Orthodoxy (6) – Fasts & Feasts
29 July 2000 21:54
FASTS AND FEASTS
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR
Orthodoxy considers the celebration of the Christian year as very important. Living the fasts and feasts is a way of making faith a total experience. The Church aims to MAKE PRESENT, not just remember, the events of the feasts. Anyone who has lived through Orthodox Holy Week and Easter will know something of the feeling of entering into the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ in a bodily as well as a spiritual way.
The Orthodox Church follows the familiar Christian year, with its fixed cycle of feasts such as Christmas and the moveable Easter/Pentecost cycle.
THE CALENDAR
Until early this century, all Orthodox kept to the Julian (Old Style) calendar, which at present is 13 days behind the modern Gregorian calendar. In the 1920’s certain churches including the Greeks, went over to the Gregorian calendar for the fixed feasts. This means they keep Christmas with the West of 25th December. However, others such as the Russians and Serbs still keep entirely to the Julian calendar, celebrating Christmas on 7th January!
However, all Orthodox keep to the Julian calendar for the Easter/Pentecost cycle. As these are in any case dependent on the moon, it sometimes happens that they coincide with the Western feasts. But they can be up to five weeks later.
FEASTS
EASTER is called the Feast of Feasts in the Orthodox Church. It is the joyful celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Midnight Service is an exuberant occasion at which everyone stands with candies representing the triumphant light of the Resurrection. Priests and people shout, « Christ is risen! – He is risen indeed! » The Easter breakfast which follows is the most lavish meal of the year.
Every Sunday is, of course, a « mini-Easter », the Lord’s Day, and is therefore a day of celebration.
After Easter come the Twelve Great Feasts: the Annunciation, Christmas, Epiphany, Palm Sunday, the Transfiguration, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Nativity of the Mother of God, the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple, the Assumption, the Exaltation of the Cross.
There are other important feasts such as All Saints (the Sunday after Pentecost) and Ss. Peter and Paul, as well as the feast days of individual saints.
Each feast day is kept both at church, with special services, and in the home by decorating the icon of the feast, keeping particular customs and eating festive food.
FASTS
Because Orthodox involve their bodies as well as their souls in their faith, they keep the ancient church practice of fasting. Prayer and fasting are seen as two sides of the same coin, and spiritual training must include the body. Alternating fasts and feasts also bring a special rhythm to everyday life.
There are four fasting seasons in the year, and they are all in preparation for feasts:-
Lent, before Easter – the most important and strict fast.
Advent, before Christmas.
The Apostles’ Fast, before the Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul.
The Fast of the Mother of God, before the Assumption (15th August)
There are also single days such as the eve of Epiphany, the Beheading of St John the Baptist etc. Nearly all Wednesdays (when Judas betrayed Christ) and Fridays (the day of the Crucifixion) are fast days.
Fasts are very serious times when special effort is made to live the Christian life, to examine the conscience and to « turn over a new leaf », but they are NOT miserable, because they are a time for growth.
GOOD FRIDAY
On Good Friday a « tomb » is put in the middle of the church and surrounded by masses of flowers. In the early afternoon Vespers begins. After solemn hymns, prayers and Bible readings, everyone lights a candle as a life-sized icon of the dead Christ, painted on a stiffened cloth, (called the « Shroud » or epitaphios) is carried from the sanctuary round the church and placed on the tomb. The people come up one by one to kiss the icon. Russian children may bring flowers to place at Christ’s feet. Greek children often run underneath the « tomb » – symbolic of the death and rebirth of baptism.
In the evening another service is held when the shroud is carried in a big procession, either round the outside or the inside of the church, with everyone following, holding candies. People wear black, in mourning for Jesus’ death, just as at a real funeral.
EASTER
On Easter night no one goes to bed! The special Resurrection service starts just before midnight. People wait outside or inside the church in complete darkness.
At midnight a great procession goes round the church. When it reaches the West doors the priest flings them open and shouts, « Christ is risen! » The people shout back, « He is risen indeed! » and everyone lights candles.
Suddenly the church is ablaze with thousands of flames. The service is like a dance of joy, with clouds of incense and repeated shouts of « Christ is risen! » Forty days of fasting and the sorrow of Holy Week are past, and everyone rejoices at the good news of the Resurrection.
At the end of the service, the people go home to the Easter Breakfast, the greatest feast of the year. The Greeks like to keep their candles alight to take home. They spit-roast a whole lamb and bake special decorated breads. Dyed eggs are knocked together (something like a game of conkers) with the cry, « Christ is risen! » The eating and drinking goes on all day.
Russians prefer a great spread of cold meats, perhaps ham, pork, or poultry. They also dye eggs, plain ones for eating and beautifully- patterned ones for decoration. The centre of the table is a pyramid-shaped cream cheese dessert called « paskha » and a sweet, cylindrical loaf called « kulich », which is sliced in rounds and spread with the paskha.
PENTECOST
On the feast of Pentecost-Trinity, thought of as the Church’s birthday, people bring branches of greenery to decorate the church, and they stand holding flowers throughout the service. The Liturgy is followed immediately by Vespers, at which special « kneeling prayers » are said. During the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost no kneeling is allowed in church, because the Easter season is one of joy, not penitence. The Vespers of Pentecost begin a new season, and the congregation is called again to pray on bended knees.
CHRISTMAS
Christmas is not celebrated so lavishly as in the West, and although a nice meal is served following the Advent fast, there are not so many traditional dishes as for an English Christmas. The Greeks have presents at New Year. Russians have Christmas trees and presents, but it is still a much quieter time, and the church services concentrate on the mystery of Christ becoming man rather than being sentimental about the Baby Jesus, and there is no « manger » set up in the church.
Christmas is closely linked with EPIPHANY, which brings to a close the Christmas season. In Orthodoxy it is the celebration of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan, and during the service water is blessed and taken home. In some places the blessing of the waters takes place outside by rivers, lakes and the sea, and in Greece the cross is thrown into the water and retrieved by a brave swimmer!
