On Cheesefare Sunday
On this Sunday the Holy Church focuses on the memory of the exile of our ancestral parents from paradise for disobedience and intemperance in order that through misfortune it more evidently emphasizes the importance of the presented ascetical effort for all, and in the loss of the blessedness of paradise it specifies a subject, worthy […]
What Should Someone Who Has Never Fasted Before Do During Great Lent?
Watch Father Tom Zaferes and Father Nebojsa Pantic from the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension in Oakland, California explain the importance of fasting during Great Lent.
Clean Monday and the First Week of Great Lent
With Clean Monday begins Great Lent in the Orthodox Church and marks the end of feasting. Clean Monday is called as such because Christians are called to cleanse themselves spiritually and bodily. It is also a day of strict fasting with no work. The holy fast has a duration of 40 days in imitation of […]
2013 Catechetical Homily of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the Beginning of Great Lent
The holy fathers, who arranged everything in an orderly manner, instituted a period of ascetic discipline and spiritual purification for forty days prior to the great feast of the Lord’s resurrection. This ascetic rule assumes the form of a limitation on foods through fasting, but especially an abstinence from evil.