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Dec 29th, 2019
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Joined: Apr 2004
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This should be a totally different topic, but I've found there is some confusion about what is allowed and not allowed on the different fasts throughout the year and from different Churches, i.e. Byzantine Ruthenian, Melkite, Byzantine Ukrainian, Orthodox, etc. Sort of a master list so people can check no matter which religion they belong to.
Any thoughts? I've found lots of information on the web about the different Churches and Rites, but sometimes the sites are not very complete. Byzantines.net is one example. No offense to anyone, but there are links that don't work and items that are obviously meant to be links but aren't active and questions asked but never answered, etc. The "Question and Answer" section in particular has a lot of work that could be done. And the "Kitchen Sink" section would be the perfect place to put a list of the Fast periods and what is allowed and what is not allowed.
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone by my comments about the Byzantines.net site, but it was one of the first ones I found on the web and I have been amazed how much is missing. I don't know who runs it or when it was last updated, but the
"Real Video" section in particular is terrible. No one uses RealAudio or RealVideo anymore. It is very out of date and the quality is terrible compared to newer programs.
Any thoughts on where one can find info on fasts without jumping through lots of hoops?
Tim
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Joined: Nov 2001
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Tim - we all agree on one thing CHOCOLATE- good dark chocolate is Fasting food 
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Joined: Jun 2006
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As to the calendar and Xmas - it is impossible to ignore 25 December completely. So go visiting your in-laws, your friends, or whomever, and invite them to come and visit you on 7 January or shortly thereafter. If you live in a decent-sized city you can probably find at least a few churches of various persuasions that celebrate 25 December with some outstanding sacred music (I know of two here in Dublin that do Mozart's Coronation Mass for that feast); go and enjoy it.
And do have some good dark chocolate. Last time I looked, St. Nectarios in Seattle was selling an excellent cook-book for fasting periods.
Fr. Serge
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Joined: Nov 2005
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Catholic Gyoza Member
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According to some sermons of St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he introduced this feast into the Eastern Church about the year 379 or 388. After his departure from Constantinople the celebration of Christ's Nativity on December 25 was neglected. In 395 Emperor Honorius reinstituted the celebration. St. John Chrysostom tells us how he introduced this feast at Antioch sometime around 380. He explicitly says how he introduced it in imitation of the Church at Rome. St. John believed that the Roman Christians knew the date of Christ's birth better than anybody else since the imperial city archives were accessible to them.
The first mention of a preparatory period before Christmas is mentioned in a decree of the Council of Saragossa (380). The Council Fathers stated that every Christian should daily go to church from December 17 until the Theophany (January 6th). At the Synod of Mac (581) in present day France it was decreed that from November 11, the day of St. Martin, until December 24 every Christian should fast 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday).Our pre-Nativity period of preparation developed rather late. Scholars do not agree about the exact time it began. Some hold that it began in the sixth century. Others believe it began in the seventh or eighth century. The present liturgical pre-Nativity season was finally established at the Council of Constantinople (1166). The Council decreed that the fast would begin on November 15 and last until December 24 inclusive. Thus, there was created another 40 day fast.
The pre-Nativity fast is often called "Phillip's Fast" because it begins on the day after the feast of St. Phillip. The fast was introduced to prepare the Church for a worthy celebration of the great and holy day of the Birth of Christ. The regulations for the fast were far more lenient than the Great Fast before Pascha. Only Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were days of strict fasting without meat, dairy products or oil (in Slavic countries). On Sundays fish was permitted. Laymen were at first permitted to eat fish on other days, too, until the monastic rigoristic influence prevailed. It is interesting to observe that the famous 12th century Byzantine canonist Balsamon expressed the opinion that it would be enough if laymen fasted only one week before Christmas. In 1958 a modern Greek author, Christos M. Enislides, welcomes Balsamon's suggestion and believes that the best solution would be for the Church at large to abstain from meat and dairy products for 33 days. During the last seven days of the fast everybody should observe the strict fast. The above confirms Father John's writings on the Forum. The mention of the 17th of December coincides with the O Antiphons which are a favorite of mine. I think it's because I love the "Carol?" O Come, O Come Immanuel.
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Joined: Jan 2007
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For the Melkites: the fast of the Nativity.
We have this information on web sites today, but as Tim suggested, it is not always in an orderly fashion. It will shortly be coming to our Global Melkite Association site in a way that will make it easy to understand.
But for those who want the rubrics, they are as follows. By the way, the traditional fasting discipline (the one that follows) is also followed by the Greek and Antiochian (and Alexandrian and Jerusalem and Sinai) Orthodox, and is generally recommended by the bishops to those who are up to it.
Fast (one meal per day, after sunset)
Every Wednesday and Friday of the year
Paromonies of Christmas and Epiphany (their eves, or the Friday immediately preceding, if the eve falls on a Saturday or a Sunday)
Abstinence
Nativity fast (first part: 15 November � 12 December, as for Apostles fast)
Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays = strict abstinence
Tuesdays, Thursdays = wine and oil permitted
Saturdays, Sundays = fish, wine, and oil permitted
Nativity fast (second part: 13 December � 23 December, as in Great Lent)
Mondays � Fridays = strict abstinence
Saturdays, Sundays = wine and oil permitted.
Occurrence of a feast on a day of fast or abstinence
Fast is suppressed; abstinence mitigated as follows:
Occurrence with feasts of classes 1 or 2 allows fish, wine, and oil
Occurrence with feasts of class 3 allows wine and oil.
There is also a simplification and mitigation of the fast and abstinence for the faithful (introduced by the bishops in the early 1950s).
begin the Nativity fast 10 December
fast is understood as no food from midnight to midday
abstinence is understood as no meat or meat products.
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