The Fast of Great Lent

Introduction: Fasting as a path of freedom, not as a “diet”

The Church’s fasting—and especially the fasting of Great Lent—does not belong to the category of “religious habits,” nor to a moralistic program of self-improvement. It is ascetical pedagogy, a therapeutic exercise of the soul and of the whole human person, an ecclesial journey of repentance and participation in the Pascha of Christ. When fasting is lived in the Orthodox way, it does not humiliate the body, it does not elevate man into an ideology of “purity,” nor does it create pride and judgment; rather, it restores the inner hierarchy: the mind is to lead, the heart is to be warmed by grace, and the body is to become a co-worker in salvation.

In the present article I use the provided text as a basic core and “enrich” it with other historical and patristic testimonies: canonical references, accounts of pilgrims from the early centuries, liturgical tradition (the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts), and a pastoral interpretation of fasting as a path of repentance and baptismal renewal.

1. Canonical grounding and “ecumenical coverage”: what it means and what it does

not mean

In the text you provided it is emphasized that the fast of Great Lent, together with the Wednesday and Friday fast, belongs to the most ancient fasts that acquired canonical authority at a pan-ecclesial level. Indeed, the apostolic and conciliar tradition strengthens the bond of these fasts with ecclesiastical order.

1.1. An Apostolic Canon concerning fasting

In the canonical tradition we find Apostolic Canon 69, which is often cited in Orthodox literature as a canon that requires the observance of Great Lent and of the Wednesday Friday fasts for both clergy and laity, with a pastoral exception on account of illness.

A point requiring attention: canonical language aims at ecclesial order, not condemnation. The Church functions as a hospital: it has canons, but it also has discernment; it has exactness, but it also has economia (pastoral accommodation).

1.2. Nicaea and the pre-Lenten “purification of the community”

An interesting historical detail, even if it is not a “canon about foods,” appears in Canon 5 of the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325): it provides for two provincial synods each year, with the first before Lent, so that (in the received wording) a “pure offering” may be presented after bitterness and divisions have been removed.

This shows that already from the fourth century Lent is regarded as a period of ecclesial seriousness and preparation, not an individual “diet.”

1.3. The Sixth Council (Quinisext) and the Presanctified Liturgy

The liturgical particularity of Great Lent—namely, that on weekdays the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated, but rather the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts—also receives conciliar expression. Tradition explicitly links the celebration of the Presanctified Liturgy to a canon of the Quinisext Council (692), which appoints its celebration on fasting days (except Saturday, Sunday, and the Annunciation).

Pastoral-liturgical interpretation (for example, in the official presentation of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) explains that the character of the Lenten weekday is penitential, whereas the full Liturgy bears a resurrectional/eucharistic joy—therefore the Church chooses the Presanctified Liturgy.

Conclusion of this section: Great Lent is not merely “an old custom.” It has apostolic, conciliar, liturgical, and pastoral roots—a woven fabric of Tradition that reveals its depth.

2. Biblical and typological foundation: forty days that open heaven

The provided text rightly connects Lent with the biblical “forties”:

• the Lord’s forty-day fast (Matt. 4:2),

• Moses’ forty-day fast (Ex. 34:28),

• Elijah’s forty-day journey/fast (3 Kingdoms/1 Kings 19:8).

In patristic theology the number forty has a transitional character: a period of purification, testing, preparation for theophany and a new beginning. Christ fasts not because He “needed” it, but because He sanctifies the human way—showing how man conquers temptation: by being freed from the tyranny of desire and by the word of God.

Fasting, therefore, is:

• a lived confession that “man shall not live by bread alone,”

• a training in freedom from passion,

• a turning from external food toward inner nourishment (the word of God, prayer, almsgiving, forgiveness).

3. The “original meaning”: catechetical and baptismal preparation

One of the most beneficial points in your text is the highlighting of the ancient catechetical character of the season. Indeed, Lent was closely bound to the preparation of catechumens who were to be baptized at the Paschal vigil.

3.1. The readings and the “catechesis of the Church”

The choice of books (Genesis, Isaiah, Proverbs) as the daily readings of the season has a clear catechetical character: Genesis reveals the beginning and the fall; Isaiah prophesies the Messiah and the Passion; Proverbs trains the faithful in the wisdom of virtue.

3.2. The baptismal dimension of Pascha

The text notes that the Paschal liturgy had a “baptismal” character, and that elements of it remain in the Vespers of Pascha (Holy Saturday with the Liturgy of St. Basil). The ancient practice of extended Old Testament readings (many lessons, historical and typological) also served the duration of baptisms. Baptism is participation in the Passion and Resurrection—as the Apostle Paul teaches: “we were buried with Him… so that… we might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

From this perspective, Lent is an “annual catechetical school”: the believer relearns his baptism, relives exile and return, and re-enters the freedom of the children of God.

4. From catechesis to repentance: historical shift and hymnodic flourishing

The text explains that the institution of catechumens weakened with the spread of infant baptism (gradually from the sixth century onward), with the result that the weight of the season shifted from catechesis to repentance.

Repentance here does not mean gloom or psychological self-punishment. It means a change of mind: a new vision, a new orientation, an exodus from the slavery of the passions. For this reason the hymnography of the season becomes an entire “therapeutic language”: the believer learns to name the passion, to ask for mercy, to hope.

The Triodion and the Studite contribution

The development of the liturgical book of the Triodion (great hymnographic richness with repentance at its center) is historically linked with the Studite tradition and Constantinople. This is not merely “literary information”; it is evidence that the Church formed repentance liturgically as a common experience. Lent becomes an “arena of virtues”: not an individual achievement, but an ecclesial struggle.

5. Duration and the way of counting: why there was variety, and what prevailed

In the provided text there is an exceptionally useful analysis of early diversity: how churches counted “forty days” when Saturdays and Sundays are non-fasting days, and when there is also Holy Week.

5.1. The testimony of Egeria: eight weeks in Jerusalem

The famous pilgrim Egeria (late fourth century) records that in Jerusalem they observed eight weeks before Pascha, because they did not fast on Saturdays and Sundays (except Holy Saturday of the vigil). Thus they reached forty fasting days by counting only the days of fasting.

This shows that the “forty-day” idea was stable, while the practical arithmetic had local variations.

5.2. The “Constantinopolitan form” that prevailed in the East

In Eastern Orthodox practice the method described in the text prevailed: six weeks of a liturgical period (42 days), from which Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday are subtracted as feasts, yielding the forty days of Lent. Holy Week, although liturgically connected, is a distinct period of stricter fasting and focus on the Passion.

6. Why the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on weekdays: the theology of the

Presanctified

The particularity stressed in the text—that during Great Lent the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on weekdays—is not a “strange prohibition.” It is liturgical theology.

The full Liturgy (with the anaphora and consecration of the Gifts) has a festive, resurrectional character: the Eucharist is joy and doxology.

The weekday fasting of Lent has a penitential character: compunction, repentance, self-examination.

Yet the Church does not deprive the faithful of Holy Communion; therefore it has the Presanctified Liturgy, where we commune from Gifts already consecrated.

Here we see the Orthodox synthesis: fasting without Eucharist becomes moralism; Eucharist without repentance becomes routine. Lent unites repentance, prayer, and frequent communion with penitential formation.

7. The manner of fasting: exactness, economia, and the trap of “legalism”

The text provides a very detailed description of the typikon: Triodion (Pre-Lenten weeks), Clean Week, lawful relaxations (wine/oil on weekends, fish on the Annunciation, oil/wine on Lazarus Saturday, etc.). All this shows that the Church has rhythm, pedagogy, and discernment.

7.1. Exactness: fasting as a training in freedom

Exactness reminds us that freedom is not gained without training. Man is bound to habits—often to pleasure, consumption, and indiscriminate comfort. Fasting breaks the empire of “I want it now.”

7.2. Economia: fasting as healing, not injury

The text already emphasizes that oil/wine on other days may be permitted out of weakness/illness with a spiritual father’s blessing. This is the heart of economia: the Church does not want to break a person; it wants to raise him up.

7.3. The trap: fasting without repentance

From a patristic perspective, the greatest distortion of fasting is when it becomes:

• a pretext for self-justification,

• a measure for judging others,

• a cover for mercilessness, rancor, harsh speech.

For this reason the Church constantly invokes the prophetic spirit: true fasting is tied to the removal of injustice, almsgiving, forgiveness. Fasting is an ascetical tool to open the heart, not to harden it.

8. Great Lent as a “second baptism”: the core of its spiritual meaning

The text says that repentance is a “second baptism” and is identified with the struggle of fasting. This is profoundly patristic: the Church sees that the baptized person, though he has received the gift of regeneration, needs continual return. Lent functions as an annual “restart” of baptismal grace through repentance.

Here lies the Orthodox balance: fasting does not save by itself; Christ saves. But fasting is the way of stretching out the hands—the manner of preparing the heart to receive the Savior. In practice, Lent is:

• a season of deeper prayer,

• a season of confession and reconciliation,

• a season of liturgical participation (Presanctified Liturgies, Akathist Hymn, Great Compline, services),

• a season of almsgiving and an exodus from the “ego.”

  
  

9. Clean Monday and the memory of St. Theodore the Recruit: history and meaning

The text includes the well-known tradition about Julian the Apostate and the miraculous intervention of St. Theodore (so that the people would eat kollyva and not be defiled). Regardless of how one evaluates the story historically, the liturgical truth that matters is that the Church understands entry into fasting as purification: the first week is “clean” not because we eat “clean foods,” but because we are called to cleanse mind, heart, and life.

10. Conclusion: what we keep, what we correct, how we live Lent rightly

Great Lent—as shown both by the provided text and by the supplementary sources—is:

• Apostolic and conciliar, strengthened as a fast of pan-ecclesial consciousness;

• Biblically typologized in Christ’s forty-day fast and the biblical “forties”;

• Baptismal and catechetical in its original form, clearly tied to Pascha and the reception of new members into the Body of the Church;

• Penitential in its later development, as the faithful’s annual “second baptism”;

• Liturgically distinctive, since instead of the full Liturgy on weekdays the Church offers the

  Presanctified as a synthesis of fasting and Communion;

• Historically diverse in the counting of days (e.g., Jerusalem: eight weeks according to Egeria), yet unified in its aim: forty days of spiritual preparation.

A practical rule for living it (without legalism)

If we want Lent not to remain a “dietary scheme,” four axes are needed:

• Fasting of foods (according to strength, with discernment and blessing where needed).

• Fasting of the tongue (less judgment, less anger, fewer poisonous words).

• Fasting of the mind (less aimless distraction, more prayer, Scripture, Fathers).

• Fasting of the heart (forgiveness, almsgiving, reconciliation—especially before Pascha).