A fasting person undergoes a ritual of purification of spirit and body through the refusal of pleasures, including fast food. However, during the fast, there are also days of relaxation. Most often, they fall on church holidays. On these days, believers are allowed to eat fish and some fish products.
Instructions
Step 1
The general system of fasts was established by the Russian Orthodox Church as early as 1166. Their total duration is 200 days a year. Posts are divided into multi-day and one-day posts. During the year, believers hold four multi-day fasts: Great, Petrovsky, Rozhdestvensky and Uspensky. One-day fasts are observed on Wednesday and Friday every week, on Epiphany Eve, on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist and the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord.
Step 2
Wednesday and Friday are called fast days. Moreover, in the period between the summer Peter and Dormition fasts, as well as in the fall before the Nativity Lent, these days are strict fasts, that is, they prohibit the consumption of fish, meat and dairy products. In the winter meat-eater between Christmas and Great Lent, as well as in the spring before Petrov Lent, boiled food, vegetable oil and fish are allowed. Fish products are also prohibited on the day of the Beheading of John the Baptist and the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord.
Step 3
Petrov, or Apostolic, fasting begins a week after the Holy Trinity. According to the regulations, fish is allowed only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on weekends, when the light fast begins. The method for preparing fish products includes boiling, stewing, baking and frying in vegetable oil. In the days of the Assumption Lent, the mother of Jesus Christ Mary is commemorated. This post is stricter than Petrov. Fish dishes are allowed to be consumed only once, on the feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.
Step 4
The Nativity Fast always begins on the same day, November 28, and lasts for forty days until January 6, when Christmas Eve is celebrated. This post is inferior in severity to the Assumption and the Great. Fish and fish products that can be consumed with vegetable oil and wine are allowed on Saturday and Sunday.
Step 5
The strictest and longest fast of all is the Great. It precedes the onset of the great church holiday - Easter. Great Lent begins seven weeks before the holiday and consists of the Forty Day proper, that is, four weeks, and Holy Week. Forty days symbolizes the life of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth and his stay in the desert for 40 days, and Passion Week is dedicated to the memory of the last days of earthly life, suffering, death and burial of Jesus Christ. Believers refuse dairy products, poultry, and meat during all the days of fasting. And only two holidays involve the use of fish, vegetable oil and wine - the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos (only if this day does not fall on Holy Week) and Palm Sunday. And on Lazarev Saturday it is allowed to taste fish caviar.
