, your mileage is going to vary a bit. There are local variations and you can find stricter, more detailed, and more lenient versions of the fasting discipline if you want to look around. But the linked site gives a pretty decent run down of the basics.

It is important though to remember that Lent is not a legalistic test to see how well we can keep a fourth century dietary code. Rather it is a spiritual exercise intended to stretch and temper the body so it does not come to rule the spirit. To which end I'm going to add a few observations and addendums.

• Mind your own business. Your fast is your concern, your neighbor's is not. If you feel the need to brag about how well you are keeping the fast, save it for confession.
• In line with the above, avoid gossip. It is one of the vices most frequently condemned in Scripture yet most prevalent in modern society.
• Be prepared for failure. I have NEVER come close to keeping the Lenten Fast perfectly. Very few outside of monastics do. That is not an excuse to ignore it, but it is an acknowledgment of our human weakness. When you fall, pick yourself up and get back on the horse.
• Shelve the triumphalism. I am seriously sick of the annual commentary about how WE still fast, unlike you know who. Every year those comments are as inevitable as a call of nature, and more or less as pleasant to contemplate.
• Baptism by total immersion is a no no with fasting. If you are new to the Faith, do not attempt the full rigors of the fast. You will fail, probably badly, get discouraged and ultimately surrender. Talk to your spiritual father and get a modified rule from him. For the non-Orthodox looking to try something perhaps a bit more stringent than what they are accustomed to, I suggest Ad Orientem's Lenten Fasting for beginners... no meat throughout Lent and keep a strict fast (one meal only with no meat fish wine oil or dairy) on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you can handle that, you are doing pretty good. The other stuff can come later.
• Common sense is not on the fasting list. If you are at work and feel faint because you are so hungry... don't be a twit, EAT SOMETHING! Likewise legitimate health issues trump the fasting rules. When in doubt consult your doctor and spiritual father.
• Don't play the martyr. If you are making other people miserable because of your fasting either eat something or excuse yourself from the company of others. If someone unknowingly surprises you with a nice meal that's not on the OK list, the correct response is not "sorry I'm fasting." You smile, politely thank them and eat, even though that succulent juicy steak will undoubtedly make you miserable. The basic rule here is if your fasting makes someone else feel really bad then you have failed.

With that, I wish everyone a blessed fast.

What Ever Became of Advent Fasting And Penance?

I was explaining to a new Catholic recently that the color purple (violet) used in advent is akin to its use in Lent, in that both are considered penitential seasons. Hence we are to give special attention to our sins and our need for salvation. Traditionally Advent was a time we would, like Lent take part in penitential practices such as fasting and abstinence.

Of course, in recent decades Advent has almost wholly lost any real penitential practices. There is no fasting or abstinence required, they are not really even mentioned. Confession is encouraged and the readings still retain a kind of focus on repentance and a focus on the Last Judgment.

But long gone are the days of a forty day fast beginning on Nov 12. The observances in the period of the Middle Ages were every bit as strict as Lent. St. Martin’s Feast Day was a day of carnival (which means literally “farewell to meat” (carnis + vale)). In those days the rose vestments of Gaudete (Rejoice Sunday) were really something to rejoice about, since the fast was relaxed for a day. Then back into the fast until Christmas. Lent too began with Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), as the last of the fat was used used up and the fast was enjoined beginning the next day.

Read the rest here.

An interesting and thoughtful piece. Please, let's skip the "we Orthodox still fast" commentary.

Saturday Fast

A quick reminder that Pope Francis has appealed for a day of fasting and prayer on behalf of peace in Syria to be observed tomorrow. This appeal was not restricted to Catholics and appears to be voluntary for all concerned. Right now I can think of few better causes for a day of prayer and voluntary fasting.

Pope Francis Calls For Fasting and Prayer for Peace

Pope Francis has designated this Saturday September 7th, the vigil of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on the western calendar, as a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria and throughout the world. There appears to be some confusion as to whether this is a voluntary appeal or he is issuing a more formal "thou shall" declaration. That aside, he has also invited non-Catholic Christians to join in the prayer and fasting.

This strikes me as something that anyone who calls themselves a Christian could agree on and support.

Food for thought

One of SP's great shots at American Orthodox culture...

And yes, for the record I will be feasting tomorrow.

Bright Week

The icon for Bright Monday

There is no fasting until the second Wednesday following Pascha.  Any penitential disciplines are strongly discouraged during Bright Week as we are feasting with the Bridegroom. While monastics will keep their abstinence from meat, they too will be feasting on fish, cheeses and sweets.

The royal doors are kept open throughout Bright Week even during liturgies.

And finally both kneeling and prostrations, whether at home or in church, are prohibited for forty days following Pascha.

How to do (and not do) Lent

Click here to enlarge.

Shamelessly stolen from here (an outstanding blog).

The Fasting Rules for Lent

Many, perhaps most of the readers of Ad Orientem are Orthodox so for you this post is likely redundant. But others also stop by and the fasting rules of the Church can be a bit of a mystery to the non-Orthodox. So here is a quick and dirty guide to the fasting discipline during Lent.

First fasting is not a legalistic exercise. God does not particularly care how strictly you are able to observe a 5th century dietary code. Eating a Cheeseburger during Lent on a Friday is not a mortal sin (except possibly to your waistline). If you do eat one and happen to die before going to confession you do not need to plan on being buried in an asbestos suit. Point in fact very few Orthodox laymen keep the fast in its full rigor. I certainly have yet to keep the fast with anything close to perfection.

That said one should not just blow it off. Fasting is a spiritual discipline intended to stretch the body and help tame the passions. And it is a very important weapon in the spiritual warfare that we are engaged in more or less continuously until we die. So when you fall, don't give up. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on the wagon.

Also it serves no purpose to abstain from all manner of food and drink if we do not also give up our vices.  In particular be wary of gossip.  Your fast is your own business and no one else's (save God's and your confessor's).  Likewise how others are keeping their fast is not your concern.

The Great Fast begins on Clean Monday (tomorrow) and continues until after Communion on Easter Sunday (Pascha). Technically Lent actually ends on the Saturday before Palm Sunday. But we continue to fast during Great and Holy Week.  What follows is from the website of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).

"What “precisely do the rules of fasting demand? Neither in ancient nor in modern times has there ever been exact uniformity, but most Orthodox authorities agree on the following rules:

1. During the week between the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee and that of the Prodigal Son, there is a general dispensation from all fasting. Meat and animal product may be eaten even on Wednesday and Friday.
2. In the following week…the usual fast is kept on Wednesday and Friday. Otherwise there is no special fasting.
3. In the week before Lent, meat is forbidden, but eggs, cheese and other dairy products (as well as fish) may be eaten on all days, including Wednesday and Friday.
4. On weekdays (Monday to Friday inclusive) during the seven weeks of Lent, there are restrictions both on the number of meals taken daily and on the types of food permitted; but when a meal is allowed, there is no fixed limitation on the quantity of food to be eaten.
   1. On weekdays in the first week, fasting is particularly severe. According to strict observance, in the course of the five initial days of Lent, only two meals are eaten, one on Wednesday and the other on Friday, in both cases after the Liturgy of the Presanctified. On the other three days, those who have the strength are encouraged to keep an absolute fast; those for whom this proves impracticable may eat on Tuesday and Thursday (but not, if possible, on Monday), in the evening after Vespers, when they may take bread and water, or perhaps tea or fruit-juice, but not a cooked meal. It should be added at once that in practice today these rules are commonly relaxed. At the meals on Wednesday and Friday xerophagy is prescribed. Literally this means ‘dry eating’. Strictly interpreted, it signifies that we may eat only vegetables cooked with water and salt, and also such things as fruit, nuts, bread and honey. In practice, octopus and shell-fish are also allowed on days of xerophagy; likewise vegetable margarine and corn or other vegetable oil, not made from olives. But the following categories of food are definitely excluded:
      1. meat;
      2. animal products (cheese, milk, butter, eggs, lard, drippings);
      3. fish (i.e., fish with backbones);
      4. oil (i.e., olive oil) and wine (i.e., all alcoholic drinks).
   2. On weekdays (Monday to Friday inclusive) in the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth weeks, one meal a day is permitted, to be taken in the afternoon following Vespers, and at this one meal xerophagy is to be observed.
   3. Holy Week. On the first three days there is one meal each day, with xerophagy; but some try to keep a complete fast on these days, or else they eat only uncooked food, as on the opening days of the first week. On Holy Thursday one meal is eaten, with wine and oil (i.e., olive oil). On Great Friday those who have the strength follow the practice of the early Church and keep a total fast. Those unable to do this may eat bread, with a little water, tea or fruit-juice, but not until sunset, or at any rate not until after the veneration of the [Plashchanitsa] at Vespers. On Holy Saturday there is in principle no meal, since according to the ancient practice after the end of the Liturgy of St. Basil the faithful remained in church for the reading of the Acts of the Apostles, and for their sustenance were given a little bread and dried fruit, with a cup of wine. If, as usually happens now, they return home for a meal, they may use wine but not oil; for on this one Saturday, alone among Saturdays of the year, olive oil is not permitted.

The rule of xerophagy is relaxed on the following days:

1. On Saturdays and Sundays in Lent, with the exception of Holy Saturday, two main meals may be taken in the usual way, around mid-day and in the evening, with wine and olive oil; but meat, animal products and fish are not allowed.
2. On the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) and Palm Sunday fish is permitted as well as wine and oil, but meat and animal products are not allowed….
3. Wine and oil are permitted on the following days, if they fall on a weekday in the second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth week: [First and Second Finding of the Head of St. John the Baptist (Feb. 24), Repose of St. Raphael (Feb. 27), Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Mar. 9), Forefeast of the Annunciation (Mar. 24), Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel (Mar. 26), Repose of St. Innocent (Mar. 31), Repose of St. Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow (Apr. 7), Holy Greatmartyr and Victorybearer George (Apr. 23), Holy Apostle and Evangelist Mark (Apr. 25), as well as the Patronal Feast of the church or monastery].
4. Wine and oil are also allowed on Wednesday and Thursday of the fifth week, because of the vigil for the Great Canon. Wine is allowed-and, according to some authorities, oil as well-on Friday in the same week, because of the vigil for the Akathist Hymn.

It has always been held that these rules of fasting should be relaxed in the case of anyone elderly or in poor health. In present-day practice, even for those in good health, the full strictness of the fast is usually mitigated…. On weekdays-except, perhaps, during the first week or Holy Week-it is now common to eat two cooked meals daily instead of one. From the second until the sixth week, many Orthodox use wine, and perhaps oil also, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and less commonly on Mondays as well. Permission is often given to eat fish in these weeks. Personal factors need to be taken into account, as for example, the situation of an isolated Orthodox living in the same household as non-Orthodox, or obliged to take meals in a factory or school [lunchroom]. In cases of uncertainty each should seek the advice of his or her spiritual father [emphasis mine].”

The following statement is extremely important to consider when we speak of fasting and fasting rules in the Church. “At all times it is essential to bear in mind that ‘you are not under the law but under grace’ (Rom. 6:14), and that ‘the letter kills, but the spirit gives life’ (2 Cor. 3:6). The rules of fasting, while they need to be taken seriously, are not to be interpreted with dour and pedantic legalism; ‘for the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17).”

The aforementioned guidelines are just that and as with much of the Church's discipline your mileage will vary.  Expect some minor variations depending on ethnic and jurisdictional customs (i.e. The Greeks hold that the ban on oil applies only to olive oil, the Slavs tend to interpret that more broadly... For their part the Slavs often hold that beer is not wine and may be taken in moderation etc.).  Also the above rules are those applicable to the Byzantine Rite.  There are a small but growing number of Western Rite Orthodox Christians and their fasting discipline is different.  See here and here for the fasting rules for Antiochian WR and ROCOR's WR respectively.

The Week of Meatfare

Lent; it's getting closer.  This is the last week before Easter/Pascha that flesh-meat is permitted.  The Great Fast does not start for two more weeks but meat abstinence commences a week earlier.

OH NO! Lent is coming...

But at least this week we can eat without guilt.  No fasting...  Time to plan something yummy for Friday.

Who says 13 is an unlucky number? 2013 is looking good

I just glanced at the long term calendar and realized that next year Easter/Pascha falls on the 5th of May which is the latest date I am familiar with.  What does this mean?  It means that 2013 will also be a record year for the number, or more accurately lack thereof, of fasting days.  There will be an enormous gap between Theophany and the Triodion (Feb 24th).  Meatfare Sunday doesn't arrive until March 10th with the Great Fast only beginning on March 18th.  So when does the Apostle's Fast begin?  Three days AFTER the Feast for those on the New Calendar and July 1st (NS) for those on the Old Calendar.  That means that there is NO Apostle's Fast for those on the New Calendar (except presumably the eve of).  Even those on the Old Calendar will only have an eleven day fast, which for Old Calendar types is a walk in the park.

On a side note Roman Catholic Easter in 2013 is on March 31, five weeks earlier than ours.

Roman Catholic Bishops Restore Meatless Fridays in Britain

Since 1985, in England and Wales abstinence from meat has been mandatory only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday; on all other Fridays of the year, including Lenten Fridays, the faithful were allowed to choose between abstaining from meat or doing some other penance -- see this document. The bishops there have now chosen to restore the requirement of meatless Fridays.

HT  Rorate Caeli

Please no snarky comments about the western fasting (or lack thereof) discipline.

Bright Week

 

There is no fasting until the Wednesday following Bright Week. This includes Bright Wednesday and Friday. While monastics will continue to abstain from meat, penitential disciplines of any kind during Bright Week are discouraged as we are feasting with the Bridegroom. In the Western tradition fasting during this period was actually forbidden.

During Bright Week the Holy Doors in the church are kept open, including throughout the Divine Liturgy.

Finally, for forty days following Pascha there is no kneeling or prostrations either at home or in church.

The Fast Begins

For those who are new to fasting here are a few tips I have gleaned from sources I trust.

1. If you are new don't try to dive in all at once. Speak with your priest/spiritual father and get his advice.

2. With the exception noted above avoid discussing your fast or other people's. Fasting is (or at least should be) a private matter. Nothing good will come from such talk or gossip. If you find you are keeping the fast more strictly than someone else you may be tempted to the sin of pride. And worse you may cause hurt feelings or discouragement among those who are not able for whatever reason to keep it as strictly. The reverse is also true.

3. Exercise common sense. Health trumps the fasting rules. Don't overdo it. If you need to eat something, then eat. If your health precludes you from abstaining completely from somethings (dairy is tough for some people to abandon for 8 weeks without negative health issues) then do what you need to do. Again talk to your priest.

4. Don't give up. Most people will fail at times. When you fall, pick yourself up and get back on the horse.

On Fasting by St. Paisy of Neamt

The third virtue is fasting. Fasting I call the eating of a little bit once a day. Getting up from the table when one is still hungry, having his food, bread, and salt, and his drink-water, which the springs themselves bring forth. Behold the royal way of receiving food; that is, many have been saved by this path, so the Holy Fathers have said. To refrain from food for a day, or two days, three, four, five, or a week, a man cannot do always. But, so as every day to eat bread and drink, one can always do this; only, having eaten, one should be a little hungry, so that the body will be submissive to the spirit and capable of labors and sensitive to mental movements, and so the bodily passions will be conquered. Complete fasting cannot mortify the bodily passions as well as poor food mortifies them. Some fast for a time and then give themselves over to delicious foods, for many begin fasting beyond their strength and also other severe labors, and then they grow weak from the lack of measure and unevenness of this labor, and they seek tasty foods and repose for the strengthening of the body. To act in this way means to build and then again destroy, since the body through thinness from fasting is yearning for sweet things and seeks consolation, and the sweet foods ignite the passions. But if someone establishes for himself a definite measure as to how much poor food to eat in a day, he will receive great profit. However, concerning the quantity of food, one must establish a rule that it be as much as is necessary for the strengthening of oneself. Such a one can perform every kind of spiritual work. But if someone fasts beyond this, at another time he will give himself up to repose. Ascetic labor according to measure is priceless. For certain of the Great Fathers also took food in measure, and in everything they used it in its right time, and everything had measure—in ascetic labors, in bodily needs, in cell possessions, and in everything they used it in its right time, and everything according to a definite, moderate rule. Therefore, the Holy Fathers do not command one to begin to fast above one's power and to make oneself weak. Take as your rule to eat every day; thus one may refrain in a more firm way; but if one fasts more than this, how will he refrain later from eating to the full and overeating? In no way will he be able to. Such an immoderate beginning comes either from vainglory or lack of understanding, while continence is one of the virtues which aids in the subjugating of the flesh. Hunger and thirst are given to man for the purification of the body, for the preservation from unclean thoughts and lustful passions. Every day to eat poorly is a means to perfection, as certain ones have said, and one who eats every day at a definite hour in no way is lowered morally nor undergoes any harm of soul. Saint Theodore the Studite praises such ones in his instruction on the Friday of the first week of the Great Fast, where he cites in confirmation of his words the Holy God-bearing Fathers and the Lord Himself. Thus we also should act.

The Lord endured a lengthy fast, as did Moses and Elias, but only once. And certain other ones sometimes when entreating something from the Creator, laid upon themselves a certain time of fasting, but in accordance with natural laws and the teaching of the Divine Scripture. From the activity of the Saints, from the Life of our Savior, and from the rules of those who have lived in good order, it is evident that it is splendid and profitable always to be ready and to be found in ascetic labor, in work, and in endurance; however, not to weaken oneself by immoderate fasting and not to bring the body into a state of inactivity. If the flesh is inflamed because of youth, one must refrain a great deal; but if it is infirm, one must take much or little. Look and judge according to your own infirmity as to how much you can do. To each one there is a measure, and the inward teacher is one's conscience; not everyone can have the same rule and same ascetic labor, because some are strong and others are weak. Some are like iron, others are like copper, while others are like wax. And thus correctly discovering one's own measure, take food once each day, apart from Saturdays, Sundays, and Great Feasts of the Lord. A moderate and sensible fast is the foundation and chief of all virtues. One should fight evil as one fights a lion and a fierce serpent—in the infirmity of the body and spiritual poverty. He who wishes his mind to be firm against defiled thoughts should make his body refined through fasting.

It is not possible, without fasting, to serve as a Priest. As it is indispensible to breathe, so also is it to fast. Fasting once having entered into the soul, kills to the depths the sin which lies therein.

Source.

The Rule of Fasting in the Orthodox Church

In answer to numerous requests from readers, the rule of fasting is given for each day of the year. Where no indication of fast is given, and during "fast-free weeks," all foods may be eaten (except during Cheese-fare Week, when meat alone is forbidden every day). Where "fast day" is indicated alone, the fast is a strict one, with no meat, eggs, dairy products, fish, wine or oil to be eaten. Where, underneath "fast day," is indicated "wine and oil allowed," the fast is relaxed for the sake of a feast day or vigil, to allow eating of these foods. Where "fish, wine and oil allowed" is indicated, then all three of these foods may be eaten.

The rule of fasting, which is dependent on the Church's cycle of feasts and fasts, is contained in the Church's Typicon, chiefly in chapters 32 and 33, and is repeated in the appropriate places of the Divine service books, the Menaia and Triodion. In general, fast days for Orthodox Christians are all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year (except for fast-free periods), the four canonical fast periods of Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Apostles' Fast, and Dormition Fast, and a few special days: the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14th) and the Beheading of the Forerunner (August 29th)—which, even though they are feast days, are also fast days (with wine and oil allowed) for the sake of the events commemorated thereon.

There are some local variations in the allowances of wine and oil, and sometimes of fish, and so the indications in the present Calendar cannot be uniformly applied everywhere. In particular, on the celebrations of the patronal feast of a parish or monastery, fish is generally allowed, and when a saint is honored with a service of Sung Doxology or Polyeleos rank, wine and oil are allowed. In the Russian Church, on the feast days of the more renowned Russian saints, such as St. Sergius of Radonezh and St. Seraphim of Sarov, and of wonderworking Icons of the Mother of God such as the Kazan and Vladimir Icons, of course, wine and oil are allowed (except during Great Lent), although this is not mentioned in the present Calendar because the Typicon leaves this to local practice, indicating only the fasts and allowances that are of general application. The meaning of the Typicon in its allowances is simple: the more one labors for the glorification of a saint or feast day, the more consolation one is allowed in food. For one who has become accustomed to the Orthodox fast, the allowance of oil on food, or fried foods, together with a little wine, is indeed a consolation, as well as a source of physical strength. Where the Typicon itself indicates two variant practices (as for a few of the weekdays of Great Lent), the present Calendar follows the Typicon's preferred practice.

While most Orthodox Christians are perhaps aware of the general rule of fasting for Great Lent and the Dormition Fast (wine and oil allowed only on Saturdays and Sundays, except for a few feast days and vigils), many are probably not familiar with the precise rule governing the less severe fast of the Nativity and Apostles' Fast. Therefore, we shall quote this rule, from Chapter 33 of the Typicon:

"It should be noted that in the Fast of the Holy Apostles and of the Nativity of Christ, on Tuesday and Thursday we do not eat fish, but only oil and wine. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we eat neither oil nor wine... On Saturday and Sunday we eat fish. If there occurs on Tuesday or Thursday a saint who has a Doxology, we eat fish; if on Monday, the same; but if on Wednesday or Friday, we allow only oil and wine. If it be a saint who has a Vigil on Wednesday or Friday, or the saint whose temple it is, we allow oil and wine and fish... But from the 20th of December until the 25th, even if it be Saturday or Sunday, we do not allow fish."

In these two fasts, the fast for laymen is the same as that of many Orthodox monasteries, where Monday throughout the year is kept as a fast day in honor of the fleshless ones, the Angels.

This rule of fasting, to be sure, is not intended to be a "straight-jacket" for Orthodox believers, nor a source of pharisaical pride for anyone who keeps the letter of the Church's law. It is rather the rule, the standard, against which each is to measure his own practice, and towards which one must always strive, according to one's strength and circumstances. Whenever, for sickness or any other reason, one falls short of the rule, he applies to himself the spiritual medicine of self-reproach and strives to enter more fully into the spirit and discipline of fasting, which is indeed of great spiritual benefit to those who sincerely strive to follow it.

Hieromonk Seraphim Rose

Source.

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST: The True Nature of Fasting

-Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware

THE TRUE NATURE OF FASTING
'We waited, and at last our expectations were fulfilled', writes the Serbian Bishop Nikolai of Ochrid, describing the Easter service at Jerusalem. 'When the Patriarch sang "Christ is risen", a heavy burden fell from our souls. We felt as if we also had been raised from the dead. All at once, from all around, the same cry resounded like the noise of many waters. "Christ is risen" sang the Greeks, the Russians, the Arabs, the Serbs, the Copts, the Armenians, the Ethiopians one after another, each in his own tongue, in his own melody. . . . Coming out from the service at dawn, we began to regard everything in the light of the glory of Christ's Resurrection, and all appeared different from what it had yesterday; everything seemed better, more expressive, more glorious. Only in the light of the Resurrection does life receive meaning.' 1

This sense of resurrection joy, so vividly described by Bishop Nikolai, forms the foundation of all the worship of the Orthodox Church; it is the one and only basis for our Christian life and hope. Yet, in order for us to experience the full power of this Paschal rejoicing, each of us needs to pass through a time of preparation. 'We waited,' says Bishop Nikolai, 'and at last our expectations were fulfilled.' Without this waiting, without this expectant preparation, the deeper meaning of the Easter celebration will be lost.

So it is that before the festival of Easter there has developed a long preparatory season of repentance and fasting, extending in present Orthodox usage over ten weeks. First come twenty-two days (four successive Sundays) of preliminary observance; then the six weeks or forty days of the Great Fast of Lent; and finally Holy Week, Balancing the seven weeks of Lent and Holy Week, there follows after Easter a corresponding season of fifty days of thanksgiving, concluding with Pentecost.

Read the rest here.

Advent

For those of us on the New Calendar today marks the beginning of the Nativity Fast (Advent in the West). In terms of its strictness it is probably the easiest of the four Fasts. But it is the one I tend to struggle with the most. Please pray for me.

Bright Monday

I was looking for an appropriate icon for the day, but figured why not be honest. This is what today means for a lot of us. On which note there is no fasting this week. If my memory is correct this is the one week out of the year where fasting is not merely optional but actually forbidden. (Readers more knowledgeable in church canons will correct me if I am wrong.) Also kneeling and full prostrations are prohibited both in church and at home until Pentecost.

The joy of the feast to all of you...