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Hi,

Can someone please clarify for me the Russian Catholic Lent fast? Unfortunately, I don't know a Russian Catholic priest that I could ask. I'm a Russian Catholic but I don't have a parish near me. I emailed a Ukrainian Catholic priest I know, but he hasn't responded yet, and also I think their fasting rules are different.

There's also an issue I have with all this... I am living away from home, and I'm a student so I'm kind of struggling financially. My family brought me food for the next month or so, but almost all of it contains meat (chicken, etc). I can't really afford to buy vegetarian food, and even if I do, I am afraid it would be uncharitable to my family to not use the food they brought me. I have no idea what to do about this.. I included this question in my email to the priest, but he hasn't responded yet, like I said, and - for the past couple of days I've been trying to only eat vegetables but I don't even know what I could eat that doesn't have oil, or cheese, etc..I'm kind of wasting the food I have that isn't Lent appropriate that my family brought me.

Does anyone have any ideas??? thanks!

(also if someone could clarify for me.. how long do Russian Catholics fast before receiving Communion? what if they receive Communion in the evening?)

See the page on fasting [byzantinecatholic.org] at the website of Our Lady of Fatima, the Russian Greek-Catholic parish in San Francisco. As regards your financial situation and the food that your family has provided and their effect on your ability to fast. I feel very confident in saying that most Spiritual Fathers would advise that you temper your adherence to the fast with consideration of your circumstances.

One's object in fasting should be to do the best that one can. In some cases, that means that the quantity of food be reduced, rather than the type - because one lacks control over the latter (such as may be the case here, where your finances are limited and you have been gifted with foodstuffs that aren't typical of lenten fare, but will otherwise be wasted). You don't mention your living circumstances, but do you have the ability to freeze any of the food that your family provided?

Many years,

Neil

Hello,

thank you for the reply I have emailed a Russian Catholic priest to ask if he has any advice as well. (because I don't know any Russian Catholic priests)

I am able to freeze the food that my family gave me, but I'm moving back home in May, so either I should eat the food this month or bring it back home.. I'll still have to bring a portion of it back home, but almost everything I have contains - at least - olive oil, eggs, dairy, etc...

However if in order to be obedient to the Church I need to follow the fast strictly, then I'll try my best.

Glad you were able to find a Russian priest to e-mail. We do have one who is a member here, although I haven't seen a post by him in a couple weeks (he may be fasting from posting, as some members do).

It really is too bad that there is no longer a Russian Catholic parish in Canada. Presentation of the Virgin Mary Russian Greek-Catholic Church in Youville, now the Church of the Holy Martyrs of the East (Chaldean Catholic) was a beautiful temple.

Many years,

Neil

that is good you are enthusiastic about the great fast, and I am sure many are about to will disagree with me but,

I really think you should eat the food given to you, if you're a student I assume you are broke and living off the charity of others (parents etc) so you are poor. Perhaps abstain for only some days during the week (mon, wed, fri?) or limit the amount of red meat. Keep in mind when these fasting rules were made they were hard for the nobility since they eat so much good stuff but easy for the peasants since they didnt eat meat to begin with (hard thing for them would be the diary portion probably and not eating eggs) so their diets were used to eating practically vegan.... in our age meat is the main thing we eat so its harder to fast and even harder on the physical body (my stomach has never been same since my first Great Fast after I became a Christian and joined a Byzantine rite parish, since then I have to take excessive amounts of anti-acids and drinking sodium bicarbonate).

Hopefully that priest can give you a good answer. I wouldnt bother emailing but just outright calling him, he wouldnt mind.

If there is a Russian Orthodox parish [tinyurl.com] near by you can talk with the priest or the deacon or their wives there about fasting. I've heard the OCA priest talk about fasting with his flock a number of times at the OCA church I sometimes go to and his instruction mirrors what my priest, in my Russian Byzantine Catholic Church tells us.... and it involved a continuum, as has been mentioned before.


I agree and I made this suggestion to LittleFlower, on another forum. I think I said try beginning with just following the abstaining on Wed. and Fri. since elsewhere OP indicated she's had no experience with the fast and no access to an Eastern spiritual father.


I tend to suggest asking a deacon or clergy wives. Often times priests are quite busy and can be slow to answer, especially at this time of year.... not that deacons and matushkas aren't

I quoted from that page to LittleFlower elsewhere. I actually hadn't read it in a while when I pulled it up to link to. Looking at it now I think it's a pretty good short and sweet reference.

When I was looking for sources, including that one, I noticed that on another page on the website, under Great Lent [byzantinecatholic.org] is a section written by The Monk Myron (Collins, FSC). When I was driving The Monk Myron home last night after Presanctified Liturgy I said "Hey, Br. Myron, I guess you're the author of that piece on our site by The Monk Myron. He didn't remember writing it. He was the cook for his community when he lived and taught for many years in Bethlehem. He's quite skilled about how to cook during our fasts. I have to admit that even though we are a Russian parish we eat a lot of middle eastern food in and out of fasting periods.

LittleFlower-- Since Neil brought up our parish with this link... off topic--I forget if it's come up before about the Little Flower. We have Saint Thérèse of Lisieux on our iconostasis [tinyurl.com] because of her presence in the iconostasis in Russicum seminarian's chapel [carmelitereview.org]. Maybe it came up before and I've forgotten, that your name here has this lovely Russian Catholic connection, via the good Carmelites.

thanks for the replies

I do not live near any Russian Catholic parish, sadly... but I'll see what the priest would say

God bless!

LittleFlower:

Remember that the Great Fast is not about hurting oneself or one's health. I tried to fast in the strict Russian fashion as a student, but, like Litvin, was not used to that discipline and had a really tough time with my stomach. So I asked a Russian Orthodox priest what people did and he advised doing what I could do and being at peace, given my surroundings, lack of other food sources, and income as a student. So dairy was not off my own list.

This particular priest also introduced me to something I'd never heard of before: what he called "positive fasting." Positive fasting is the other half of denying the body food and is very important for the spiritual life. It involves spenidng more time with spiritual reading and prayer. It involves turning off the TV and electronic media that disturb one's peace and take our attention away from God. It involves taking quiet time--away from the crowd, away from noise. It involves what the Desert Fathers call being "alone to the Alone": time spent with the One you want to spend eternity with. Hopefully this positive fasting will continue after the Great Fast; that the habit of spending time with God will become something as important as eating when Pascha comes; that it will become something you will jealously guard against the demands of a world that wants to fill up your time with noise and distraction that ultimately does not fulfill the great longing of the human heart--the desire to be with the One Who can give the real meaning to our lives.

Maybe as a student--always busy with so many papers, projects, and exams--you could take a specified time each morning and for five minutes just slowly recite the Our Father, allowing the fullest concentration you can muster just for that special five minutes. And maybe five more at the end of your day. That's positive fasting and the habit will stick if you keep at it.

Remember that the whole reason for all the Church's ascetic practices is to "acquire the Holy Spirit of God," as St. Seraphim of Sarov advised. All these disciplines are the means of doing this; they are not ends in themselves.

You remain in my prayers that you persevere. Your brother in Christ,

Bob

Monica, my sister,

I happened to read your similar thread on another forum and, at the risk of seeming critical, which is not my intent, I think you are obsessing over this matter in a way that is both unhelpful and unhealthy for you. At the risk of offending, I'm going to offer some very hard-nosed and practical advice to you on the question you pose.

In that thread elsewhere, you have been bombarded with advice. Some of this, offered to you by persons whom I respect greatly and consider to be friends, has been excellent and well-thought out. Other of it, presented seemingly authoritatively, has been extraordinarily legalistic and grossly unhelpful.

The latter keeps focusing back on what you are (a Russian Greek-Catholic) and demanding that you adhere slavishly to a spiritual regimen and tradition with which you are unfamiliar and of which you were ignorant until relatively recently (certainly at the time of your reception into the Catholic Communion). The respondent individuals (one in particular) have continued on this course despite your explanations that you are living in an area where you are without the benefit of a parish of your own Church and that you are in circumstances (school, limited finances, etc) that further interfere with your abiiity to fully adhere to its traditions.

You need to stop and step back from this and think!

You stated on the other site that you have been in communication with a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest who has advised you, in what seemed to have been a very reasonable matter, as to how you should approach the fast given all of the competing issues involved in doing so (the foodstuffs provided by your family, the finances, your schedule, etc). That should have ended it - yet, you came back to the thread, querying further - on the same issues! You need to listen to what the priest said, follow his spiritual advice, and stop agonizing over this matter!

You seem to be hung up on the fact that his advice might be less than absolutely correct for you, as he is not of your Church. He is a priest, he is of a Sister Church to your Church, they are both Churches of the Byzantine Rite and the Slavic Tradition within that Rite. His advice is probably the closest you are going to come to absolutely correct - which seems to be what you are demanding. His advice is, of a certainty, closer to what you are seeking than the advice being handed out by armchair canonists on the other site.

There are exactly 4 Russian Greek-Catholic Churches in the entirety of North America. If a Russian Greek-Catholic intends to practice his or her faith and does not reside in or near NYC, San Francisco, El Segundo (CA), or Denver, they have 2 choices - to do so in private (while worshipping with the Latin Church) or to worship with their Byzantine sisters and brothers in one of the Eastern Catholic Churches that have much more of a presence in North America - in Canada, that means the Slovaks, the Melkites, the Ukrainians or the Romanian or Hungarian Byzantine parishes served by the Ukrainians. For you, right now, the choice seems to be, from what you say, to principally do so in private, while worshipping with the Latins, and taking advantage of the occasional opportunity to do so with the Ukrainians. That's fine and no one, least of all God, is going to fault you for that!

As a matter of practicality, a person separated from the territory of his or her own Church and worshipping in another Church sui iuris can satisfy his or her obligations by meeting those of the Church in which they worship. If you are able to observe the feasts of your own Church (which you can do simply by worshipping in the Latin Church on the days of those feasts, despite that the feast observed is not the same), all well and good. If you cannot, you cannot, and there is no spiritual failure on your part for having done so.

You need to stop looking for a perfect answer - there is none - and some might opine that continuing to do so, in the face of all you've been told, smacks of pride and/or scrupulosity, rather than of the joy and humility with which we should approach opportunities in our spiritual lives.

The Russian Greek-Catholic Church is an 'orphan' Church and I do not say that to be harsh or sound uncaring, as I have a long-standing love for the Russian Church. (The first Divine Liturgy in which I ever participated, more than a half-century ago, was served according to the Great Russian Rescension.)

The Russian Greek-Catholic Church has no hierarch and has not had one for two decades; its only extant canonical jurisdictions are vacant and have been since the martyrdom of their hierarchs more than a half century ago; its parishes outside of Russia would not exist were it not for the dogged perserverance and dedication of the priests who serve them and, in the Americas and Australia, the benevolence of the Melkite and Romanian eparchs who, formally or informally, afford them a spiritual omophor and hierarchical care, albeit they are subject to local Latin ordinaries.

If you want to do something for Lent, in lieu of a more rigorous fast that you seem to believe is essential to fulfilling your obligations as a Russian Greek-Catholic, pray as a Russian Greek-Catholic, asking the intercession of Blessed Exarch and Martyr Leonid Feodorov, the Russian Church's Proto-Hierarch, that Rome restore your Church to its rightful status, lest it someday soon become a historical footnote, as has the Georgian Byzantine Catholic Church, of blessed memory.

Many years,

Neil

Speaking as an Orthodox Christian, I want to join in with Neil's advice.

It is sound and he joins with me in almost always advising inquirers to seek out and follow the sage advise of a priest, in this case the Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest with whom you consulted.

As you will find out in time to come as your journey through Eastern Christianity continues, you will learn and understand that within the Churches of the East, both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic, there is no singular path, be it fasting, devotions, prayer life etc.... There are certain absolutes in terms of the dogmatic expression of the Faith itself yet there exists a great variety of legitimate, but differing, practices just below the surface.

To those unfamiliar with the East, these differences may not be apparent. To some of those seeking some form of uniformity as a response to changes in the Roman church (as they may either recall from their youth or have been taught)these differences may be either confusing or disheartening, but they are what they are. (Don't be further disheartened when you discover that there are some voices from the East (again, both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic alike) that elevate cultural differences among the Churches to a semi-dogmatic status and urge that this or that is 'wrong' or 'inferior' to their idea of praxis. IMHO, they are misguided and, frankly, wrong.)

Good luck and Many Years!

Fast with your Heart. It is not what goes into your mputh, it is what your intention and relationship with God is. Many follow the strict Fast, but lack prayer and intimacy with God.

An unworthy sinner

Heiromonk Luke

Thanks be to God for our beloved priests and the Latin Bishops and Melkite and Romanian eparchs each of whom has given and continue to give us their good care.


Thank you for this, Neil. May others join in this prayer intention.

Very Wise! Thank you Fr. Luke...

Bless, Father Luke,

Well-said

Many years,

Neil