ORTHODOX FASTING PRACTICES

© 1999-2001 by Orchid Land Publications 

[updated 200102-01]

     [This is not a treatise on the purpose or virtues of fasting or the prayers that need to accompany 
fasting in order to raise fasting above the level 
of  a diet; this deals only with fasting practices.]

     Note that Orthodox terminology on fasting differs from that of Western Christianity; there is no "abstinence," though fasts are mitigated in certain ways when festivals of different dignities conflict with fast days of certain kinds--as explain in the sequel.  Note that the Communion fast (usually from Midnight, at minimally eight hours) prevails over and sets aside all other customs in connection with fasting and not fasting.
     Fasting is only one of three pious practices--prayer, fasting, and almsgiving--that one emphasizes even more than ever on days of fasting.
     In contrast with the total fast (including water) before Holy Communion and on holy Great Friday (see below), "strict" fasting (xerophayía, as on every Wednesday and Friday and all weekdays of the Great Fast that do not conflict with a higher-ranking festival) forbids:  (i) blood-meat (including all red and white meats, lard, gravy, and broth; but fish constitute a separate category, and honey is of course exempt from the blood-meat category); (ii) fish (not including crustaceans shrimps, lobsters, scallops, snails, etc.), amphibians (turtles), and reptiles (eels)--all of which are always allowed except during total fasting; (iii) dairy products--dairy milk, dairy butter, cheese, and eggs; (iv) wine or vodka (which includes all alcoholic drinks, except that some traditionalists exempt beer); and (v) olive oil.  From the earliest documents (one written before parts of the New Testament), Wednesdays and Fridays have been strict fasts to commemorate, respectively, our Savior's betrayal by Judas and our Savior's Crucifixion.  (Monastics also fast strictly on Mondays of the year.)  The term abstinence is not generally used; the partial or mitigated fasts--wine-and-oil days and fish-wine-and-oil days--at certain times correspond somewhat to that Western concept.  Note that the Wednesday and Friday and other fasts extend from midnight to midnight, except that they end with Vespers when a festival having a vigil (CLICK HERE; they include the twelve major festivals) falls on the following day. 
     Total fasting from food and drink--on the holy Great Friday till after the services--is canonically forbidden on Lordsdays and on Sabbaths (Saturdays) other than Great Sabbath (the day preceding Pascha).   At all times however, one makes a total fast before receiving the Holy Communion--at least eight hours.

In contrast of the way Western Christians anticipate the Birthday of Christ with many "Christmas" motifs, the Orthodox fast before a festival and celebrate the time following the three most important festivals as fast-free times--a week following Pascha and Pentecost [Trinity Lordsday] and ten days following the Birthday of Christ.

Early documents distinguished fasts that permit a single meal per day from those that allow two meals during a given day.

     Other kinds of fasting are:  Strict fast(ing) or xerophagy begins at midnight and lasts till the Vespers of a following festival having a vigil, if any, but otherwise till midnight; it is mitigated by a coïncident festival of the higher ranks.  (But note in the table below that one festival of St. John the Baptist and one of the Holy Cross include fasting.)  Strict fasting prevails on every Wednesday and Friday.   (Mondays are treated like Wednesdays and Fridays among monastics [including hierarchs]; monastics never eat meat other than fish and fast totally on the first three days of the Great Fast).   As noted above, strict fasting excludes eating of animal products, including fish other than crustaceans.  The kinds of fasting customary in the three fast periods other than the Great Fast are set forth below.  As already observed, there are two forms of  mitigated (relaxed) or partial fasting:   wine-and-oil days, and fish-wine-and-oil days.  (See above how "fish" and "wine" are to be understood; "oil" refers solely to olive oil.)  Great Sabbath (the day preceding Pascha) is the only day when fasting from wine and oil are not linked.  (See details in the table below.)  All forms of fasting from food are to be accompanied by prayer and by fasting from the flesh (i.e. sexual relations with one's spouse; see 1 Cor. 7:5) and almsgiving.  Fasting from the flesh can be mitigated by one's pastor where stress or other problems would result.   Those who require daily medications can of course be released from the relevant fasting requirement by their spiritual advisor; similarly, those having problems with maintaining blood-sugar levels or other problems connected with fasting from particular items can receive a dispensation from the relevant fasting. Exempt from fasting are children under seven as well as pregnant or nursing mothers; the infirm and the elderly are exempt from fasting to the degree that it would be harmful to their health.   

In addition to the great Paschal Fast (or Lent: forty days, not counting Sabbaths and Lordsdays), there are three shorter fasts preceding other festivals:  The Apostles' Fast--a variable number of days from the Monday following the Lordsday of All Saints (a week after Trinity Lordsday, the Festival of Pentecost--whose date varies from year to year) till the Festival of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on June 29 (Tuesdays and Thursdays are wine-and-oil days; weekends are wine-and-oil days); the Dormition Fast--two weeks preceding the Dormition of the m.h. Theotokos on Aug. 15; and the Nativity Fast from Nov. 15 (contrast Western Advent:   The Orthodox Nativity fast is longer--it lasts forty days) until the Birthday of Christ on Dec. 25.  The first part of this fast is fairly lax--fish (with backbone) as well as oil and wine are allowed, except on Wednesdays and Fridays--; but from Dec. 13-24, no fish with a backbone is permitted, and oil and wine are permitted only on Sabbaths and Lordsdays.

The week before the Great Fast (between Meatfare and Cheesefare Lordsdays) permits cheese (i.e. dairy products), fish, and every other food except meat all week long, including Wednesday and Friday; no meat other than fish  may be eaten on any day of this week.

Certain periods are entirely fast-free, e.g. the period from the Birthday of Christ till the Eve of the Theophany--but the day preceding the holy Theophany is a fast day.  Also fast-free are the week preceding the Lordsday of the Publican and Pharisee,  the week following holy glorious Pascha (Radiant Week, the Week of the New Creation), and the week following Pentecost (often called Trinity Lordsday).       Sabbaths (Saturdays other than holy Great Sabbath, the day before holy Great Pascha) and Lordsdays must not be (total) fasts, according to the Penthekt Synod--though during the Great Fast, there are restrictions on meat products on Sabbaths and Lordsdays; holy Great Friday is of course a day of  total fasting.      The day before the Theophany is a strict fast, though the Theophany itself is fast-free; the first day of its after-festival is a fish-wine-and-oil day when it falls on a Wednesday or Friday.

     Fasting will be a bit more comprehensible if the foods are listed on a scale in which any item that is allowed at any time means that all of those listed below it are also allowed at that time; whereas any item that is not allowed means that items above it are also not allowed at the time in question:

1. no food or drink (total fast, as on Great Friday) 2. strict fast:  no meat (other than fish) 3. cheese fare:*  no dairy products (milk, cheese, eggs)  4. no fish (with a backbone, i.e. other than crustaceans,      reptiles, and amphibians)** 5. no (olive) oil*** 6. no wine (i.e. alcoholic drinks--other than, in some juris-      dictions, beer) 7. other foods**

*The week preceding the Great Fast.    **Fish without a backbone include most crustaceans (including snails), reptiles (including eels), and amphibians (frog legs)--as well as  honey--the only animal food other than the foregoing that is always allowed except during total fasts (e.g. the Communion Fast, and Great Friday).   Except for the Exaltation of the Life- giving Cross (see the next note), major festivals are fast- free.  ***Oils other than olive oil are permitted on days forbidding olive oil.  Every wine day is an oil day except Great Sabbath, when wine alone is allowed up till eight hours before receiving the Holy Communion; the only oil days that do not allow alcoholic beverages are the holy days commemorating the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner and the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross--but these are not even oil days in some jurisdictions.

The rationale for the last footnote is that "bloodless" living things are permitted, but not living beings having blood.  This may reflect the kosher practices of Judaïsm in some way rather than any connection with the "bloodless" Sacrifice of the Eucharist.  But it does seem self-defeating to allow expensive crustaceans while  disallowing cheaper kinds of fish.  Giving up red meat and  olive oil as well as forbidden bloodless animal products like eggs, real butter, and real milk--for all of which we now  have canonically acceptable substitutes--amounts to giving up little of importance for many contemporaries.  Some jurisdictions do not even count beer as an alcoholic beverage to be given up on Wednesdays, Fridays, and other fast days.  It is obvious that our fasting practices need some revision and adaptation to contemporary eating habits.

The rationale for fish-wine-and-oil days and wine-and-oil days should become clear in what follows.  The only Sabbath that is not a wine-and-oil day is holy Great Sabbath, the day before holy Pascha--which is a wine day without oil.  Holy Great Friday is a complete fast from food and liquids--even water; but after sunset, elderly people (and others) who cannot hold out are permitted to partake of a little milk-free bread and water (or tea).

Fasting is less strict during the Advent Fast and the Fast preceding the Holy and Glorious Apostles Peter and Paul than the Great Fast and the Fast preceding the Dormition:    Tuesdays and Thursdays are fish-wine-and-oil days, when olive oil and alcohol are permitted, but not fish with a backbone.        Two holy days are fasts:  the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Sep. 14) and the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner (Aug. 29); they allow olive oil and, in some jurisdictions, wine, but not other fasting foods.

On every Wednesday or Friday that coïncides with one of the twelve major Festivals or any other festival* having a vigil [CLICK HERE], on every Lordsday and every Sabbath (except Great Sabbath, the last Saturday of the Great Fast), and on every festival that falls in one the  fasting periods:  Fasting is mitigated to permit oil and wine (except wine on  the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner and the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross).          During the Great Fast, the Entry of Christ in Jerusalem (Palm Lordsday) and, if it falls in the Great Fast, the festival of the Annunciation are fish-wine-and oil days, as is the Transfiguration, which always falls in the Dormition Fast.        When a Saint's day calling for a sung doxology or a polyeleos (CLICK HERE and also see your Orthodox calendar) falls on a fast day--including any Wednesday or Friday--it is a wine-and-oil day.        As noted in the table above, oil, and in some jurisdictions wine--but not fish or meat--are allowed on  the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner and the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross if either of these two holy days falls on a Sabbath or Lordsday.

*Which term only partially includes the holy days commemorating the Beheading of St. John the Forerunner  (Aug. 29) and the Exaltation of the Life-Giving Cross (Sep. 14):  These festivals are partial or strict fasts, depending on the jurisdiction, unless they fall on a Lordsday or Sabbath--in which case they allow oil but not wine.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER THE BOOKLET
Fasting in the Orthodox Church
by Archimandrite Akakios
from the Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies

CLICK HERE for Lenten recipes and note also:
The festive fast:  Greek meatless cooking in the
Eastern Orthodox Tradition (St. John of
Kronstadt Press)

     While the traditional fast rules often lack appropriateness to the Western diet, it is allowed to substitute vegetable or seed oil for olive oil, margarine for butter, soy milk or rice milk for dairy milk, and "meat-like" products made up of soy beans or tofu or of other vegetable materials.  A strict fast excludes meat and fish without a backbone; "fish" does not include most shellfish, reptiles [e.g. turtles], or amphibians [e.g. frog legs]).  Other animal products besides meat are dairy products--milk, cheese, eggs; honey is an exception that can be eaten at any time.  Exempted from alcoholic drinks is beer--though the spirit of fasting would seem to require non-alcoholic beer; hard liquor is permitted whenever wine is allowed, i.e. whenever meat and dairy products are premitted.  The third week before the Great Fast (from the Lordsday of the Pharisee and Publican through the Lordsday of the Prodigal Son) is fast free.  Dairy products are given up a week before the Great Fast--from Meatfare Lordsday, the Lordsday of the Last Judgment.  This "cheesefare" ends at midnight on Forgiveness Lordsday--the day preceding Clean Monday, when the Great Fast starts.  The first week of the Great Fast, Clean Week, and the last, holy Great Week, are fasted more strictly than the other weeks of this fasting period.  (Monks consume nothing but water or tea on the first three days of the Great Fast--which begins on the Monday following Forgiveness Lordsday, rather than in mid-week, as in the West.) 

The real problem with Orthodox fasting practices is that so little distinction is made between monastics and non-monastics.  The only (regulated) differences are:  Monastics never eat meat; they treat Mondays like Wednesdays and Fridays; and they eat nothing the first days of the Great Fast.

      During the Nativity Fast, Tuesdays and Thursdays are wine-and-oil days; Sabbaths and Lordsdays are fish-wine-and-oil days.  But after Dec. 13 or (rites differ) 20 (when the Forefeast of the Birthday of Christ begins), a Sabbath or Lordsday allows wine and oil, while fish and other animal products are not allowed on any day.  From the Birthday of Christ till the day preceding Theophany, all days are fast-free.   
      See above for festivals falling during fasting periods; but note here that the day preceding (i.e. the Eve of) the holy Theophany is a wine-and-oil day.      

BAKING THE PROSPHORA BREAD

t defies reason and commonsense to maintain, in the Western manner, that a nature can sin or has sinned; only individuals can sin.  Where the Reformers allow guilt to be inherited—by impu­tation or otherwise—and merits [of Christ or of the Saints] to be transferred by, the East rejects inherited guilt and inherited merit:  We share in Christ's goodness not by imputation and nothing more, but ontologi­cally—including our eating His Body and Blood in the most holy eu­charistic Mysteries.  Those who speak of Christ’s Body’s be­ing spiri­tual present in the great Mystery don’t know the difference between body and spirit.  The Calvinist idea of a virtual presence in a commu­ni­cant with proper subjective faith when the ceremony is ac­com­panied by a proper sermon has drawbacks that hardly require pointing out.