Nativity Fast
When Philip - Lent or Christmas Lent ( fasting before Christmas ) is called the 40 -day ( six-week ) the old Western Advent fasting appropriate Lent as preparation time before Christmas in the Eastern Churches, named after the Apostle Philip, since the day after the Memorial Day on 14 November begins. It corresponds to the four-week Advent in the Western churches. The concept of the Christmas Lent is more common than that of the Advent in the Orthodox churches. In the churches that have adopted the Gregorian calendar ( such as the Greek Orthodox Church ), the so-called Neukalendarier, it lasts from November 15 to December 24, in the churches, the feasts according to the Julian Calendar commit (such as the Russian Orthodox Church ), the Altkalendarier, from November 28 to January 6 of the modern calendar (which is November 15 and December 24 of the Julian calendar corresponds ). Lent ends on the first Christmas Day or the night service on Christmas Eve. It is also said that it is terminated by the first star of Christmas Eve. The name of Lent derives from the feast of the Apostle, remember the the Eastern Churches on 14 and November 27. The Philip fasting is mentioned in the ecclesiastical books since the 4th century, in its present form it dates from the 12th century.
Almost rules
The Orthodox Church is based at their fast rules still follow the rules of the Church Fathers of the first centuries, emanating from the ancient habits of the Mediterranean countries. In the Orthodox Churches, meat, dairy products and eggs are in the fasts therefore generally prohibited. Fish, wine and oil are in the Philip - Lenten Saturdays and Sundays allowed, wine and oil Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays neither wine nor oil are allowed. This means that the diet on these days practically, potatoes and bread consists only of vegetables that are boiled or steamed without oil, usually grain, buckwheat, mushrooms, nuts or legumes are particularly important. Wine and oil are also allowed on these days when a day of remembrance of an important saint falls on this day. Fish is allowed, when the church celebrates its patronal festival one of these days. The period from 20.-24. December and from 2nd to 6th January are more stringent - here are even on Saturdays and Sundays allowed no fish. The immediate previous day before Christmas (Christmas Eve) is a strict fast day. There is disagreement, shall be treated as seafood in fasts. You nowadays represent an expensive delicacy, were in ancient times but an inferior diet Some consider Seafood hence the tradition following on a rigorous and therefore more frequent level of oil and wine, others on a less stringent and therefore rarer stage like fish. The question of whether the rules for fasting are to be adapted to the requirements of the present time, only needs to be clarified on a large pan-Orthodox council, the autocephalous ( independent ) work towards the Orthodox churches for the future.
Special observances and Sundays
The following observances fall into this Lent: Evangelist and Apostle Matthew ( 16 or November 29 ), collection of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple (21 November and 4 December ), Andrew ( Apostle ) (November 30 and 13 December. ), the Great Martyr Barbara ( 4 and 17 December), St Nicholas ( 6 and 19 December), Saint Spyridon and Herman of Alaska ( 12 or 25 December) and the martyrs Eustratios, Auxentios, Eugene, Mardarios and Orestes ( 13 and 26 December). In the course of Lent also several observances in which one recalls the Old Testament prophets who predict the incarnation of God fall, Obadiah (19 November and 2 December ), Nahum ( 1 and 14 December), Habakkuk (2nd and 15th December), Zephaniah ( 3 and 16 December), Haggai ( 16 and 29 December), Daniel and the three youths in the fiery furnace, Ananias, Azarius, and Misael ( 17 or. December 30 ). The last two Sundays before Christmas have a special name: the second Sunday before Christmas Sunday is the holy forefathers, which the ancestors of Christ is thought to Adam. The Sunday before Christmas is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, on which the 318 Fathers of the first Ecumenical Council of the year 325 AD, is thought.
Object and purpose of fasting
By fasting, the believer prepares a manner worthy of a big celebration. Fasting is intended to cleanse the body, mind and soul and to focus on God and the important event. That is why Lent is not only a time of renunciation of food, but a time of purification and spiritual maturation. The believer tries in this period, often in the church, to confession, to go to Communion, pray the prayer rule, each day or to pray more than usual and spiritual literature ( Bible, books of saints, etc.) to read. Important are the repentance, prayer, good virtue and abstinence. The deeper meaning of Lent is justified by an improvement of life by changing our own thoughts, words and actions for the better.
Fasting and right faith
The Orthodox faith was strongly influenced from the beginning by monasticism and the monastic life. Therefore, even ascetic elements can be found in Orthodoxy as fasting. Part of the Orthodox faith life has always been - more than in the West - the fast. Without fasting would - just like without the daily recitation of the prayer rule - a main facet Orthodox faith missing. The weakening of the rules for fasting in the Western Church over the centuries ( shortening of Advent Lent from six to four weeks authorization of milk, etc. ), one has in Orthodoxy seen a dilution and thus deviation from the former ( single ) (Ur - ) belief. A fact that has led to the Oriental Churches even today, regarded as keepers of the true faith, so orthodox ( = orthodox ).