Fasting for Orthodox Christians is not a simple diet. Along with dietary restrictions, they imply particularly strict self-control in actions, speeches, and thoughts. Such behavior should be characteristic of the believer all year round, and during fasting a kind of tempering of the character takes place, the will and depth of the religious feeling are checked. Is a person able to resist temptations and temptations, even if he is unable to endure such a simple test as limiting his diet?
The Greatest fast is the Great, and it is called so not because it is the longest. Great is its spiritual significance. Each of the forty-eight days is filled with a special meaning.
Observance of Great Lent does not mean that the believer must starve for all six weeks. It is not typical for the Orthodox tradition to demand from the parishioners those restrictions that could harm their health. There is a rational and even healthy order of eating during this difficult period for many, regulating what you can eat in fasting by day.
For two days you should abstain from food - on Good Friday, the day of the execution of Jesus, and on the very first, clean Monday.
If the Annunciation does not fall on Holy Week, then this is the day when you can eat fish at Lent.
On ordinary days, the diet is very simple. You can eat bread, vegetables and fruits, raw on weekdays, and on Saturday and Sunday - cooked in vegetable oil. To strengthen body strength, you can drink some wine, of course, dry.
Another day when you can eat fish at Lent falls on Palm Sunday. This is a great holiday, it’s right to call it “The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem”. On the eve of this bright day, it is allowed to eat caviar. On Friday of the first Sedmitsa they eat colivo, that is, boiled grains of wheat with honey, which are sacred after the liturgy.
The Lent menu during the second to fifth week divides the days as follows: on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the restrictions are more stringent, you can only drink water, and there is bread and raw plant products, on Tuesday and Thursday, believers eat hot food cooked without oil even vegetable.
These are strict church rules, but excessive pedantry, leading to unpleasant consequences for the body, and especially that kind of pride when a person fasts defiantly, looking down on less “advanced” ones, is completely unacceptable. Observe is not a letter, but a spirit.
If the parishioner, especially the elderly one, has worsened, then any priest will bless him for changing the diet, and will allow him to decide on his own when it is possible to eat fish at Lent.
Women who are expecting a baby, children, and those who suffer from any ailments, as well as those who are on the road or doing hard work are allowed to eat fast food.
In addition, there is no need to starve at all, the fasting menu can contain such tasty and nutritious foods as potatoes, beans, peas, nuts, cabbage, drying, mushrooms, berries, and much more useful edible. But there are also days when you can eat fish in Lent. So there is no need to bring yourself to physical exhaustion. It is much more important not to consume strong drinks, not to be angry, to be kind to people around you, to exclude obscenity, profanity and inappropriate joys from everyday life.