Fasting 032: Changes to fasting rules

It has been almost a decade since the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council took place in Crete. Some may consider it a flop; others may hail some of its decisions as important in world Orthodoxy (albeit, these hails seem to be quite faint). The Russian Church, the largest by numbers and accounting for approximately half of all Orthodox Christians in the world, did not participate in the Council, and neither did the Churches of Antioch, Georgia, and Bulgaria. The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was not invited. Should the Good Lord tarry, there will be another council eventually, and the organizers may do a better job next time.

The first idea of convening a pan-Orthodox council may date as far back as 1902. In 1930, one of the earliest meetings of an inter-Orthodox preparatory committee was held on Mount Athos. Two World Wars later, in 1961, the preparations began in earnest with a meeting of a pan-Orthodox conference in Rhodes. In 1968, the preparatory committee met in Geneva and prepared drafts of some of the documents. One of those documents is of particular interest to our project; it is titled The harmonization of ecclesiastical rules on fasting with the requirements of modern life.¹

Unfortunately, what was adopted in 2016 is nowhere near as useful as what was proposed in 1968. The 2016 document titled The importance of fasting and its observance today consists of nine paragraphs, eight of which are little more than pious platitudes of no practical importance. Paragraph nine is the only one worth re-visiting here:

Fasting for three or more days prior to Holy Communion is left to the discretion of the piety of the faithful, according to the words of Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite: “… fasting before partaking of Communion is not decreed by the divine Canons. Nevertheless, those who are able to fast even a whole week before it, are doing the right thing” (Commentary of the 13^th canon of Sixth Ecumenical Council, Pedalion – English translation 307). However, the totality of the Church’s faithful must observe the holy fasts and the abstinence from food from midnight for frequent participation in Holy Communion, which is the most profound expression of the essence of the Church. The faithful should become accustomed to fasting as an expression of repentance, as the fulfillment of a spiritual pledge, to achieve a particular spiritual end in times of temptation, in conjunction with supplications to God, for adults approaching the sacrament of baptism, prior to ordination, in cases where penance is imposed, as well as during pilgrimages and other similar instances.

Abstain from food from midnight and become accustomed to fasting to achieve a particular spiritual end. (It is rather unfortunate that the latter clause is not elaborated.) While it is not necessarily completely useless to re-state the obvious from time to time, it is nonetheless disappointing that it took over a century of preparation and an elevated council convened at a great expense to remind the faithful that they should fast before Communion.

The 1968 document was far more interesting and useful. It was prepared by the Church of Serbia and included an overview of the fasting discipline beginning with pre-Christian times as well as a number of recommendations for the faithful of our time. We may return to the aforementioned overview in another post, for this overview is interesting in its own right, but for now, let us take a closer look at the practical recommendations: