Fasting

Orthodox Christians keep a fast on something like half the days of the year: every Wednesday and Friday, for the betrayal and the Crucifixion, and four seasons, Great Lent with Holy Week, the Nativity Fast, the Apostles’ Fast and the Dormition Fast, with a few single days such as the Beheading of the Forerunner and the Elevation of the Cross. The Typikon sets the rule in degrees: meat is given up first, then dairy and eggs, then fish, and on the strictest days wine and oil as well. It is not a diet. St Basil wrote that the true fast is estrangement from evil: restraint of the tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from lusts, slander, lying and perjury. It is never kept alone, but with prayer and almsgiving, and it is shaped to the one who keeps it: the sick, the old, children and women with child are given economy, and the measure is settled with a spiritual father. Some weeks are kept free, Bright Week above all, because a feast is not a time to fast.