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Great Lent (40 days) and Holy Week (seven days) Nativity Fast (40 days) Apostles' Fast (variable length) Dormition Fast (two weeks) Fast of Nineveh (three days) called Saint Sargis the General's fast in the Armenian Apostolic Church; Wednesdays and Fridays are also fast days throughout the year (with the exception of fast-free periods).
Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, [1] 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.
Great Lent, or the Great Fast (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή, Megali Tessarakosti or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, Megali Nisteia, meaning "Great 40 Days", and "Great Fast", respectively), is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity.
We have determined to establish publicly in this Mother City of Rome (in hac alma Urbe) an uninterrupted course of prayer in such wise that in the different churches (he specifies the various categories), on appointed days, there be observed the pious and salutary devotion of the Forty Hours, with such an arrangement of churches and times that ...
The early Christian form is known as the Black Fast: "eating only once a day, toward evening; nothing else except a little water was taken all day". [15] This was the normative way of Christian fasting prior to the 8th century A.D. and is still kept by some of the faithful to this day, especially during Lent. [15]
Fasting traditionally presaged a great spiritual struggle. [26] Elijah and Moses in the Old Testament fasted 40 days and nights, and thus Jesus doing the same invites comparison to these events. In Judaism, "the practice of fasting connected the body and its physical needs with less tangible values, such as self-denial and repentance."
The Eastern fast runs for 40 days instead of four (in the Roman Rite) or six weeks (Ambrosian Rite) and thematically focuses on proclamation and glorification of the Incarnation of God, whereas the Western Advent focuses on three comings (or advents) of Jesus Christ: his birth, reception of his grace by the faithful, and his Second Coming or ...
The Nativity Fast (Advent or Winter Lent) is the 40 days preceding the Nativity of Jesus on 29 Koiak (January 7, which also falls on 28 Koiak in leap years). The 40 days correspond to the 40 days that Moses fasted on the mountain before receiving the Ten Commandments from God, which were at that time considered the word of God to his people.