With the start of Great Lent – and the Great Forty Day Fast (Megali Tessarakosti in Greek) – many Orthodox Christians are busily trying to meet the Church’s fasting rules and traditions.  Unfortunately, as always, some are trying harder to honor the letter rather than the spirit of the fasting rules.

    It should be said that, strictly speaking, the vast majority of Orthodox Christians do not even come close to “fasting” during Great Lent.  According to the dictionary, fasting is the practice of “abstaining from food” – all food.  So what we commonly call fasting is more accurately called “abstaining” from certain foods.  But for purposes of common usage, we’ll consider “fasting” as referring to the spiritual discipline of abstaining from certain foods.

    Fasting is part of a group of spiritual disciplines which, in the original Greek, all come under the heading of askesis (pronounced AHSS-key-cease).  These spiritual disciplines also include prayer, mortification of the passions, practicing humility, almsgiving, controlling the tongue – and others that most think of as being observed in their purest form only by monastics.  To give you some idea of the meaning of this word, modern Greek commonly uses the word askesis to denote exercise of the physical type (the kind you do in a gym).  This is why it’s not at all strange that we refer to monks and nuns as the spiritual “athletes” of the Church, because they are always training, engaging in this askesis on a “professional” level.  If, then, monastics are the “spiritual athletes of Orthodoxy, then most non-monastics could rightly be considered as the “weekend” athletes of the spiritual world.

    But, getting back to the “letter” of the fasting “laws,” let it first be said that fasting traditions in the Orthodox Church have evolved, developed organically, over the two millennia of Church history.  There was never one synod, one Ecumenical Council that definitively delineated all the rules of fasting, for all times and all places of all of the Orthodox world.

    Having said this, there is a generally accepted set of guidelines when it comes to fasting.  Put simply, to fast in the Orthodox way during Great Lent one basically becomes a vegetarian.  No meats, no animal products.  Stricter fasting days within Lent (the weekdays of Lent) additionally restrict olive oil and wine (staples of the Mediterranean diet) and “looser” days (Annunciation, Palm Sunday) allow fish.  Because of a curious quirk in the milieu within which Orthodoxy developed, foods that we think of as delicacies – shellfish like scallops, shrimp, lobsters, sea urchins, squid, octopus, mussels – are allowed under all but the strictest fasting regimens.

    Trying to follow the “letter” – not the spirit – of this well-known Orthodox Lenten discipline gets many into trouble.

    At any rate, many midwesterners are not aficionados of seafood delicacies anyway, so any fasting sounds horrific, unattainable to the typical twenty-first century “meat and potatoes” man or woman.  And with good reason.  When and where fasting rules of the Church developed, our “modern” carnivorous ways were unheard of.  Not so long ago, even the wealthiest and most privileged rarely had fresh meat more than a handful of times a month.  Very few were wealthy enough to sacrifice a prize egg-laying chicken or milk-giving cow, sheep or goat simply because of a hankering for a juicy roast or steak.  Animal proteins were to be had mainly in the form of preserved meats, milk, cheese, eggs, etc.  The remaining diet was largely composed of beans, grains, fruits and vegetables.  So back when meat was such an infrequent treat (if it was had at all), “swearing off” of if for forty days was not a difficult (or traumatic) transition for the average Constantine or George or Vladimir on the streets Nafpaktos, Bethlehem or Sevastopol.

    Since the very idea of dietary deprivation is so scary and foreign to Americans, many convince themselves that they could never keep the dietary disciplines of Lent.  Consequently, they figure that if they cannot fully observe to the fasting rules, that they shouldn’t do so at all.  They stick to the old adage:  “If you can’t do it right, then don’t do it at all.”

    Yet, these people mistakenly do themselves a disservice.  They’re like people who decide not to exercise at all, simply because they can never hope to attain the standards achieved by world-class professional or Olympic athletes.  We all know that some exercise is better than none at all.  And so it is with fasting.  Some fasting – especially for the general discipline it teaches – is much better than none at all.  Dotting all the “I’s” and crossing all the “T’s” of the fasting canons is not the point.  And just like some “weekend” athletes eventually end up finishing a marathon – doing at least some fasting can lead to unexpected heights of spiritual progress and attainment.  It’s all about, as was sung in an old children’s Christmas TV special, putting “one foot in front of the other.”

    (The Church has never expected the very young, elderly, weak and infirm to rigorously follow the rules of fasting.)

    There are others raised in our food-worshipping, “meat and potatoes” culture that see the forty-day fast as a Church-inflicted period of culinary sadism and deprivation.  They see the Church – not to mention Christ – as imposing fasting as a means of punishment for sins.  Some even imagine Christ as “getting His jollies” from watching the trials and tribulations induced by “APD” (animal product deprivation).

    Fasting has never been about “punishment” or “deprivation” though.  That is why Orthodoxy has never embraced the popular idea of “giving up” favorite treats for Lent.  That would somehow imply punishment – and would certainly be contrary to the concept of “shared struggle” that a common Lenten regimen reinforces.

    There are still others who, in trying to faithfully and fully follow the fasting guidelines of Lent, get trapped into a extreme form of legalism.  They’ll read the label ingredients on even an innocent-looking box of crackers, on the chance that the list might reveal a damnation-inducing amount of whey or animal shortening.  They concentrate assiduously on buying, trading and reading ever-more-creative Lenten recipes and cookbooks that feature new and creative ways of using soy protein, spices and expensive shellfish to assuage the pain of Lenten sacrifice.  They see nothing wrong in easing the hunger pangs of Lent with a second bowl (or third) of strictly-Lenten bean soup and some extra bread with generous dollops of hummus on top.  Then some of these same people will break bread with – not to mention the hearts of – non-Orthodox or non-Christian friends (and ruin their meal to boot) by making a big production of how they cannot possibly eat what they are having because it would ruin the fast.

    As anyone can see, the true spirit of Great Lent transcends any set of strict prescriptions or prohibitions.  Great Lent should be a time when the whole idea of food – Lenten or not – should be de-emphasized.  It should be a period when the truly pious do not even open a cookbook – Lenten or otherwise. This period should be time during which healthy, vigorous people barely use their stoves or ovens and, instead, subsist mainly on “quick and dirty” meals like salads, nuts, breads, fruits and vegetables and other dishes that need a minimum of preparation.  The truly observant should not be looking to take advantage of Lent as an excuse to “chow down” on vast amounts of shellfish – while at the same time scouring ingredient lists for the slightest trace of dreaded animal product ingredient.  Finally, portion size should be moderated also, especially for those who are already vegetarians or who do not eat much in the way of animal products anyway.  The spirit of Lent is not about looking for dietary loopholes or pitfalls but, rather, for ways of temporarily separating ourselves from the entire culture of food.

    Why all this?  Because we should instead devote the time, thought and exertion dedicated to preparing and eating food to disciplines such as prayer, confession, worship, study and almsgiving.  By breaking out of our endless societal obsession with food, we help convince ourselves of Christ’s admonition that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  (Matthew 4:4)   How can we ever hear the words that proceed from God’s mouth, against the background noise of eating, cooking, thinking about eating, planning meals and endless advertisements about food?  Moreover, the discipline and confidence gained from mastering our obsession with food can be applied to mastering the human tendency to abuse any and all of God’s gifts, including drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.

    Finally most Orthodox are familiar with the well-known quote of St. John Chrysostom, that it does us no good to abstain from certain foods if we nevertheless persist in “consuming” our fellow brother and sister with our tongues.  When it comes to this type of “spiritual cannibalism”, most of us could easily outdo the infamous Donner Party when it comes to quantity of human flesh consumed.  Instead of concentrating on gracing ourselves with Christian virtues, we garnish our plate with the bitter herbs of resentment, we spice our food with the salt of envy and top it off with the sweet relish of self-righteousness. More than anything, we need to embrace spiritual fasting and to purge ourselves of these instincts – rather than worrying ourselves silly about whether those soy corndogs have egg whites in them or not.  We become so obsessed with what we can and cannot eat that we forget the important part of the fast.  As the Lenten Triodion says (Sunday Vespers on Sunday of Forgiveness): Let us set out with joy upon the season of the Fast, and prepare ourselves for spiritual combat. Let us purify our soul and cleanse our flesh; and as we fast from food, let us abstain also from every passion. Rejoicing in the virtues of the Spirit, may we persevere with love, and so be counted worthy to see the solemn Passion of Christ our God, and with great spiritual gladness, to behold his Passover.

    We place so much importance on material things that we forget the simplicity of happiness. The core of life is not the food we eat – or homes we live in, cars we drive or money we make, for that matter.  It is the simple love we share and the gratitude we have for what we have been given.  We may desire a milkshake, but our thirst for the Lord should overcome this.  We must train ourselves to the point where feeding our spiritual hunger is far more satisfying than slaking any physical hunger we might have.  Perhaps in denying ourselves the graven image of our foods, we can direct ourselves to the true Spiritual Bread – the Christ.  Let us empty our minds and hearts from all the cares and worries and distractions of this life so that we can clearly see the path of salvation that leads though His empty Cross and His empty Tomb.  Megali Tessarakosti – the Great Fast – can and should become freedom and a delight from worldly idols and temptations that enslave us and which keep us away from our Lord and his free gift of salvation and eternal life.

    So, this year, let’s “fast from the Fast.”  Let’s remind ourselves and each other that Lenten rules and traditions, while valuable and necessary, are not the point.

    In the Great Compline service that is done during Lent in some parishes, there is an antiphonal hymn which continually repeats the refrain, “For God is with us.”  Maybe this is the greatest way that some break the spirit of the fast: to forget that God is with us and that everything we do should be in recognition of and thanksgiving for this basic truth.  Perhaps, in the end, it’s about remembering that it’s not about pizza – but about Pascha.