The first universal precept of any Lenten season is fasting. The Orthodox teaching concerning fasting is somewhat different from the Roman Catholic viewpoint and it is essential to understand it fully. Roman Catholics tend to identify fasting more as a “good deed.” They see in it a sacrifice which earns us “merit.” The question, “What shall I give up for Lent?” is very typical of such an attitude towards fasting, making it a formal obligation, an act of obedience to the Church.

The Orthodox Church’s concept of fasting is more akin to an “ascetical effort.” Fasting is the means of subduing the physical, fleshly human aspect for the spiritual one (i.e. the “natural” to the “supernatural”).  Limitations in food are of course instrumental, but are never seen as ends in themselves. Rather they help to keep us more focused on our spiritual relationship with Christ. Because it is a means of reaching a spiritual goal, it therefore becomes an integral part of a much wide spiritual effort. Fasting, in the Orthodox understanding, includes more than abstinence from certain types of foods. It implies prayer, silence, meditation, an attempt to be charitable, kind, and – in one word – spiritual. As we sing in church, “Brethren, while fasting bodily, let us also fast spiritually!”