www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Today is officially....

Since tomorrow is Wednesday and is a fast day anyway, and since Thursday is officially the beginning of the Nativity Fast for those of us who celebrate Christmas on the new calendar of Dec. 25th, that would make today the last day to eat meat and/or dairy (each according to their jurisdiction and priest/spiritual father)!

As my husband said to me last week when I asked about when the fast is beginning: 'The fast is fast approaching'!

Fast forward that a bit right now, and make sure that you enjoy your meals today!!

I think that our culture needs to start celebrating the season more traditionally, and therefore, differently, such as extending the festivities until Jan. 6th rather than ending them abruptly on Christmas day...like in the olden days of the 12 days of Christmas. In the business world, nothing much gets done of importance in the week between Christmas and New Year's anyway, and many people take off the whole week, so why not make *that* the first week of festivities instead of the weeks before?!?

(Atleast the Greeks enjoy January 1st as a holiday, because besides being the first day of the year and a day which we celebrate a Divine Liturgy, it is also the feast day of St. Basil the Great; so Greeks both in Greece and in the diaspora, prepare large family meals, invite people over, and cut a special sweet cake/bread called a vasilopita, or St. Basil's bread, which has a family oriented theme around it. A coin is hidden in it, and a slice is cut first for the Lord/Church, second for the Panayia Theotokos, third for St. Basil, and every piece thereafter for a member of the family, starting from the grandparents on down. Whoever gets the coin in their piece is supposed to have good luck for the rest of the year).

That way, the fast won't seem so difficult for us with all the parties (office, friends, etc.) that tend to squeeze themselves into a small three week time time frame. Unfortunately, because of the way our business and social culture has evolved with the domination of parties and other social festivities, there is alot of resistance to the message of the fast in my community and other church communities.

Extending the holiday to Jan. 6th, would also help those majority of us who feel depressed in January because of the 'let down feeling', the cold, and the fact that there is absolutely NOTHING going on because everyone has already done their holiday socializing in December!

Alice,
finishing her winded editorial!

Not winded at all, just sincere of heart and full of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, but most of all the Feast of Jesus Birth.

Thanks!

Dear Pani Rose,

Thanks for your kind words dear sister in Christ.

What do you think about this difficult clash of traditional Christmas (12 days and fasting, etc.) and the way it has become?
It seems that we follow not the new calendar, nor the old calendar, not the advent calendar, but the consumer calendar of 'how many days to shop before Christmas'!!!!

Then, after all the gift giving, the great feast of joy, the feast of Christ's birth, is abruptly over, because the next week is not to celebrate and bask in the ecclesial feast, but to return and exchange the material goods we received....

Alice

A good essay, Alice !

-- said John, who just finished his last meat meal for a while . . .

Too true. The deeper I delve into living the Gospel, the more I realize that the world and the Gopspel are indeed very much opposed as well as apart.

-- John

I hope that you enjoyed it!!!

Alice

Did someone say "fast?" I need more chocolate!

Alice,

We do try to set up our Christmas tree as close to Christmas Eve as possible. I confess we will be exempting ourselves from the fast in order to indulge in a Bacchan feast!

Speaking of fasting, the calendar I just got from my priest says that we can have fish, wine, and oil during Advent on most days except Wed. and Fri. Is this an Antiohcian innovation or is this standard? What do the Greeks do? The Russians? others?

Joe

Being on the Old Calendar does have its inconveniences, but I much prefer it. Christmas being one of the main reasons.

Dear Joe,

Generally speaking, for the Greek Orthodox, as they practice it, it is not a strict fast. For those of us who fast at all, we usually fast from meat, except for Thanksgiving, when we are generally given dispensations from our parish priests!!

In Christ,
Alice

Yes, I can SEE that!!!

To think how much less resistance about fasting my priest would have if we could switch to the old calendar just for Christmas...

Though, I would be disappointed not celebrating on Dec. 25th with the rest of the Christian world. It is the one day of the year where I feel a great love and solidarity with all Christians, and that, in and of itself, is such a great feeling, that it is almost indescribable.

In Christ,
Alice

And given the fabulous Christmas party my in-laws throw every year, it would be terribly depressing!

Joe

A couple of thoughts:

1) Many Arab Christians set up the Christmas cave and/or the Tree on the Feast day of St Barbara (Dec 4th). This is a great feast day in Arab Orthodox circles. The children go house to house seeking candy; festive kollyva is served in memory of the miracle of the wheat; wheat is planted on this day and then it is cut down and put in the Christmas cave on Christmas Day; etc.

2) I have been interested in the development of the Advent Fast for quite some time. It is one of the lastest fasts to develop in the Church. This is evident in the fact that the east and west have different traditiosn for this fast. There are several indications that this is a later fast in addition to the one I mentioned. 1st, there are no liturgical services specifically assigned to this fast. (Various traditions have tried in recent years to add some; many Greek priest serve Liturgy on all 40 days of the Fast and the Antiochians have put together a Paraclesis for Advent -- but these are VERY late.) 2nd, the Fast is not mentioned in any of the writings of the Fathers nor is it noted in any of the Church Councils. From what I have read, this was originally a monastic fast that evolved as a parallel practice to Lent. It was not adopted by the general Christian population until after the Iconoclastic controversy. Since the monks were the ones that preserved the faith, after the 7th Ecumenical Council the laity began to emulate monastic fasting practices as a way of honoring the monks.

This helps to explain why there is no agreed upon set of rules for the Advent Fast (the same would be true of the Apostles' Fast). If you examine the various traditions, you will see that the more rigid Slavic (what I call the "high Russian" or "Muscovite" practice) tradition follows a monastic rhythm of strict fasting on MWF (oil and wine on T/Th and fish on the weekends). Some other traditions, including many traditionalist Greeks, mediated the monastic practice to allow for fish, wine and oil on all days except for WF.

3) It should also be noted that there is deviance on when the fast actually begins. The Melkites begin the Fast on the 10th of December -- and I note that the Greek tradition allows for wedddings until the 13th, thus intimating that the Fast changes in focus and intensity. I would also note that Metropolitan Philip maintains that this Fast is virtually unknown and thus not followed outside of monasteries in the old country.

This has nothing to do with the fast but I thought it kind of fits this thread as we once again prepare for all the hustle and bustle and celebration that accompanies the Christmas season.

Written by an Amish woman it goes to the tune of "O Little Town of Bethlehem".

O little Inn of Bethlehem
How like we are to you;
Our lives are crowded to the brim
With this and that to do.
We�re not unfriendly to the King,
We mean well without doubt;
We have no hostile feelings,
We merely crowd Him out.

Maybe it's where I live, but most people I'm around just treat it largely as a secular holiday that's deeply embedded in our culture. It's really lost its religious meaning in many ways.

We actually do something for both days. The 25th is still Christmas and the kids open their presents then (they get a few things the week before on St. Nicholas Day). We watch all the normal Christmas shows and everything. The 7th is the Nativity and they get one thing then related to the church, and the holiday is strictly about the religious aspect of the celebration. They like it because Christmas is basically a running three week deal instead of one day.