Majuko Lenten letters. Moscow Sretensky Theological Seminary

“In his cell, Ilyich not only wrote in the margins of classical books, but also diligently put prostrations, which confused his jailers.” Why did Lenin need this and why do we bow to the ground? Archimandrite Savva (Mazhuko) continues to write letters to Pravmir readers, talking about the incredible beauty and meaning of Lent.

As a child, I read Lenin's biography with interest. It was a light, fascinating detective story about how Ilyich deftly bypassed the Tsar's secret police. The leader's prison everyday life exuded calm comfort, and an inkwell made of bread and milk awakened a healthy proletarian appetite. There in his cell, Ilyich not only wrote in the margins of classical books, but also diligently made prostrations, which confused his jailers. It is known - an atheist!

Lenin discovered that prostration is the best exercise for all muscle groups. And have no doubt, he did not bow for the sake of prayer. I was just doing gymnastics. This is how I first learned about prostrations. From Lenin.

The second episode is the wonderful “Nakhalyonok”, a story by Sholokhov. Eight-year-old Mishka, small and mischievous, “voiced” the bows of his pious grandfather - he loudly knocked on the wall as soon as his grandfather’s head touched the floor.

Here is my first impression of prostrations: something absurdly funny, with a clownish ringing of the head on the plank floor. This is how non-church people see us.

Archimandrite Savva (Majuko). Photo: Efim Erichman

Not all. Many. You shouldn't be offended. Looking at your life from a new perspective is a beneficial spiritual exercise. Is that how they see us? This is an opportunity to figure out: what are we doing, for what purpose, who started it all, should we continue?

For a modern city dweller, bowing to the ground looks like an unnecessary excess and archaism. I have a friend who is a “sympathizer.” Loves church service, but deliberately does not go to church when he should bow to the ground. A great connoisseur of intelligent-heart prayer.

What do you have there? First week? Without me. I'll come on Saturday. All this tossing around creates stupid fuss, distracts, exhausts, and interferes with prayer. No need to smile like that. These exercises of yours also generate special kind pious vanity, subtle hypocrisy and self-deception. The time for bowing has passed, don’t you understand? God doesn't need bowing. God is Spirit, and you need to serve Him not with your body, but with your soul and deed.

Why don't we really abolish this unaesthetic ritual?

But it’s hard for me to imagine Lent without prostrations. One of the first signs of the Lenten service is the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian.

The most beautiful. Touching. Alive.

“Lord and Master of my life!
Do not give me the spirit of idleness, despondency, covetousness and idle talk!
Grant me the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love, Thy servant!

Hey, Lord the King!
Grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother,
For blessed art thou unto the ages of ages. Amen".

I fell in love with this prayer immediately, in the first year of church biography. True, not because of the bows and deep content, but simply because the priest only read this prayer in a “human” voice, without the usual liturgical manner.

Everything in this text is so simple and clear that it seems that even a child does not need to explain it. Everything about us, everything about life, nothing superfluous.

But prayer is also dynamic. It is divided into three petitions, and after each one one should bow to the ground. Then twelve belts follow with the prayer “God, cleanse me, a sinner,” and a repetition - now completely with one bow to the ground.

The Typikon prescribes reading this prayer with fasting and bowing - this is the name of the “terrible” church book, which contains the entire charter of our worship. However, the Typikon's prescriptions differ from modern practice. In ancient times they bowed differently.

Firstly, the prayer of Saint Ephraim is secret: “And therefore, raising our hands, we pray in our thoughts, self-verbal prayer of St. Ephraim." That is, this text should be spoken to oneself, silently, just as, for example, a priest reads special prayers of light during the Six Psalms: the parishioners listen to six psalms, and the priest prays from his little book. On Mount Athos, the prayer of St. Ephraim is read silently. But it’s not good to say such a wonderful prayer to yourself, so our ancestors decided to read it out to the whole temple.

Prostration itself was performed a little differently in ancient times. Now we bow like this: we slowly make the sign of the cross and kneel down, bowing our heads. “The Terrible Book” also speaks about the head: “And having made a prayer, he makes a great bow, as far as he can bring his head to the ground.” So Nakhalenok’s grandfather did everything according to the regulations. However, this charter says nothing about the sign of the cross. And this should not surprise us. Instead of the sign of the cross, another sacred gesture was widespread in ancient times - raising hands: “And therefore, hands raised, we pray in our thoughts, saying within ourselves the prayer of St. Ephraim.”

This "raising of hands" has survived in our time only as a liturgical gesture of the priest, for example, during Cherubic song or the Eucharistic canon. In ancient times, when making a bow, Christians raised their hands to the sky, looking upward, and then, without the sign of the cross, fell to their knees, touching their foreheads to the ground. Raising hands in prayer is not a Christian invention. This religious gesture is universal, just like bowing. They raised their hands and knelt in almost all developed religious traditions. Suffice it to recall the famous Tibetan bow.

Even the Apostle Paul remembers prayer with hands raised to heaven: “I wish that in every place men would say prayers, lifting up clean hands without anger or doubt” (1 Tim. 2:8).

Antiquity also knew a deeper bow, when the person praying prostrated himself with his whole body, spreading his arms in a cross shape. Now this type of bow has been preserved only in monastic tonsure.

We wearily ask: why is all this? Does God really need our bows?

Needed. Because our Father values ​​everything that we do sincerely and with all our hearts. After all, it is so natural, when the soul prays, when feelings overwhelm the heart, to capture this excess of heart V sacred action, to reveal this excess, to let it pour out in bodily manifestation, to allow it to be embodied.

Prayer is a deeply mysterious and personal action. The abundance of the heart draws the body into prayer. But it also happens the other way around: a praying body infects the soul with prayer, awakening it.

Man is one and indivisible. If you prayed with your body, but failed to awaken your soul, you still prayed. The body prayed. This is also a lot.

This reliable path from body to soul is well known to experienced teachers. Stanislavsky can hardly be called church man, but once, trying to get a “heavy” intonation from his actor in a monologue, he forced him to hold a bulky chair in his hands during rehearsal. This heaviness in his hands helped the actor understand and catch the right intonation. He went from body to soul. If the soul is dormant, the simplest thing is to try to wake it up through the body. Therefore, ancient teachers worked a lot on the posture of their students, their manner of holding themselves, walking, sitting correctly, and behavior at the table. This method cannot be overestimated. It should not be underestimated.

Church prayer is performed not only with the mind and heart, but also with the body. This is one of the spiritual exercises. Spiritual - despite the completely physical action.

I admit that the monks who created our liturgical charter prescribed prostrations for practical reasons: it was too long services pilgrims need natural encouragement, and here bows come in very handy. The insightful Ilyich noticed this value of the bow.

However, there are people for whom bowing only bothers them. This is normal, because we are all different. It is much better for them to stand still and not be distracted. Well, “it’s a free country”! - and, I think, no one has the right to demand from such people to perform all bows and signs of the cross. Church services are valuable precisely because here everyone can have their own prayer rhythm, which is completely acceptable and legal if it does not interfere with others. Uniformity is not synonymous with unity. You can sit silently on a chair in a dark corner of the church, and constantly kneel before God and mourn your life. One person excess of heart makes someone freeze, and encourages others to action. Both are right. Everyone - stands or falls on their knees - stands and falls before their Father, Who is our only one.

Church journalism is a boring activity. It's always very crowded here. Don't turn around. All our magazines, newspapers and websites start out bright and impetuous, and then begin to doze and “deflate”. A journalist needs the scope and freshness of a topic, but in the world of Orthodoxy everything is predetermined and prescribed. No, not a vigilant censor, but simply - church calendar. And we circle around this calendar like a horse in the arena - every time the same topics, faces, questions and interrogations.

Open any church publication: a sermon for the current holiday or gospel reading. There are few good authors in this genre, and even fewer subjects on which they write, because everything is from Scripture, and this is one book. Church news also revolves around the calendar: anniversaries, holiday services, concerts on the occasion, conferences on the occasion. Everything is predictable in the literal sense - most often, an experienced journalist manages to predict and even pre-write what will be said and written and how.

There is also a whole range of “spiritual” topics. Here it’s most often about struggle – with passions, with children, husbands, Freemasons. You see, I’m already starting to joke. And there is no crime in this. I'm joking, but I'm not criticizing. Church life is conservative by its very nature, and calendar certainty and extremeness are good and correct. And the fact that we are cramped should in fact stimulate the author to hone his skills, to make creative efforts, so that even into the needle gates of church predestination he can bring in and out wonderful animals.

What a shame that for many this beauty is hidden! I always tell my students what to pay attention to in a particular service, what texts to read in advance, what moment of the service to look forward to with trepidation and delight. After all, many amazing church hymns are performed only once a year, and what a pity it is to miss them! Therefore, there is a need for some kind of “guide to Lent.”

And most importantly. I really want to somehow alleviate the plight of the “martyrs of Lent,” people who were crippled by the Lenten church experience only because they “caught” it in a distorted and inauthentic form. I have seen many such people, and I myself was one of them. These are victims of misunderstanding and abuse, which does not abolish the use.

Since I myself do not like systematic presentation - I doze and yawn - I chose writing as the most acceptable genre for the “science of lean beauty.” These will be Lenten letters. I don’t know how many there will be, who will read them, will there be answers?

“You write, painters, you will get credit! Then I’ll explain what’s unclear.”

Lenten letter No. 1. Lent: in search of meaning

At the center of our church year- Easter. It stands not just as an elusively floating date, but also as an impressive semantic structure. You could even say this:

In the beginning there was Easter. And Easter was with God. And God was Easter. Everything happened from Easter, and without Easter nothing would have happened that was.

How is the Church alive? Easter. From Easter, like ripples on water, our theological impulses, church regulations, and liturgical rules diverge in all directions. They come from Easter, returning to Easter, again closing and converging in this bright and joyful Mystery.

What is Easter? This question cannot be answered once and for all. This question cannot be closed. We answer it every year. We have been looking for an answer for a very long time and all together. This question is the meaning of Lent. Lent is a long, seven-week period of answering the entire Church to the question “What is Easter?” An ongoing unfinished action. Unfinished, but crowned with the answer “Truly he is risen!”

Great Lent is the work of the entire Church. You cannot “fast to yourself.” Great Lent is not my personal business, not the personal business of the Patriarch or the priest, it is our common business. How to call this matter in one word? God-thinking. Great Lent is an event of contemplation of God for all Orthodox Christians, without exception. None of the Orthodox Christians should remain outside of fasting, that is, outside the work of contemplating the Passion and Easter. The 69th canon of the holy apostles speaks about this: “If anyone, a bishop or a presbyter or a deacon or a subdeacon or a reader or a singer, does not fast on the Holy Pentecost before Easter, or on Wednesday, or on Friday, except for the hindrance of bodily weakness, let him be cast out. If he is a layman, let him be excommunicated.”

Don’t you want to be excommunicated from church communion? Fast.

What if I just can’t eat this! I just can't stand it!

It is for the sake of such questions that it is worth looking for the final meaning of the Lenten order. Abstinence from food is not the purpose of fasting or even its meaning. Fasting is not about food.

The purpose of fasting is the thought of God about the Passion and Resurrection.

Abstinence from food - means, not a goal or even distinctive feature Fasting is a method that promotes this thought of God, the contemplation of meanings. Thus, fasting has two aspects - central and subordinate. Abstinence from food and other restrictions are official character in relation to the main task of fasting - pan-church thinking about God.

What does this arrangement of emphasis give us? Thought of God is the main thing, abstinence from food is auxiliary, subordinate, not absolute. Lenten abstinence strategies may vary. Not every person will find abstinence from fish or milk conducive to contemplative work. For some, these ascetic experiences, on the contrary, will distract them from contemplation. Unreasonable fasting should not become an obstacle to contemplation of God, just like licentiousness or carelessness in abstinence. Fasting is for man, not man for fasting.

Criterion for Lenten restrictions: what would I not allow myself to do if I were contemplating the Passion of Christ? This is a simple question. It clarifies a lot about our church statutes, removing a whole bunch of empty questions. You must start from it when you try to determine your measure of ascetic effort. If you want to determine your measure of fasting, ask yourself again: what would I not allow myself to do if I were contemplating the Passion of Christ? There are people who cannot swear or lie if there are icons in the room. In church we instinctively, without saying a word, speak in a whisper. Sacred space stops us. Lent harnesses sacred time. If during holy weeks I indulge in the thought of God, can I also have fun at a feast or watch a comedy? It's very simple.

Fasting is the work of the entire Church. The church-wide nature of fasting lies in the fact that during great fasts the whole Church, that is, everyone baptized person, even a child, gets specific church assignment, a theme for contemplation and contemplation of God: if this is the Nativity Fast, the theme is “The Incarnation of God the Word, the Creator of our world,” if Lent is “The Suffering of the Lord, His Death and Victory over Death.” In order for this thought of God to literally fill the whole person, one has to give up, firstly, external impressions, at least limit them in order to find a place for contemplation, and secondly, correctly adjust one’s eating habits, because the excess of food, its quality greatly affects the ability to concentrate, gather attention, and tame emotions.

Fasting is the work of the entire Church. What does this mean? From Forgiveness Sunday. We ask each other for forgiveness not in order to cry once again and refresh our emotions. Although this can also be useful. If we are all embarking on one big and serious task together, we should close all personal and unimportant issues. Nothing should interfere with this big deal. You cannot do a great thing without forgetting yourself, without abandoning all the vanity and pettiness that is unworthy of the great task.

We ask each other for forgiveness on the eve of Lent, in order to re-experience and discover unity, to enter into Lent together, collectively. Therefore, everyone participates in the rite of forgiveness, whether you quarreled with someone or you are the meekest creature - enter into church unity, not only realize, but also experience the work of fasting as the work of the entire Church.

Will the diversity of abstinence strategies destroy our unity and conciliarity? No. Because it's just a means. Unity is destroyed by the refusal of the pan-Church work of contemplating the Easter of the Cross and the Easter of the Resurrection.

What is it like to contemplate with the whole Church? First of all, a church service. There is a worship service special case God-thinking. The temple is a classroom for contemplation. Here we adopt the experience of the thought of God of the ancient mystics and prophets. If you learn to listen to and understand the church service, you will understand all the theological mysteries of the Gospel.

The experience of Lenten pan-Church thought of God - Lenten worship. But there are those lucky ones who know how to keep the fire of church thought outside the church walls. For us this is great and almost unattainable. But in the Church this experience is available to everyone. You just have to try. Pan-Church thought of God accustoms and prepares for unceasing contemplation.

This is an experience not only of theology and thought of God, but also an experience of beauty, because Lenten worship is very beautiful.

Hiding from this beauty is stupid. Hiding this beauty is criminal.

At Grandma Katya’s, each fast was preceded by a solemn ritual of purchasing herring. There were these fat herrings in metal cans. Tasty! Herrings for fasting. The first one, the one who venerated the cross and the Passionate, kept herself strictly, on the other days - as it happens. This is how grandmother Katya was raised by her parents, whom she buried before the revolution. And then the Komsomol members came and began to re-educate my grandmother. “Komsomol members” are not the youth of the thirties. This name was given to us who came to the Church in the nineties. There were many of us. More precisely, there were more of us, and we grasped everything on the fly. Therefore, it is not surprising that very quickly the “Komsomol members” took up the task of re-educating old parishioners and priests.

We greedily read books and statutes and proved to grandmothers and old priests that it is impossible to serve like this, you are cutting short here, you cannot sing these partes of yours - this is not Orthodox, you cannot allow these people to take communion - they were not at Vespers.

The herrings got the worst of it. They were the first to be excommunicated. What a fish for Lent!

Not everyone had this “Komsomol” enthusiasm. However, many have matured. We grew up and realized how important it was to join the real church culture, take lessons from old priests, take a closer look at those grandfathers and grandmothers whom we so zealously set out to denounce.

These were people of church culture. Among them, it was indecent to talk about fasting foods or how someone fasts. This was in bad taste. I can imagine how much vulgarity they would see in the “Lenten Mayonnaise” label and in our debate about whether there is milk in the chocolate bar or margarine in the loaf. They didn't read historical sources and theological treatises, but somehow intuitively understood the humiliation of this gastronomic theology.

There are no rules for lay fasting. There are no rules of fasting for the laity. There is a custom. People of church culture lived according to this custom. They had enough. How did Christians live before them? different countries, V different eras, keeping to their local customs.

I don’t like long quotes, but I’ll still allow myself one. Very important text. Its author, Socrates Scholasticus, lived in the fifth century. He wrote " Church history”, which included an essay about how Lent was held in his time. Read carefully:

“Not a single religion adheres to the same customs, although it has the same concept of God. Even those of the same faith disagree with each other regarding customs. Therefore, it is not inappropriate here to briefly suggest something about the difference in customs in different Churches.

From the very first glance it is easy to notice that the fasts before Easter are different places are observed differently. Namely, in Rome before Easter they fast continuously for three weeks, except Saturday and the Lord's Day. And in Illyria, throughout Greece and Alexandria, they fast for six weeks before Easter and call it Pentecost. Others begin to fast seven weeks before the holiday and, although excluding the intervals, they fast only three days of pentecost, they also call their fast a period of Pentecost.

It is surprising to me that both of them, disagreeing among themselves in numbers fast days, call the fast the same way - forty days, and present their own special reasons for explaining its name. Moreover, it is clear that their disagreement concerns not only the number of fasting days, but also the concept of abstaining from food; because some abstain from eating all kinds of animals, others, of all animate things, eat only fish, and some eat birds along with fish, saying that birds, according to the legend of Moses, also originated from water. Some even abstain from fruits and eggs, others eat only dry bread, some do not take even that, and others, fasting until the ninth hour, then eat all kinds of food.

Thus it varies among different tribes, and there are innumerable reasons for this. And since no one can point to a written command regarding this, it is clear that the Apostles left all this to the will and choice of everyone, so that everyone would do good not out of fear or coercion.”

Why is this text important to us? Firstly, this is one of the few monuments that describes the traditions of piety of the laity. Most The statutes that we have are monastic statutes. Actually, our modern Typikon is the charter of a monastery.

But the Russian Orthodox Church is not a monastery. We even have more nuns than monks.

Therefore we cannot demand from everyone Orthodox people execution of the rules of an abstract typicon monastery.

Secondly, Socrates recognizes the right of every nation to figure out for itself how to fast, for how long, and what foods are considered lean. This is the legal right of every people. In the time of Socrates, in some traditions, birds were equated with fish, just as medieval statutes later treated rabbits, and Irish monks hunted fur seals without a twinge of conscience. For them it was a corroded fish: this is what happens to a herring if it is not caught in time.

What is good for a Russian is death for a German. In the Caucasus they drink wine, but you won’t meet a drunkard, just like in France, and for a Russian person this drink is more dangerous. The peoples of the north, like the Indians, almost died altogether, because our vodka affects them differently.

It's hard to believe, but milk can also be a lean product. It depends on the area and tradition. And from your health, of course. The world has changed, and today we don’t always know what we eat. But that’s not even the point. When determining a fasting table, it is important to consider two points: price and impact on the body. In this sense, porridge with milk can be a leaner product than our delicious mushrooms and untimely deceased sterlet. Or Greek olives, brought by great acquaintance along with Israeli hummus. It's expensive. It's exotic. What does exoticism have to do with fasting? And can cabbage and beans be considered lean foods if they turn people into firecrackers? And not just in a figurative sense.

During fasting, a person should think more about God and less about food. This means that the food should be such that you don’t have to look after it, like a capricious and inaccessible girl. Bought. Prepared. Ate. We are working. Food should be cheap, accessible, nutritious and not destroy the will to live. Anyone who has seen lean semolina porridge understands what I am talking about. So if you cook something by adding milk or egg or even chicken broth, I don't see anything wrong. The main thing is that everything should be modest and simple. It is believed that such things cannot be said to Russians, because Russian people are prone to extremes. However, it seems to me that all this is not about Russian people, but about poorly educated people. Fasting is always accompanied by moderation and restraint. Fasting should cultivate this restraint. Restraint, but not paranoia about the “sinful ingredients” found on the label.

God doesn't care what we eat. Unless, of course, it is the blood of babies or panda meat.

We abstain from food for ourselves, for our own benefit, for spiritual exercise. That’s why Elder Pavel (Gruzdev) often repeated to his children: “No one goes to hell for food.”

Fasting, its structure, dynamics, quality or list of products are not the subject of dogma, that is, creed. This is a question related, for example, to the geography, ethnography, history and tradition of this particular society living in a particular place and at a particular time. What is self-evident and acceptable for a Greek who grew up on the shores of a warm sea is not suitable for a resident of the Far North, who has missed the sun and warmth since childhood. If we think of our faith as universal, that is, ready to be accepted by all humanity in all the diversity of its cultures, races, peoples, languages ​​and customs, we should formulate the dogmas and canons of our faith in a universally acceptable way. With us, it turns out the opposite: we think of our faith very small, as a worldview of the marginalized, which in its size does not fit all of humanity.

They say that Academician Kurchatov at the new institute did not allow pedestrian paths to be laid. He waited and watched.

“Let people trample it themselves, and then we will lay out these paths with slabs.”

Traditions should be treated with care and caution. But often I saw how people paved their own paths, and the sidewalks laid out by the authorities became overgrown with grass. Fasting is for man, not man for fasting. In determining Lenten regulations, one should look at things soberly and realistically, not inventing oneself and the parishioners, but carefully looking at those who are nearby.

And let the bookworms eat letters in fasting.

Church journalism is a boring activity. It's always very crowded here. Don't turn around. All our magazines, newspapers and websites start out bright and impetuous, and then begin to doze and “deflate”. A journalist needs the scope and freshness of a topic, but in the world of Orthodoxy everything is predetermined and prescribed. No, not a vigilant censor, but simply a church calendar. And we circle around this calendar like a horse in the arena - every time the same topics, faces, questions and interrogations. Open any church publication: a sermon for the current holiday or a gospel reading. There are few good authors in these genres, and even fewer subjects on which they write, because everything is from Scripture, and this is one book. Church news also revolves around the calendar: anniversaries, holiday services, concerts on the occasion, conferences on the occasion. Everything is predictable in the literal sense - most often, an experienced journalist manages to predict and even pre-write what will be said and written and how. There is also a whole range of “spiritual” topics. Here it’s most often about struggle – with passions, with children, husbands, Freemasons. You see, I’m already starting to joke. And there is no crime in this. I'm joking, but without irritation. Church life is conservative by its very nature, and calendar certainty and extremes are good and correct. And the fact that we feel cramped should actually stimulate the author to hone his skills, to make creative efforts, so that even through the needle gates of church predestination he can bring in and out wonderful animals.

What a shame that for many it is hidden! I always tell my students what to pay attention to in a particular service, what texts to read in advance, what moment of the service to look forward to with trepidation and delight. After all, many amazing church hymns are performed only once a year, and what a pity it is to miss them! Therefore, there is a need for some kind of “guide to Lent.”

And most importantly. I really wanted to somehow alleviate the plight of the “martyrs of Lent,” people who were crippled by the Lenten church experience only because they “caught” it in a distorted and inauthentic form. I have seen many such people, and I myself was one of them. These are victims of misunderstanding and abuse, which does not abolish the use.

Since I myself do not like systematic presentation - I doze and yawn - I chose writing as the most acceptable genre for the “science of lean beauty.” The Great Lent of 2017 was unexpectedly cheerful and stormy for me, since every day I sat down at the table to write another Lenten letter, which by morning already appeared in the window of the Orthodoxy and World website. It seemed to me that all this would end very soon and that I would not go beyond the first week of Lent, but it turned out that the letters were necessary not only for the readers, but also for myself. Lenten letters became a spiritual exercise for me, a self-report on the results of my church service. The purpose of this ministry is to comfort people and infect them with the joy that only Christ can give. The source of our joy is Christ’s Easter – a full-flowing and never-failing source. When thinking about Lent, I always looked at Easter, because only in Easter is the meaning of Lent. Therefore, Lenten letters speak not so much about fasting, but about how to discern Easter in every liturgical gesture of the Lenten service and become infected with its joy, consolation and beauty.

At the center of our church year is Easter. It stands not just as an elusively floating date, but also as an impressive semantic structure. You could even say this:

In the beginning there was Easter. And Easter was with God. And God was Easter. Everything happened from Easter, and without Easter nothing would have happened that was.

How is the Church alive? Easter. From Easter, like ripples on water, our theological impulses, church regulations, and liturgical rules diverge in all directions. They come from Easter, returning to Easter, again closing and converging in this bright and joyful Mystery.

What is Easter? This question cannot be answered once and for all. This question cannot be closed. We answer it every year. We have been looking for an answer for a very long time, each for himself and all together. This question is the meaning of Lent. Lent is a long, seven-week period of the entire Church answering the question: “What is Easter?” An ongoing unfinished action. Unfinished, but crowned with the answer: “Truly he is risen!”

Great Lent is the work of the entire Church. You cannot “fast to yourself.” Great Lent is not my personal business, not the personal business of the patriarch or priest, it is our common business. How to call this matter in one word? God-thinking. Great Lent is an event of contemplation of God for all Orthodox Christians, without exception. None of the Orthodox Christians should remain outside of fasting, that is, outside the work of contemplating the Passion and Easter. The 69th canon of the holy apostles speaks about this: “Whoever does not fast on Holy Pentecost before Easter, or on Wednesday, or on Friday, except for the obstacle of bodily weakness , let him be cast out. If he is a layman, let him be excommunicated.”

Don’t you want to be excommunicated from church communion? Fast.

What if I just can’t eat this! I just can't stand it!

It is for the sake of such questions that it is worth looking for the final meaning of the Lenten order. Abstinence from food is not the purpose of fasting or even its meaning. Fasting is not about food.

The purpose of fasting is the thought of God about the Passion and Resurrection.

Abstinence from food - means, not the goal or even the distinctive feature of fasting, it is a certain method that promotes this thought of God, the contemplation of meanings. Thus, fasting has two aspects - central and subordinate. Abstinence from food and other restrictions are official character in relation to the main task of fasting - pan-church thinking about God.

What does this arrangement of emphasis give us? Thought of God is the main thing, abstinence from food is auxiliary, subordinate, not absolute. Lenten abstinence strategies may vary. Not every person will find abstinence from fish or milk conducive to contemplative work. For some, these ascetic experiences, on the contrary, will distract them from contemplation. Unreasonable fasting should not become an obstacle to contemplation of God, just like licentiousness or carelessness in abstinence. Fasting is for man, not man for fasting.

Criterion for Lenten restrictions: what would I not allow myself to do if I were contemplating the Passion of Christ? This is a simple question. It clarifies a lot in our church statutes, removing a whole bunch of empty questions. You must start from it when you try to determine your measure of ascetic effort. If you want to determine your measure of fasting, ask yourself again: what would I not allow myself to do if I were contemplating the Passion of Christ? There are people who cannot swear or lie if there are icons in the room. In church we instinctively, without saying a word, speak in a whisper. In the temple we are tamed by sacred space. Through Lent we are harnessed by sacred time. If during holy weeks I indulge in the thought of God, can I also have fun at a feast or watch a comedy? It's very simple.