Three day fast for communion

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jgress
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Three day fast for communion

Post by jgress »

Dear in Christ,

I am doing some research into the question of whether the three-day fast for communion is a genuine part of Tradition or not. Please could anyone who reads this tell me whether your parish or monastery requires a pre-communion fast, how many days you have to fast, and which jurisdiction you are in. I know there will be individual variation in observation of the fast, depending on the instructions of your confessor, but I'm interested in what the overall guidelines are in your church.

Jonathan

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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by jgress »

Actually, my understanding is that new calendarists typically do not fast before communion and receive every Sunday. This is because the hierarchs have followed the thinking of Fr John Romanides, who thought anyone who attended liturgy and didn't receive was a heretic simply for not receiving. Certainly, every new calendarist church I've been to gives this impression: EVERYBODY lines up to receive, along with their make-up, tattoos, dreadlocks, sleeveless tops etc. Perhaps some isolated conservative pockets, like the Ephraimites, fast, but they are the exception, not the rule.

As for the Kirykites, their problem is not that they fast, but that their Metropolitan has forbidden spiritual fathers from exercising any discretion over how much fasting to require of their spiritual children. Everyone in his jurisdiction must keep a strict fast from the preceding Monday, without exception. This is an inappropriately strict interpretation of the rules, but such an aberration does not in any way prove that the pre-communion fast is itself an aberration.

My own thinking on this issue is that if you are not willing to fast every time you receive, then you are probably not worthy to receive frequently without special fasting. Even if you argue that there are no canons requiring a pre-communion fast, that is basically like arguing you shouldn't make the sign of the Cross, because there is no written requirement for it. The Panteleimonites actually seem to think they are following a stricter practice by NOT fasting and by receiving every Sunday. People shouldn't fool themselves into thinking that by not fasting, they are actually returning to a stricter earlier practice, as if not fasting were somehow a manifestation of strictness rather than economy. Clearly, they are not fasting because they are too weak to do so.

Anyway, at least the written Slavic typicon requires fasting from the previous Monday for those who wish to receive on Sunday. I imagine this rule is not usually enforced as strictly today, but again, clearly we are seeing a condescension to people's weakness, not a manifestation of super-correctness. What I see with all this anti-fasting stuff is excuses to get out of the inconvenience of actually having to make an EFFORT and PREPARE oneself spiritually AND bodily to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord. Oh dear perish the thought!

On objection that makes some sense to me is: why don't priests fast before Communion? One reason, I suppose, is that they HAVE to receive every Sunday when they liturgize as part of their priestly duties. So it would put an unreasonable burden on them if they had to fast for three days EVERY week, which would really mean they would only eat normally on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. However, Stavros Markou said that priests and monks actually should fast for at least a day or a half a day before receiving (if he's reading this, I'd appreciate his input). If priests don't fast at all, perhaps their bishop gave them permission to do so, but again, this is a relaxation of an earlier stricter practice where, at least on the preceding Saturday, at lunch they would go without meat and perhaps cheese, and in the evening meal would go without oil. If priests really cannot fulfill this (e.g. because of health issues), I can see why their bishop would relax the rule, but if they are just unwilling to keep even this little extra fast every week, I wonder if they are really worthy of the priesthood. Priests are meant to live by stricter standards than laypeople in any case, so why not by going without meat three days, rather than two days a week?

As to the oil on Saturday thing, I imagine that depends on the piety of the individual. Most of what I've read and heard tells me: if you will receive on Sunday, then no oil on Thursday and Friday (you shouldn't eat oil on Friday anyway, of course). On Saturday, you can have oil at lunch, but not in the evening. I've heard things about people sprinkling a few drops of oil on their oil-less food in order not to break the canon against fasting on Saturday. Either that is simply pious behavior, and shouldn't be condemned, or else it is a superstitious interpretation of the canons against fasting on Saturday. As far as I know, it's not that you HAVE to eat oil on Saturday, but that you CAN if you want. The canons were enacted because some bishops, especially in the West, were actually compelling everybody to fast strictly every Saturday in preparation for liturgy on Sunday, but the Eastern bishops were adamant that Saturday was still a holy day (the Sabbath), and strict fasting was not required. Of course, during the four fasts SOME fasting is always required even on Saturday and Sunday; it's just less strict than on weekdays.

Even those luminaries, like St Nicodemus of Athos, who thought even laymen should commune every Sunday, also thought you should prepare by fasting. All those saints who complain about those who only receive two or three times a year speak of their 'sloth' and 'indifference'. If you don't have to fast at all, how is it slothful not to receive, or how is it especially virtuous to receive every Sunday? All you have to do is get in line; no big effort there. The older advocates of frequent communion clearly envisioned the preparation for communion as a STRUGGLE, and were chastising their fellow believers for not struggling hard enough to receive more frequently. By removing the struggle from receiving, the new advocates of frequent communion are acting in the complete opposite spirit of the older advocates.

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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by GOCPriestMark »

jgress wrote:

As for the Kirykites, their problem is not that they fast, but that their Metropolitan has forbidden spiritual fathers from exercising any discretion over how much fasting to require of their spiritual children. Everyone in his jurisdiction must keep a strict fast from the preceding Monday, without exception. This is an inappropriately strict interpretation of the rules, but such an aberration does not in any way prove that the pre-communion fast is itself an aberration.

Please excuse me Jonathan, but I think you may only have heard of one specific case involving one specific priest, (now a former priest). As far as I can remember, everytime I ask Metropolitan Kirykos a pastoral question, he gives me guidlines and then says, "It is up to your discretion".

jgress wrote:

Anyway, at least the written Slavic typicon requires fasting from the previous Monday for those who wish to receive on Sunday.

Can you point me to a copy of this typicon? Is it on-line? I would like to see it, (I can have someone translate it for me).

jgress wrote:

I've heard things about people sprinkling a few drops of oil on their oil-less food in order not to break the canon against fasting on Saturday. Either that is simply pious behavior, and shouldn't be condemned, or else it is a superstitious interpretation of the canons against fasting on Saturday. As far as I know, it's not that you HAVE to eat oil on Saturday, but that you CAN if you want. The canons were enacted because some bishops, especially in the West, were actually compelling everybody to fast strictly every Saturday in preparation for liturgy on Sunday, but the Eastern bishops were adamant that Saturday was still a holy day (the Sabbath), and strict fasting was not required. Of course, during the four fasts SOME fasting is always required even on Saturday and Sunday; it's just less strict than on weekdays.

What canon against fasting on Saturdays are you refering to? Would it be Canon 64 of the Holy Apostles? If so, I would suggest re-reading the 'interpretation' in the Rudder carefully.

==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==

Priest Mark Smith
British Columbia

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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by jgress »

Forgive me, Father. I was only repeating what I had heard from Stavros Markou and his information may be incorrect. My point was not to spread gossip about Met Kirykos but to point out with an example that, while the three-day rule should be taken seriously, it shouldn't be treated as binding on everybody without exception.

My source for the Slavic Typicon is the article by Vladimir Moss on frequency of communion. He writes:

"In a sixteenth-century addition to the Russian version of the Typicon of the Monastery of St. Savvas of Jerusalem we read: “When one wishes to commune of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, one must keep the entire week, from Monday, in fasting, prayer and complete sobriety in every way, and then, with fear and great compunction receive the All-Holy Mysteries.” (chapter 32, “Concerning Communion of Christ’s Mysteries”)." (source: Stavros Markou)

I haven't been able to find a complete English translation of the Slavic Typikon online. There is ongoing translation project here:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/typikon/

but they haven't translated chapter 32 yet. The Slavonic can be found here:

http://www.orthlib.info/Typikon/Typikon.html

I can't really read Slavonic, but I was able to identify the relevant paragraph on page 2 of the .pdf, so Stavros appears to be correct. You may want to get someone to translate it, in any case.

Yes, I think I see your point about the 64th Apostolic Canon:

  1. If any one of the clergy be found to fast on the Lord’s day, or on the Sabbath-day, excepting one only, let him be deprived; but if he be one of the laity, let him be suspended.

The language is pretty unambiguous. I had been told by a hieromonk in my church that one is not absolutely required to eat oil on Saturday, but perhaps he was mistaken. I haven't yet gotten a chance to read the Rudder's commentary, but I will do so as soon as possible.

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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by Suaidan »

Father Bless and Hi Johnathan:

A Father at the Abbey, where the Orthodox Western Rite is used, points out that there is usually some level of distinction made in the Orthodox West between fasting (not eating at all) and the abstaining from food. Not eating oil would technically be a form of abstinence, not fasting, and so he said technically, were the extended fast on Saturday simply limited to a strict abstention from food (no oil, et cetera) it would not be in violation of the canon. I hope I am not misquoting.

Since I don't know the details of this longer fast I reserve my right to withhold commentary; that said, I still have my reservations about a week long fast (if it is in fact a fast from all food proper.)

Fr Joseph Suaidan (Suaiden, same guy)

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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by Jean-Serge »

I will make some remarks :

  • some says that the 3-day fast before communion comes from the fact only priests entitled to hear confessions can do so in Greece, and during turcocracy, they were not so many. So people who could not confess fasted extra-days

  • as regards communion, laymen and priests are in no way different and have the same obligations regarding fasting. For instance, a priest who would not fast on Wednesday and Friday would be deposed, and a layman excomunnicated

-Some Fathers indicates Christians commune many times a week, like Saint Basil. If that neant fasting 3 days, they would be continuously fasting

Priidite, poklonimsja i pripadem ko Hristu.

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Maria
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Re: Three day fast for communion

Post by Maria »

When I was a member of the Greek Orthodox Church in Los Angeles under the EP, several Greek Orthodox Priests gave evening talks after Pre-Sanctified Liturgy during Great Lenten talks. One of their most popular topics was that of fasting in preparation for receiving Holy Communion. From what these priests said, it appears that many yiayias continue to teach wrongly that faithful Orthodox Christians need to fast three days or even a week before receiving Holy Communion, and had to confess during the week before receiving Holy Communion. The priests insisted that these yiayias were repeating village teachings that originated during the Ottoman times of persecution and that had nothing to do with what the Church actually taught. IOW, these were old wives tales that continue to be imposed on future generations by pious yiayias.

The history behind the three day or seven day Eucharist Fast as told to us by various Greek Orthodox priests:

During Ottoman times, people did not receive Holy Communion unless a hieromonk were to visit the village as many villages were totally without priests who could hear confessions and dispense the Eucharist. Since there were no seminaries, only monks trained in monasteries were ordained to the priesthood.

Simple married village priests or "Mass" priests were often the local devout farmers who were ordained without seminary training. These priests were not given "faculties" to hear confessions or to give sermons. Their purpose was to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, where they could partake of the Holy Eucharist, but they could not distribute Holy Communion to the faithful.

At great risk to their lives due to Islamic persecution, the few hieromonks (circuit priests) would visit these rural parishes about once or twice a year, and during that week would instruct the faithful, hear confessions, baptize the infants, anoint the sick, marry couples, bury the dead, and commune the faithful. When they came per a schedule known to the villagers, the people would prepare by prayer and fasting during the previous week.

Realize that without schools, many villagers were often illiterate. However, yiayias played a very important part by transmitting the faith to village children in secret religious schools. Unfortunately, superstitions like the Evil Eye, and uses of salt and garlic to dispel the Evil One were also taught.

Once the Greeks successfully ended the Ottoman rule over Greece, these traditions continued as there still remained a great shortage of hieromonks and educated married priests.

Nevertheless, St. Demetrios Church in New Jersey under the EP continues to hold to the three-day pre-communion fast:

Fasting: http://www.stdgocunion.org/fasting.html

Communion Fast: http://www.stdgocunion.org/holycommunion.html

In order to receive Holy Communion, a person has to fast at least three days or one week; there are circumstances that we fast 40 days like before Easter, before Christmas or 15 days before August 15th or before Christmas starting December 12th. There are also days that the Church asks from her faithful to fast one day only to honor the feast day or the eve of a feast day.

However, Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Little Rock, Arkanasa under the EP does not ask the faithful to fast for three days to one week before receiving Holy Communion: http://www.orthodoxchurch.com/orthodox_ ... communion/

To prepare for receiving Holy Communion, self-examination and fasting are required. It is expected that Orthodox Christians will genuinely seek to prepare their heart and soul for this great Gift of Christ with prayer and fasting during the week in anticipation of receiving the Eucharist. This means that at the very least, Orthodox men and women will not only follow a prayer rule during the course of the week, strive to study Scripture and genuinely strive to avoid sinning, but on Wednesdays and Fridays we will not consume meat or dairy. On the day we intend to receive the Sacrament, nothing can be eaten or drunk after waking in the morning (unless medically required) and we must attend the Divine Liturgy from the beginning of the service. For an evening Divine Liturgy or Presanctified Liturgy, it is suggested that we adhere to the strict fast for at least six hours prior.

Thus, it appears that even different Greek Orthodox dioceses within GOARCH have different practices.

As the various Greek Orthodox parishes under the EP have diverse Eucharist rules, what are the beliefs among True Orthodox?

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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