Fasting 002: What is fasting?

In a previous post, I discussed a principle of the Typikon by which the measure of fasting for monastics and laity differs only in terms of the complete dispensation from fasting - an occasion on which laity feast on meat while monks are satisfied with eggs and cheese. In other words, if we propose that monastics do not eat meat not as a matter of fasting, but as a matter of lifestyle, then the Typikon does not make any distinctions in fasting rules for laity and monastics, with one or two notable exceptions to be discussed in a future post. But what exactly is fasting? Does this strange and at times obsessive fascination with the culinary “ladder of divine ascent” - from meat to cheese, from fish to oil, and from wine to water - is this the correct way to understand the Typikon, and is this what fasting is?

In a modern Orthodox context, fasting typically and sadly almost always has come to mean abstinence from certain kinds of foods, such as meat, eggs and milk products, fish, oil, etc. Perhaps the strictest fasting day of the entire year, Great and Holy Friday, is usually observed as complete abstinence from food and drink until the bringing out of the Shroud, an icon of Christ’s lifeless Body taken down from the cross, which happens in most parish churches sometime between two and three o’clock in the afternoon. After this service, according to one source, one may eat only “stale bread and raw water” (that is to say, not boiled). Setting such curiosities aside for the moment, let us examine what fasting actually is.

In the most immediate sense, fasting is