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

Dear Friends,

The St Hilarion Calendar provides this overview of fasting rules, East and West:

"Eastern Rite: The basic fast is not to eat any meat or meat products, fish, olive oil, wine, cheese, or dairy products. This regime is varied to allow at times for olive oil and wine. . .

"Western Rite: To fast means to eat no food until 3 pm, to abstain means to eat no animal products or anything made from them. After 3 pm, only one meal is taken. Abstinence means that, beginning on the eve of the fast day, there is abstaining from meat and dairy until the next "eve" arrives.

FYI.

Alex

Dear Alex,

Is this for every day of Lent? At the Byzantine Catholic parish I attend, it was posted in the bulletin that we were supposed to have no meat or dairy on the first day of Lent and on Good Friday, and to have no meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in between.

God Bless,

Janka

P.S. I just noticed the other thread on what we eat for the fast. It's been such a busy week, I haven't had time to read it!

Dear Janka,

Of course, we follow the rules as our bishop and parish have laid them down . . .

The above is the ideal based on tradition - yes, it would be for every day of the Fast.

Alex

Dear Alex,

I was a Roman Catholic for the better part of nine years and never heard of such a rule as the one presented under "Western Rite." I can also tell you that I have never heard of any Latin Catholic even mentioning that they follow such a rule. Rather what is most common is close to what Janka suggested:

1. Fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Fasting is described as
a. one full meal and
b. two partial meals (which if put together would not equal a full meal).

2. Abstain from flesh meat on Fridays (not including dairy).

Such relaxed rules, I believe, have wreaked havoc on the Catholic Church. Most Catholics do not even consider Fridays outside of Lent as days of pennance anymore (let alone Wednesdays). For goodness sakes, many go out to huge Fish-Fries on Fridays in Lent and call this pennance! This is insanity. Yet, I think some are beginning to recognize the problem and are trying to figure out how to correct it. My wife's Italian grandma told her, when she was young, they followed the "Black Fast." This corresponded to the Fast mentioned above as "Eastern Rite."

In Christ's Light,

Wm. DerGhazarian

Aside from all of our personal sacrifices, all of my friends and I are abstaining from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays, and next Friday we are doing a strict 30 hour fast (nothing but water).

My personal sacrifice is to drink nothing but water, milk, and fruit juices (it would seem more stringent if y'all knew how badly I am addicted to Coke).

And guess who put this all into action?

OK, well the 30 hour fast came from the help of one Presbyterian friend who's church practices this.

Logos Teen

In the Orthodox Churches (not in communion with Rome) they teach that the fasting rules run evening to evening. There are two types of fasts ("nisteia" in Greek or "not eating"). Fr. Schmemann's book, Great Lent, asserts this most clearly.

PRE-EUCHARISTIC FASTING

The normal pre-eucharistic fast (no food or drink) commences after the last meal on Saturday evening until reception of the eucharist. The ancient records of the All-Night Vigils (Vesper-Litya-Matins) held in monasteries show us that after the Litya, the monks were each given a hunk of bread and a nice cup of wine. After consuming these, they began the Matins and ate and drank no more.

How beautiful, the pre-eucharistic meal to lead us to the pre-eucharistic fast to lead us to the eucharist! Preparation and fulfillment all in the context of the glorious liturgical life of the Church!

There is no restriction, outside of lenten seasons on what one may eat on Saturday evening, although it goes to reason that if one is preparing, one should not eat an 8 ounce steak the late evening before the eucharist.

ASCETICAL FASTING

Throughout the year, no meat, eggs, or dairy on Wednesdays (betrayl) and Fridays (crucifixtion). No eating until around 3:00 PM or whenever the fast is broken. Drinking water, coffee, tea, juices, but not beer or wine, is permitted until the fast is broken.

The week after Pascha, Nativity, Pentecost, and two weeks prior to Lent, have no ascetical fasting at all, but do have pre-eucharistic fasting.

During the Great Lent and Holy Week, we fast from meat, eggs, dairy, and fish with a spine & blood for the entire time.

We are allowed wine and olive oil on weekends.

Annunciation and Palm Sunday allow fish, wine, and oil.

Beer in small amounts is permitted.

Holy Friday is a strict fast day, nothing eaten if possible. For those who can't endure, water, non-alcoholic juices, tea, coffee, and grains without any oil. Most of us don't endure and never find out if we can't.

Mondays through Fridays during Great Lent and Holy Week, the faithful are encouraged to keep as they normally keep Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year (see above).

Those who can't endure this very strict regimen focus on Weds. & Fris. and Holy Week itself. God will bless all sincere efforts!

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
I finnally found the rules for fasting that I was talking about. They are on the net at: http://www.redemptorists.org.uk/RED/mag/maron7.htm. I hope you all enjoy.

Poosh BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

*************************************************
Traditional Maronite Fast and Abstinence
(in vigour until at least the 1920's)
(Cf. Fr. R.. Janin, A.A. Les Eglise orientales et Les Rites orientaux, Paris 1922)

The practise of fast and abstinence was regulated by the Maronite synod of 1736

Fast: eating and drinking forbidden until midday
Abstinence: abstaining from eating all meat, oil, wine and animal products (eggs, milk, cheese etc.)

1. Great Lent from Quinquagesima to Easter abstinence every day; fasting every day except on Sundays and Saturdays (with the exception of Holy Saturday)

2. Apostles Lent abstinence four days 25th - 28th June

3. Assumption Lent abstinence eight days 7th - 14th August

4. Christmas Lent abstinence twelve days 13th - 24th December

5. Abstinence every Wednesday and Friday except: from Christmas to Epiphany, the Friday before Great Lent, from Easter to Pentecost, June 24th and 29th; August 6th and 15th

6 Forbidden food Like most oriental Christians, the Maronites kept the Mosaic ban on eating blood, suffocated animals and certain animals considered impure; and which Oriental Church Councils have many times renewed.

Wm.,

liturgically speaking the West only has one strict fast day during lent- Ash Wednesday. Good Friday falls outside the time of lent, and is a separate liturgical "season"- the Easter Tridium. Similarily, the minimum fasting directives for the Metropolia of Pittsburgh prescribe the First Monday of Great Lent as a day of strict fast, aka "black fast". Great and Holy Friday is also a day of strict fast, but this day also falls out of the 40 day season of the Great Fast. Lazarus Saturday and the Great and Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday fall outside of the Great Fast.

Dear Jenny
The rules you posted are the same as we were told at my parish. I would say at least 50% of our parish are not cradle-eastern, so the stricter fasts posted by others is probably too much.

Our priest told us to not just get carried away about alot of fasting rules (or words to that effect). He said to do other things to improve our spiritual life, such as read the Bible more (hopefully the emphasis is on MORE), spend more time in prayer, attend Pre-Sanctified, etc.

denise

Dear-in-Christ Denise,

I think what your priest told you is great. Each, of course, must fast as he/she is able to.

The fasting rules you have pointed out, when formulated that way (I have been told), are like the rules for confession and communion. It is the bare minimum. Now sometimes the bare minimum becomes the standard but it certainly should not. We can look at the rule confession and communion at least once a year with the communion during the Easter season. That was the bare minimum one could do and still be considered an active member of a community. What happened? The bare minimum became the standard practice, there were other factors involved but the end result was directly linked to the minimal approach. I fear our fasting has gone that way too.

Tony

Dear Tony
I agree with what you say about the bare minimum.
That is why our priest encourages other things too, besides fasting.

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.

Each person's home situation is different. Some families are all devote church members who are willing to follow very very strict fasts. Other homes have a mixture, where one member doesn't attend church. That home may be doing well to give up a few food items as a group.

God sees our intent. Making the effort to give up three hours on a Wednesday or Friday evening to go to Pre-Sanctified is as great a spiritual sacrifice for someone whose family is unable to follow a strict food fast.
denise

Here I have seen that many people are very liberal in fasting, both Catholics and the Orthodox I know, fasting is not so much encouraged by priets, for example, people tend to abstain from meat on fridays and that is all (even the Orthodox, those who are not so religious, do the modern Latin fasting). I didn't know very well that one must abstain from all (fish, dairy products, oils, etc).

The old government didn't help so much, they used to put high prices to vegetables and fish so that people don't fast.

Alex:

I'd have to agree with our brother, Ghazaros.

We fast and abstain on only two days of the year--Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Fasting also includes no eating between meals--for those of us like me who "graze" on anything that happens to be left out or is leftover in the refrigerator.

I've never heard of the requirement to wait to eat on a fasting day until 3 p.m. I've even collected some of the fasting rules used in the United States since the start of the 20th century and they don't include any time specification.

I do know, however, that the U.S. bishops asked for a number of indults to lessen the fasting rules for Latin Catholics in this country in 1895. We may have lost the 3 p.m. rule at that time.

Prior to WW1, there were rules in the States that required people to weigh their eggs, for example, once the prohibition against using them during Lent was lifted. It is interesting to me that one whould weigh an egg before cooking it for breakfast, but my elderly relatives actually had an egg scale for doing that in their kitchen.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, we had half-fast days as a result of another lifting of the strictness of the fast. In other words, meat was allowed for the main meal during every day but Friday during Lent. I think I still have an old calendar around that shows a full fish symbol on Fridays and a half fish symbol on all the other days except Sunday. Seems we have had a lot of variation on fasting and abstaining in this country over the past century.

The reason that I have found is that the Latin bishops asked Rome for the indults was that our culture and economy made it very difficult for working people to keep the strict disciplines.

Immediately after the last lifting of strict disciplines, we were supposed to take on ourselves some form of discipline that included both negative and positive fasting and abstaining: negative toward food and drink; positive toward extra prayer and building our spiritual lives--attending services, etc. But I haven't heard much on this score in the past 25 years from any parish I've attended. (But, the, each of us was supposed to find a spiritual director much like those in religious life and that hasn't been well remembered either.) Today there is usually only a plea to remember that we shouldn't eat meat on the two days and not to overeat either.

BOB

Interesting how the different churches regard fasting regulations.

Someone mentioned that the fasting rules are the bare minimum. I can see that for the legalistic mindset of the West, but I always thought of the Eastern fasting requirements as being the maximum , i.e. the rigorous regimen kept by monastic men and women. For the average member of the congregation the fast was adjusted to that which could be achieved.

Is that so?

The way monasticism developed in the West with its emphasis on outside works and apostolates, any fast "with teeth" was out of the question. Some of the older monks here at my community like to relate how when our monastery ran a farm that required much hard labor, the brothers were actually ordered by their superior to eat more!

PAX

"Wm.,

liturgically speaking the West only has one strict fast day during lent- Ash Wednesday. Good Friday falls outside the time of lent, and is a separate liturgical "season"- the Easter Tridium. Similarily, the minimum fasting directives for the Metropolia of Pittsburgh prescribe the First Monday of Great Lent as a day of strict fast, aka "black fast". Great and Holy Friday is also a day of strict fast, but this day also falls out of the 40 day season of the Great Fast. Lazarus Saturday and the Great and Holy Week beginning with Palm Sunday fall outside of the Great Fast."

-bisantino

reply:

Yes, thank you for the correction bisantino. Yet in popular language I think it is very common to hear Roman Catholics speak of the only two "fast days in Lent." Thanks for pointing out that this is not technically correct. There is actually only one fast day in Lent then.