EASTER FASTS
Fasting means not only giving up of greasy and abundant food, it also means to control the passions, restrain of intoxication, feasting and joy. Holy Fathers call the fasting mother’s health, and the modern food habits give more importance to fasting, that is giving up of food of animal origin.
In the life of the Macedonian people Lent has special place. It is not only the longest but also the most severe fasting. People are familiar with one-day and periods of fasting. One-day fastings are Wednesday and Friday, which are fasted throughout the year, except in the so-called regular weeks. Periodic fastings correspond to the four seasons is: Easter, Peter, Virgin and Christmas fast.
The severest and longest fasting is Lent which lasts from Easter to Forgiveness day. There are forty days (Quadragesima) from Pure Monday to Lazarova Saturday as well as from Passionate week on Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, total of 48 days. Before Jesus Christ start his teaching (after been baptized), spent forty days in the desert in severe fasting and prayers. Because of this period where all the sufferings took place (capturing, torturing and crucifixion) fasting is accompanied by many physical and mental deprivations by self-control and preparing for communion when believers identify with their savior, eating the bread which symbolically represents his body and drinking wine which symbolically represents his blood. Taken from here, fasting is not the time of despair and darkness, suffering and torturing the body and soul, but act of joy and recovery, love for God and man. That is why on church song says: “To fast with pleasant fasting means deceive the evil, refrain of language, giving up anger, denial of desires, speaking lies and blasphemy”. Jesus Christ in his Gospel says that fasting is the best way to exorcise demons: “this kind is expelled only by prayers”.
Lent has found a significant place in folk literature especially in folk songs in life of today. Heroes songs for King Marko specifically say he always fasted the Lent, after which he went to church for Holy Communion. Researchers testify that fasting is well-known since ancient times as a ban on eating meat from табуисани animals. But in Christianity fasting has different meaning; it is not only the ban of eating meat or products from animal origin, but a ban on celebrations and other physical and mental pleasures.
In the Old Testament, fasting is mentioned several times by regret and patience or as a sign of self-punishment, when people feel the threat of God’s punishment and when by fasting and repentance they return to their God. In these cases, fasting is aimed at gathering new strength or preparation for performing a great achievement. However, in the New Testament, it is said that John the Baptist fasted all his life in the desert, Jesus Christ fasted for 40 days before going to public preaching, that the prophetess Anna, spent many years in the temple “serving God by fasting and praying night and day.”
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself implies that fasting should be honest, not fake, and that he himself will reward esteemed believers: “When you fast do not be distressed like the hypocrites, they make their faces dark, to show people they fast.” According to “Acts of the Apostles of the Holy Apostle Luke,” fasting is found even in apostolic times when he unites all believers. Apostle Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians advises how to fast: “DO NOT reflect one another – except by agreement for a time to fast and pray to God, then meet another so the Satan does not tempt you, because of your no abstinence. This, I say as an advice, not as a commandment”. The second epistle to the Apostle Paul emphasizes his personal example of this manner. Telling of his suffering as servant of Christ, he says that he was repeatedly tortured, imprisoned, beaten to death, but still survived the stoning, shipwreck and other sufferings, that greater part of his life was spent “in labor and anguish, in often sleeplessness, in hunger and thirst, in fasting of cold and nakedness.”
And for the past two millennia fasting was an important moment in life, especially the Orthodox Christians. Many Fathers have expressed themselves in sense of fasting. For example, St. John Chrysostom says: “The essence of fasting is not in abstaining from food, but in distancing of sins. Whoever limits fasting only in abstinence from food, he dishonors above all”. Giving importance to the unity of the physical and spiritual fasting, St. John Chrysostom says: “Do not says to me: So I fasted days, did not eat this or that, did not drink wine, walked in the old fleece, but tell me that the angry man became quiet, from heavy-sweet”. St. Tikhon Zadonski also attaches importance to the unity of the physical and spiritual fasting “Fasting is when the soul refrains from evil thoughts, words and deeds.” However, it should be noted that the purpose of fasting is not only true spiritual development, but proper physical development and health. Hence words of the holy fathers Vasilej the Great and John Chrysostom are not meaningless that “fasting is the mother of bodily health, and if you do not trust my words Ask doctors, they will explain better”, which means they relate fasting to health and call it “mother’s health”.
Lent is the only one that has a preparatory period of several weeks. First of all, it is Week of the prodigal son and last one is Месопусна Sunday, when it is allowed to eat meat for the last time. Миратот (customs officer), has robbed the people and only through repentance and seeking forgiveness could he be rid of sin, a Pharisee, however, although lived by the rules, by being felt proud, also has made sin that needed repentance and request for forgiveness. So repentance and forgiveness are important moments for Orthodox Christians before the start of Lent.
True fasting begins with Clean Monday, the day after Forgiveness day. The week before Forgiveness day is called Месопусна week. People call it месопусни Shrovetide; because that is when it is Shrovetides (fasted) with meet. During this week, cheese and other dairy products are allowed to eat and that is why this week is called Meat fare week. Some call it White Sunday. Forgiveness day is also called Meat fare Shrovetide, because since that day fasting from dairy products start. It is also called Forgiven Shrovetide. Since fish considered oily food, it can be eaten during Lent, but only of the Благовештение and Palm Sunday. Approval to eat fish on major holidays and during fasting (such as wine and oil as well) comes from the necessity, to preserve fasting on the one hand, and to give the holiday greater solemnity to the celebration on the other. Since Easter, and therefore Lent are with variable date, if Благовештение comes before Palm Sunday is allowed to eat fish, oil and wine, and if it comes on Passionate (passionate) week, then neither eating fish is allowed.
There are many reasons why fish is considered lean foods. First of all, God’s curse of sin is thrown on the ground and not in the water, fish is water animal. God as well blessed the fish, ate it, and made a couple of miracles out of it, for example, with some fish and seven loaves of bread, fed four thousand hungry people, or in another case with two fish and five loaves of bread fed five thousand people. The fish as a symbol was accepted around first century of Christianity, and according to some explanations, it symbolizes Jesus Christ himself. The wine as well was initially considered a food that disrupts fasting, but since the 9th century, along with fish it is considered as lean food used only on the great, the Lord’s, Holy Mother of God’s, and saints’ holidays.
Nobody can be released from fasting, but there are some exemptions for sick, леунките, children, etc. These people are allowed the usage of oil and wine, but not meat, eggs, milk, not even fish.
