The Shepherd, February 2005
FASTING AS PRACTISED IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, 3
Fasts, as they are preserved in the Church today, have their origin in the very first period of Christianity and some, for example - the Great (Easter) Lent of forty days, derive from its earliest times.
The meaning of fasting in the East was of specially great importance, and refusal to keep it amounted to heresy. With the acceptance of Christianity in Russia, this viewpoint became widespread there, and hence special attention was paid to fasting, which is still observed today by pious people.
To a great degree, the effort of keeping lent was supported by civil law in the East. During the days of Great Lent, all kinds of worldly amusements were forbidden, shops selling meat and other foods were closed down with the exception of those selling articles of prime necessity to the people. Even courts were closed. During Lent, it was the custom to practise charity, servants were freed from all work or even from all servitude.
With the appearance of monasticism, fasting became the subject of one of the monastic vows and the foundation of monastic life. In the East, monks fasted daily until the ninth hour, which according to our time would be 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and in the days of Lent, they went without food till evening; many of them who were specially zealous took no food for periods of several days.
In the course of time, as the Church grew and became stronger, its life became more uniform and more precisely defined. The holy fathers in the Œcumenical Councils gave out rules for fasting, obligatory for all Christians and indicating not only the time and period of the year, but also explaining the severity of each fast in particular, and the extent of effort involved.
The most ancient and strict fast is the 40-day fast or the Great Fast, as is seen from rule 69 of the Apostolic canon law. It was already ordained by the Church during the times of the Apostles; ancient writers testify that it was observed in the days of the most primitive Church, or they point directly to the preserving of the tradition of the Apostles, as for instance, Sts. Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria and other writers of the 4th century; or again, the observance of this Lent by the whole early Apostolic Church is mentioned by the immediate disciples of the Apostles in the first century, St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, Victor Bishop of Rome in the second century, Dionysius of Alexandria, Origen (third century), and many others.
Some of the ancient writers confirm and say that the Apostles established the 40 days fast in imitation of Moses and Jesus Christ, who fasted 40 days in the wilderness; from this comes the ancient name of the principal and Great Fast among the Greeks - the 40-day Lent. According to the opinion of some scholars, Lent in the beginning consisted of 40 hours and not days. Some writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries speak of the practice of fasting for more than 2 days. The Lent before Pascha, according to the testimony of St. Dionysius of Alexandria (+ 265 A.D.) lasted 6 days and was called the preliminary fast before Pascha. Therefore, as is evident, the 40-day Lent, although it existed in the earliest period of the Church, was not formulated at once. By the 4th century, we already see it existing everywhere.
|
