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I am a Roman Catholic trying to learn more about the Byzantine Catholic Church. In fact, I am in the very early stages of discernment as to whether I want to become a Byzantine Catholic. Can I ask a few questions that are causing me some confusion? Most pertain to Great Lent.

(1) Is the Great Lent 47 or 40 days? One priest said 40 days: from the first Monday of Lent to the Friday preceding Lazarus Saturday; he said that Holy Week is its own season. EWTN's Light of the East series said Great Lent is 47 days, which must inevitably include Holy Week.

(2) Which 7 days are considered Holy Week? Using this year as an example, does it run from 4/3/04 to 4/9/04 or from 4/4/04 to 4/10/04?

(3) Is Lazarus Saturday considered festive? Do people tend to eat things, for example, that they gave up for Lent on this day? (The Byzantine parish I go to served beer at a grounds cleaning party on Lazarus Saturday.)

(4) I understand that Byzantine Catholics accept the doctrine of indulgences but do not generally seek to obtain them. The reason for this, I understand, is that Byzantines see this as a foreign Western theological development. My stumbling block is, if the concept of induldgences is "true", how can it be true for Western Catholics but not Eastern Catholics? Why would an Eastern Catholic not seek opportunities to obtain them?

(5) Do Byzantines have any equivalents to indulgences in their theology at least in some sense? Byzantines, to my understanding, pray for the dead. While they would not call it an indulgence, is the objective of praying for the dead similar to that of a Roman Catholic seeking an indulgence for a deceased relative?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Marc

I'm not much for numerology, but in practice Holy Week has become slightly longer than a week by now. Lazarus Saturday is festive, all right - how could it not be? - and the Slav typicon permits the eating of caviar (!) on this day. If I could afford the caviar, that would certainly be an indulgence. But I don't think I would make Lazarus Saturday the occasion of a beer party. In many parishes, there is a tendency to look on Lazarus Saturday as a day of particular importance for children, and to serve a nice (meatless) breakfast after the Divine Liturgy.
Incognitus

While agreeing with Incognitus re: beer parties, which are unseemly if they are that, Lazarus Saturday is still a Saturday in which the typikon allows for alcohol during the Fast. With Holy Week, (and yes, it is separate from the Great Fast) a strict fast is in place, and on Holy Saturday, no alcohol is allowed.

Gaudior, sipping the wine allowed on Annunciation.

Dear Marc,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

The forty-day fast before Pascha runs from the Monday after Cheesefare Sunday (Feb 23 this year) until the day before Lazarus Saturday (April 2). During this period, the Feast of the Annunciation (March 25) is not a day of fast. Of course, since the liturgical day begins the previous day at sundown, the Great Fast starts during Forgiveness Vespers Sunday evening.

(The Latin Church counts 40 days from Ash Wednesday, including Holy Week through Holy Saturday. They do not count Sundays as days of Lent).

Lazarus Saturday, the Mitigation of the Fast, is Lazarus Saturday (and not part of Holy Week). Palm Sunday is a Feast of Our Lord, and is not a day of fast. I have not considered Lazarus Saturday as festive. Yes, the Great Fast is concluded, but we are still on our journey to Pascha. We are preparing for Holy Week, the most solemn time of the Church Year.

Holy Week starts on Holy Monday. Yes, you could say that Holy Week is its own season. This year that would be from April 5-10 (Holy Saturday). During Holy Week we do not only observe what happened in history, but through our acts of repentance, our prayers and fasting, our processions and veneration, take an active part in what we remember as having happened and what is happening now through divine remembrance. We die in Christ and rise in the fullness of life.

Hope this helps,
Deacon El

Holy Week is not counted among the days of the Great Fast: it forms a separate period of strict fasting (ie., nothing, or bread and water or something similar). It's the last chance for lazy bums to get it right and stop eating steak and eggs for breakfast if only for a few days.

As for indulgences, that is nothing more than a theologoumenon of the Latin Church. It is frankly regarded in the East as bizarre bean-counting and the question is raised: how on earth (quite literally!) does the Church know what the afterlife is like? That is not to say that Orthodox theology denies the possibility of there being a time of purification post-mortem. (Some of the Fathers have developed their own speculations about this like the Latins but in different terms.) Orthodoxy only refuses to ascribe to an accountant's understanding of it this experience of purification.

Dear Marc,

One fundamental difference between East and West is that the West is, by far, more specific with respect to the forty-day fast of Lent.

The West counts Saturdays as fast-days - the East, from the very beginning, never did and even censured the West at one point for declaring Saturday capable of being a fast-day (save for the one Holy Saturday in Passion Week).

So the West calculates the forty-day fast exactly in terms of six weeks of six days (36) to which four more days were added - beginning with Ash Wednesday through Saturday.

As for indulgences - there are EC's who accept them and Purgatory and there are EC's who don't.

Frankly, we have no united and official statement on this.

If there is, I would like to know about it (and formal statements by board members here don't count!)

But the Eastern eschatology sees the immediate afterlife in terms of two "forecourts" - one of Heaven, the other of Hell - and this state continues until the Second Coming of Christ when we, as composite beings comprised of united bodies and souls will receive our final destination.

The Eastern Churches do not accept Purgatory nor Indulgences as part of the perceived Western juridical notions about "paying back dues" for sins.

Instead, it prays incessantly for the dead, during the first forty days, and throughout the year and always for the dead that the Merciful God release them from their sins.

Alex

I am also a Roman Catholic, trying to learn on this Forum. What I have ascertained here and through other reading, is that the Latin-rite Church is much more juridical on things regarding the realm of mystery than the Eastern Churches. Perhaps this comes from Aristotle and his knack for categorizing all things! But, I wanted to point this out since Alex said purgatory and indulgences are not a part of the Eastern tradition. That is true. But Eastern theology prefers to leave the mystery of the afterlife just as it is: a mystery. Since no one in this life has first hand experience of death, exact notions concerning the stages, events, purgations, etc., that happen there, are considered mysteries, and are not dogmatized in the Eastern tradition.

We believe that we must be purified before we can see God. (Many scriptural sources for this). But to say that a particular prayer said 10 times will release a soul from purgatory, seems, to the Eastern mind, to overstep the boundaries of binding and loosing. In my view, the Eastern theological tradition tends to say just enough, without going too far. This doesn't mean that our prayers don't obtain "indulgences", for ourselves or others, just that we are not in the business of dogmatizing what those results will be. A better terminology for the prayers might be works of spiritual mercy. Then we leave the rest to Christ, Glory be to Thee!

Dear Tammy,

What an excellent and truly enlightening post!

You have brilliantly yet simply summarized the countless debates and analysis of many persons about the Eastern approach to the afterlife.( Are you sure that you are Roman Catholic??? )

Your still, small voice is so welcome here. I look forward to your posts. May God bless you...

Your sister in Christ,
Alice

Dear Alice,

Your blessing is warmly appreciated. I, too, have been awed by your kind and gentle spirit.

In His Rich Mercy, Tammy

It was my understanding that the Liturgical day *during Lent* begins at midnight, not sundown.

anastasios

Of course you realize that this is not a correct understanding of the Latin position?

An indulgence of X days is NOT a ticket for that many days off Purgatory (popular though this misconception may be). An indulgence of X days, attached to a specific devotion, is an excercize by the Church of her Christ-given authority, by which the specified devotion has the reparative value of X days of penance on earth. Thus, the Church has decided to simply use the terms "partial" and "plenary" indulgence (a plenary indulgence meaning the complete fulfillment of temporal punishment due to sin). I realize that "temporal punishment due to sin" is another whole discussion; I just wanted to eliminate the caricature of the Latin position that I saw here.

By the way, the Church also makes it clear that the application of an indulgence to a deceased soul is dependent entirely on the will of God, and is hidden from us. I dare anybody to find me an official teaching of the Church in ANY Enchiridion that says "say this prayer 10 times and a soul of your choice gets out of Purgatory."

In Christ,

LatinTrad

Sorry for my tone I just got defensive.

God bless you, Trad, I was just in the middle of composing almost the exact same post when yours appeared on my screen!

Dear LT and Dolly,

Why is it that the two of you always post together like this?

Certainly, the Latin Church no longer uses "days" for indulgences but "partial."

And, of course, we have no idea what is or is not loosed by God for that indulgence.

Even the "plenary" indulgence cannot, according to some commentators, be ever said to be fully "plenary" since it would be necessary, for the gaining of this indulgence, that all attachment to sin be absent.

And who can truthfully say that about themselves in this life?

By the same token, we have an obligation to perform works of repentance (and reparation) throughout our lives - indulgences do not and cannot somehow blot out that obligation.

In my old EC prayerbook, there was a 300 days' indulgence attached to the saying of the Jesus Prayer - one such indulgence each time the prayer is said.

The fact is, while the East certainly does not think in terms of indulgences, it is certain that there is a close approximation in terms of what happens when we recite the Jesus Prayer and that idea of imprecating God's mercy on us that has an effect both now and in eternity - but the question of just how much is up to God, of course.

Whoever said that there can be too much of a good thing never really considered the issue of prayer in our lives!

Alex

LT,

A very good post, even for a Yankee Fan .


james