tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6552578611301457778.post1044986880035221240..comments2023-10-24T16:14:33.447+01:00Comments on And in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: The Rules of FastingMiklagardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03901360518316266140noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6552578611301457778.post-66594001664473399802013-03-14T13:57:30.806+00:002013-03-14T13:57:30.806+00:00Ironically, I find that the more rigorous the fast...Ironically, I find that the more rigorous the fast, the less open it is to pharisaism and pedantry. Take the thing about oil for example - it is the rule most commonly ignored and considered to be the most pedantic, and yet no oil means you have to buy vegetables and fruits and cook simple food from scratch. No reading ingredients, no soy-substitutes that look and taste exactly like the foods you're trying to avoid, no worrying about rules, hardly any thinking about food at all. Simple and cheap, you save your thoughts for prayer and your money for the poor, which is what fasting should be.Miklagardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03901360518316266140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6552578611301457778.post-68526262291516011782013-03-14T13:30:46.411+00:002013-03-14T13:30:46.411+00:00I have to say, from my experience, one of the grea...I have to say, from my experience, one of the great stumbling blocks as far as fasting is concerned is not rigour, but the complexity of the rules (which days you can eat this or that, plus exceptions when a feast day falls on such and such a day). Most people do not have a life structured around the hours etc. It becomes so overwhelming, and, in the end, so focused on food (even if that was not the initial intention) that people just can't be bothered.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6552578611301457778.post-55184843454876559332013-03-14T12:47:28.626+00:002013-03-14T12:47:28.626+00:00"One meal a day after Vesper" is not onl..."One meal a day after Vesper" is not only a monastic rule, it's just that nowadays that's pretty much the only place where it's followed, so there's nothing inconsistent as such (Met. Kallistos' definition of xerophagy seems a bit off though). Fasting until the ninth hour was standard also for laypeople in the early church - from what I understand, in the Western Church there was no abstinence from certain foods, only a total fast until the 9th hour. That, essentially, is 'fasting'. What most Orthodox Christians observe today is 'abstinence', most only fasting before Holy Communion and perhaps a couple of other days during the year (e.g. Good Friday).Miklagardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03901360518316266140noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6552578611301457778.post-82801967760696123882013-03-14T12:36:08.548+00:002013-03-14T12:36:08.548+00:00Seems a bit of a mish-mash to me. On the one hand ...Seems a bit of a mish-mash to me. On the one hand things like "one meal in the day - after vespers" sound like established rules of the communal monastic life, but things like "meat is permitted" clearly don't.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com