www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Fasting Rules East and West

Qoute:
"I just think some posters that have a personal tradition of fasting from numerous things are trying to impose (that is stronger a word than I intend) their tradition on others here. It is like someone who is used to running marathons to expect others who have hardly walked around the block in the past couple of years to suddenly start running marathons. -Denise"

reply:

Dear Denise,
I hope you do not think this is what I meant. Re-reading my post, I could see how you might, so please allow me to clarify. I did not mean at all to speak of people's sacrifices during the period of the Great Fast. I would be a fool, a hypocrite and very pharisaic to make such a self-righteuos comment (all of which I probably am anyways). I was not speaking of what people sacrifice but rather the goal or ideal our Churches present for us. Not long ago, this bar used to be basically the same across the line whether one was a member of the Latin, Byzantine, Armenian or any other historic Church. All I was referring to was the Latin Church's lowering of that bar so low. By proclaiming the "minimum" as the West does instead of the "ideal" for which everyone is to strive (as the East does) -even though most of its members know they can not make it (I know I won't)- it gives the faithful the impression that this "minimum" is now the standard. The Latin Church did this to change its image from a legalistic monolith to something kinder and gentler. But I think it has back-fired into some of the problems I mentioned above. The Bishops of the Latin Church obviously realize this and are trying to figure out what to do about it. This is all I meant. So, in other words, I'm not speaking of pernsonal traditions at all, but rather the Churches' traditions. I hope I have given no offence and no appearances of self-righteousness. I'm going to post a nice article by a Deacon in the Armenian Apostolic Church to further explain this point.

In Christ's Light,

Wm. DerGhazarian

An Article by an Armenian Apostolic Deacon:

Greetings (another forum) members,

It's been a while since I sat down and addressed anything to the whole group, but on this first day of the period in our Church called Great Lent, I felt compelled to say a few things. This Lenten period is a time of preparation that will ultimately lead us to the day of Resurrection of our Lord. It seems that we all go through the yearly ritual of deciding what to "give up" for Lent. This concept of "Giving up something for Lent" has always bothered me so let me share a few thoughts.

Correct me if you think I am wrong, but I am certain I have never seen anything written in our Church that says during the period of Great Lent we should give up "Something." The whole concept of preparing ourselves to receive the Lord on Resurrection Sunday is not one of depriving oneself of something. I hear people talk about giving up chocolate or sweets or going to movies or....the list continues to grow year by year. I hear people talk about "giving up" things they probably should have limited in their lives a long time ago. I have still not convinced myself, how giving up candy or movies will prepare me to receive the Lord on Resurrection Sunday. I am sure that these people mean well. I have heard many of our clergy also talk about giving up things. Some how I think we are missing the boat here. We as a church are failing to teach our faithful how to prepare oneself.

Biblically and in the writings of our church it seems fairly clear how to prepare yourself. It was always through Prayer and Fasting. How did Christ prepare Himself in the desert? Some how the prayer part has been lost and the fasting part has evolved to mean, "giving up something." I really thing our Church need to rethink what and how we teach our people. The time of Lent is a time of "Prayer and Fasting". Giving up something for Lent, in my opinion is a misinterpretation of the intent of preparing one's self. To "Fast" is to feel the hunger in your stomach that with pray makes you realize that we do not live by bread alone. It is the Bread of Life that our Lord is offering to us that fills us. It is not fasting alone that prepares us, but fasting with prayer that we can prepare ourselves. By depriving myself of candy does not make me hunger. By watching less television does not make me hunger. These things do not bring me closer to Christ, but only through Prayer and Fasting can I find that path. Fasting alone does not bring us closer to our Lord. There are many people in this world who fast for various reasons, be they political or religious.

Now that being said, I am not advocating that we starve ourselves during the Lenten period. The giving up of meat products is designed to limit our food intake and bring a feeling of hunger to us to prepare ourselves with prayer. The Lenten diet was not meant to starve us but to prepare us for prayer. This being said let me say a few words on the Lenten diet. In this society we live in to limit ourselves to a meatless diet is both extremely difficult at times and extremely easy at times. Confusing?? Let me speak from experience as one who has in the past held STRICTLY to the Lenten diet for the entire period of Lent. In our society today to go with out animal products is really quite easy. We have so many meat substitutes that with very little effort we can go with no animal products if we really want to. We can walk through our enormous supermarkets and fill our carts to the top with all sorts of vegetables and meat substitutes, cereals, breads, cans of ....well you get my point it really isn't hard and at times you may never feel any real hunger at all. So this can be a problem. We may follow the letter of the diet but never get to the point of why we are limiting our diet.

The other very difficult part of the Lenten diet is in our daily social interactions with those who do not hold to the diet or even understand why we diet like this. Today I will go to lunch with my boss and will probably order a salad and try not to look too obvious. But what do I do when I go to someone's house for dinner and they serve meat? Is it better to force myself to hold to the Lenten diet at the sake of possibly hurting the feelings of my dinner hosts? I a couple of weeks I will be out of town at a conference. Here it will not be easy to hold to my diet of abstinence of meat products. Now all this being said, I have in the past done it. But I must confess that at times you can become so obsessed with holding to the Lenten diet that you can loose all sense of why you were doing this to begin with. (Abstinence can actually be the easy part, it is the prayer part that can slip if you are not careful). We can get so involved with following the diet that we lose track of why we are doing it to begin with.

So this is why I say that following the Lenten Abstinence diet is really quite easy at home, but work and other things take us a way from what we can control and this can make it difficult, if not impossible without calling attention to ourselves and being very obvious about it.
Now how do we teach the faithful to fast and pray? Unfortunately in our society today, things like this take a back seat to the rest of our lives. Most people live their religion on Sunday and after that don't bother me. This is unfortunate but the reality of today. How can we bring our people back? I really think that many of our leaders feel that if we ask our people to do something "Really Hard" like abstaining that we will drive them all away. If we try and show ourselves as being a little "tough" (I use this word not only in the physical sense but the spiritual one as well), they will all leave our Church. We need to make things really easy for them. Don't ask too much of them so they won't leave. Well I have news for you all...they are leaving anyway! Rather than try and "Water down" our faith, I think we need to be better teaching it. We need to adapt and teach our faith to a people who live in the real world of today, without compromising our beliefs.

Example:
How do we teach "Abstinence and prayer"? Do we insist that all of our people abstain from animal products the whole time? There are many (most) who wouldn't even begin to try and do this. Not that they couldn't but it could be too overwhelming for them. We need to teach them #1 why we are doing this so they understand, and #2 how they can all do this. Start small and build up. Forget about this "Giving up" candy and movies stuff. Let's all pick one day during the week that we abstain from animal products and on that day dedicate ourselves to a half hour of prayer in the evening. Maybe a family prayer or quietly by ourselves. We as a church are avoiding the point and closing our eyes to the problem. We shouldn't avoid the topic altogether but find a solution that we can use today. Start small and build up. How many of our clergy today would ever stand up in front of their congregation and preach about abstinence? How many would stand up and give a sermon on the need to fast and pray? I would be willing to bet not too many. Why? Are they afraid they will drive the people out?? We need to teach our people to be strong. We shouldn't be ashamed to teach our people the ways of the Armenian Church. Sometimes it drives me nuts when we try and make ourselves look just like everyone else. There is this great desire to try and blend in. Well we are not the same as everyone else and we have definite teachings, customs and Traditions.

Well enough said on this first day of Lent. I wish you all a good journey as we make our way to the Sunday of Resurrection. Let's all try and be strong in our faith and pray for each other.

Deacon S.

Dear-to-Christ Benedictine,

Indeed, tradionally in the East fasting rules were formulated in their strictest sense. Each individual kept The Fast as/he she could with the guidance of his/her spiritual elder. What has gone unsaid is that the fasting rules originally posted by Jenny do not represent the traditional formulation of fasting for Orthodox Christian. I understand that every Catholic church or jurisdiction, of course, can regulate fasting using a sense of "ekonomia." At least one Orthodox Church does this.

Please see this link [acrod.org] for a Pastoral Letter on the Great Fast from Metropolitan NICHOLAS. In the next to the last paragraph he says "These are the minimum requirements for observing during this season." And later in that paragraph "I whole- heartedly recommend the penitential practices of a sterner quality which the time-honored traditions and customs of our Holy Orthodox Church have handed down to us."

Again, I propose this be looked at like the communion and confession "rules." Was that once a year requirement meant to be the norm? No. Did it become the norm? Yes, and most would agree wrongly so.

So, is anyone to be judged for keeping the bare minumum? No, only God judges such things. However, that bare minimum should not be understood as the Orthodox tradition of fasting.

Tony

From today's bulletin at my OCA church:

Front page:
FAST DAYS--Great Lent until April 27th. According to the Church rules, during this period, we should abstain from meat, eggs, dairy products and sexual relations.

Page 6:
FASTING RULES FOR GREAT LENT--Fish is permitted on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, and April 20, the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem. Wine and oil are permitted on all Saturdays and Sundays of Great Lent (except on Great Saturday, when wine, but not oil, is permitted), on March 24, the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation, on April 9 and 10, the eve and Feast of the St. Andrew Standing, and on April 24, Great Thursday. Wine but not oil is permitted on April 11, on the eve of the Saturday of the Akathist Hymn, and on April 26, Great Saturday. On all other days of Great Lent, we abstain from eating fish, wine and oil.

OrthodoxEast

Dear All,
Because so many folks at my BC parish are cradle Roman Catholics, and then many spouses are Protestant, the strict Orthodox fasting rules are just not familiar to me. (I'm transferred rite to Byzantine). When I grew up RC, fish was considered ok. [Actually, I hated fish so much I wouldn't eat it and was sent to bed early -- and I mean back when every Friday of the year was fasting . So I was in bed early EVERY Friday for a long time, until my parents relented and allowed a scrambled egg or PBJ sandwich.]

Anyway, I've been BC for quite a few years and have never heard of the strict fasting rules as outlined in this thread. I've never heard of any of the cradle BC mention the really strict rules. Getting my family to fast the minimum is quite a leap, my husband doesn't attend church but is willing to do the meatless Wed and Fri, so I consider him to be making the biggest sacrifice in the family.

I had a dear old saintly friend who thought it silly to give up sweets and such for Lent. She said we would be better off fasting from words (which I mentioned in another thread). Fasting from words said in anger, avoid gossiping, avoid nagging, etc. So I try to hold my tongue and think before speaking, or not speaking, since the very strict rules seem to be out of reach for me.

(some one I know used to "give up" smoking for Lent, but rumor has it he was a grump all Lent .)

When the rules were relaxed VII, although I was young, it seemed the idea was to be less legalistic, instead to be Christian from the heart.

Dear William G: I know you to be a kind and gentle poster, I do not consider you a hypocrit.
denise
(one last thing -- fasting is only a means -- not a goal. The goal is to have our minds and hearts lifted up to God -- but then, you guys all know that )

Brother Ghazaros:

When I received instruction in the Orthodox Church many years ago, the priest told me that once I had learned all the strict rules about fasting I should learn one more.

He told me that I should never draw attention to my fasting. I asked what I should do when I was invited to the home of a Protestant family I knew and they served stuffed pork chops on a Friday evening during what should have been, for me, a strict fast day. He told me tht I should follow the advice of the Desert Fathers and eat what was put before me because to cause scandal or embarrassment to my host and hostess was an even more grave offense than to break the fasting rules of the Church. My duty on that day was then to spend some extra quiet time in prayer after I had gone to my room for the night. I find that to be the greater way.

I, too, don't advocate something that is a six-week exercise and then abandoned at the end of Lent. As my spiritual director puts it, this time should be a time of growth when we abandon some bad habit or addiction that we have and continue with the abandonment beyond the time of Lent.

I wrote a study manual for my parish a year ago where we examined Our Lord's temptations: bread or material temptations; fame or public display; and political power or kingdoms. I believe Our Lord showed us that it is not easy to do the Father's Will in our lives or in the way He calls us to do. Faithfulness is a struggle and growth process. None of it is painless.

May each of our brothers in Christ experience growth in their Lenten journey.

BOB

Friends-in-Christ,

Please see this link [oca.org] .

Tony

Dear Friends,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Actually, the fasting rules that the Synod of Milan published have to do with Western Church fasting PRIOR to the schism of 1054 AD!

These are the very old fasting rules that were once observed by Western Catholics and still are by many Western Rite ORTHODOX.

Remember, bran crackers can kill any kind of hunger pang . . .

Alex

Yes, but Alex,

"Spasenija skvoz' stradanie"

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Reader Andrew,

Yes, but "stradanie" can also be caused by too many celery sticks!

Alex

Maybe this will sound out topic, but which were the Traditional Latin Mass Pre-Vatican II rules of fasting? Were these the ones you posted from the Mylanese Synod?

Remie:

My mother and my grandparents remember the midnight to reception of Our Lord as the norm for the eucharistic fast. I came into the period in the 1950s when the fast was modified to be three hours prior to reception--so if you got up early enough, you could drink some milk or juice before going to Liturgy. The latest is the one hour fast prior to reception with a further modification for those who are ill having only 15 minutes.

An aside: I had an argument with the parent of one of my students in religious education. The woman tried to tell me that I was full of those bran crackers because there were no requirements for anything any longer. The only thing she believed was necessary was to get baptized, get to Liturgy once in awhile, get her son to religious ed class so someday he could be married in church, and be under the Pope. Needless to say we were in different universes. Please pray for me to have an increase in patience because I suffer from an argumentative nature and a quick, bad temper with arguments such as this.

BOB

Dear Bob,

There's nothing wrong with those bran crackers, let me tell you!

They help me survive the Orthodox Great Fast!

And you have an argumentative, quick-tempered nature?

I was going to suggest you emulate my character, but on second thought . . .

Alex

Being mindful of the needs of others should be factored in to whatever fasting regimen you adopt. I am reminded that the seminarians at St. Tikhon's Seminary were permitted dairy every other week during Great Lent last year, the better to control anger within a sometimes stressful environment. I don't mean to say everyone should do likewise, but that everyone has particular circumstances to consider when confronting the Church's fasting requirements. The idea is for the Fast to liberate the Soul for prayerful pursuits such as almsgiving, not to trip it up.

This makes perfect sense and seems totally in accord with all the historic Churches' traditions. We don't need to throw out the traditional Great Fast for minimalistic rules which make a mockery of the term "Great Fast." Rather, all that is needed is that it be explained to the faithful that not all can keep it, as you have done so thoughtfully. The Fast is what it is. We all in our own ways and according to our own circumstances are to try to keep it as best we can. God knows our hearts and what sacrifices each are making out of love for Him. Hasn't this always been the Christian idea?

Trusting In Christ's Illuminating Light,
Wm. DerGhazarian

Armenian Catholic
www.geocities.com/wmwolfe_48044/ [geocities.com]