The Challenge of Fasting in the Modern World
We’re most of the way through our Lenten journey! Pascha is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday. I love the reverence of Holy Week services. I love the buildup to the Resurrection. I love that it takes place in Spring (the best of all the seasons). The process of preparing,...
Icons and Lent: Orthodoxy in Action
We, the Orthodox, like our processions. The First Sunday of the Great Lent, the Sunday of Orthodoxy, makes no exception, as flocks of priests and faithful carrying icons circle around their churches, singing hymns and proclaiming the victory of the Orthodox and the restoration of the icons. But why is it so important today,...
Great Lent: Spiritual Reform School
I still hear, from time to time (though less frequently), “What are you giving up for Lent”? I’m glad that it is still ‘out there’—the idea that there is a season during which someone might actually abstain from something. Abstinence of any sort is usually trampled upon in our day....
Sunday of Cheese-fare: Forgiving and Fasting’
Protopresbyter Nikolaos Patsalos The time of preparation for the Fast ends with the Sunday of Cheese-fare and so we pass into great and blessed Lent, which is full of mixed experiences and feelings transmitted to us in a mystical way by its penitential services. Today’s Gospel reading brings us...
Understanding and Living Our Faith: How We Experience Lent and Fasting
“Many Christians, unaware of the great value of fasting, either keep the fast with difficulty or reject it altogether. We should not be afraid to fast but embrace it with joy.” (St. John Chrysostom) Fasting is so much more then abstaining from certain foods. Christ reminds us in the Gospels...
Fasting, The Orthodox Christian Way
How are you fasting during Great Lent? This year, the Orthodox Church began its forty-day fasting period (more than 40 this year!) on Monday, March 14th, in preparation for Great and Holy Easter (Pascha) on May 1st. The date this year is especially far from Western Christian Easter, which will...
