Conscious Understanding of Fasts
Meatfare Sunday
1 Corinthians 8:8-13; 9:1-2; Matthew 25:31-46
The eminent Ukrainian historian Mykola Kostomarov, a friend of T. Shevchenko (1817-85), researched historical events of past centuries in Ukrainian lands as well as some other regions of the Russian Empire. He was a professor at the universities of Kyiv and St. Petersburg.
M. Kostomarov’s studies were renowned for their meticulous research, with historical events corroborated by documentary evidence that could not be disputed. While studying the uprising of the famous rebel Stepan Razin (1670-71), he clarified the reasons why the Cossacks, serf peasants, and "service people" joined Razin’s forces.
Kostomarov found in the interrogation records under torture that one peasant fled to Razin’s “barricade” because he was beaten and tortured following accusations that he had allegedly eaten meat during the "Peter's fast".
Strange? - Strange and frightening, what a primitive, crude understanding of the Church-established fasts can lead to. The Church of Christ, concerned with the spiritual, moral, and physical health of its faithful, established fasts like a loving mother, not as some punisher. The establishment of fasts was also an imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ, who fasted for 40 days before beginning His preaching of the Gospel (Matthew 4:2).
At the same time, the need for fasting was dictated by the conscience and awareness of the collective believing Church of Christ, to heal people's spiritual and physical weaknesses. When establishing certain fasts, the Church never intended for people to be punished with physical torments for not observing those fasts, as it was in Russia.
Physical fasting, including abstaining from meat and the consumption of animal fats, is primarily beneficial for the physical health of every healthy person, helps to prevent various bodily ailments, and also serves as an auxiliary means for self-restraint in moral behavior and in attaining spiritual heights.
Nowadays, doctors often prescribe a diet, which is actually a kind of bodily fasting that treats various bodily diseases and infirmities.
We will talk in greater detail about fasting in a week, when the time of Great Lent (Fast) comes. Today, the Sunday called Meatfare Sunday is the last Sunday when Orthodox Christians may eat meat before Easter. But the Church of Christ, warning the faithful about the coming Lent (Fast), simultaneously makes it clear in an excerpt from today’s passage read out from The First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians that the main thing in fasting is not food:
“food does not commend us to God,” says the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 8:8).
Abstinence--from meat and animal fat--does not make us spiritually perfect; for that, we need a virtuous life, works of faith to manifest spiritual perfection, prayers, spiritual deepening and understanding of the path to unity in God for all of us through the Sacraments.
In this epistle (letter), the Apostle Paul is not speaking simply about the consumption of meat, but about the consumption of meat from "idol sacrifices" that were offered in pagan temples. In the early years of the development of the Christian Church, as in the first three centuries after Christ, it was often the case that Christians were forced to consume the meat of idol sacrifices offered in pagan temples (to Zeus-Jupiter, Aphrodite, etc.). Some Christians, to avoid persecution, agreed to consume the meat of these idol sacrifices. They believed that they were consuming only ordinary meat as food, and that the act of eating meat itself was not a sin, and that by eating it they were not renouncing Christ.
And the holy Apostle Paul testifies that indeed meat, like any food,
“does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.” (1 Cor. 8:8).
But at the same time, the Apostle Paul warns that a "knowing" conscious Christian who is present at a meal in a pagan shrine and eats the meat of idol sacrifices, as he can, (but for outward show), can cause a weaker one in faith to stumble - because he will accept his presence in that shrine as a denial of Christ and the only God, and will himself renounce the faith of Christ and perish spiritually.
“And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?” (1 Cor. 8:11).
Thus, the free behavior of a conscious Christian can lead to sinfulness and the ruin of the souls of his neighbours. That is why the apostle says further: "But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ." That is why the apostle Paul concludes:
“Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.”
(1 Cor. 8:12-13)
Based on that conclusion of the Apostle Paul, from the earliest times, Christian groups were formed in the Church that completely refused to eat meat and regarded other Christians who consumed meat with contempt, considering them sinners.
There have also been and still are sects that not only abstain from meat but also from fish, consuming only plant-based food — these are the so-called vegetarians. There was a time when the Church Council even adopted a canon prohibiting the ordination of vegetarians to the sacred rank of priest — not because they do not eat meat, but because they regard other Christians who consume meat with pride and disdain.
There is also a canon adopted at the provincial Council of the Church in Neoceasarea in 315, later confirmed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 680, which states:
“If anyone practices fasting on Sunday as an ascetic exercise, let him be accursed (anathema).”
(Canon XVIII, The Rudder, p. 529).
This is based on the fact that Sunday is the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, therefore, it is a joyful day, and thus it is not appropriate to fast on that day.
We, of course, must understand that such a decree is not a dogma, not God's law, but an understanding and rule of the Church, which was adopted in certain life circumstances to eradicate the pride and contempt of ascetics for other Christians, and, thereby, to eradicate sinful beliefs and attitudes towards others, for the spiritual healing of individual faithful of the Church.
In our circumstances, all physically healthy people can observe certain norms of bodily fasting in food in order to tame (curb) their bodily passions in order to gain spiritual virtues and actions in life. If someone feels that due to hard work, he cannot fast all weekdays, he can set (or accept) two days, Wednesday and Friday, as established by the Church.
But we must consciously decide that we will not take part in any in any merrymaking, weddings with dancing during Lent. We live among people of other faiths, we may be invited to various events, but we need to say:
“Excuse me, but according to my faith, I am observing the Great Fast (Lent), and my religious conscience does not allow me to violate the rules of my church.”
People will treat us with understanding and respect if we honour the prescriptions of our Church. Even if you think you need to attend an event and pay your respects, you can go and stay for the dinner, but no more... In no case should we remain among those dancing and making merry.
Dancing itself, like eating, is not a sin. But when we entertain our bodies, amuse ourselves during Lent-- at a time when our whole Church is in prayer, when we are preparing ourselves for unity with God, when the whole Church imitates the Lord Jesus Christ in the forty-day fast, when the Church fasts in honouring the suffering of Christ--we are consciously adding to sin, for we are separating ourselves from the community of the Church.
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
