Great Lent
Great Lent, or the Great Fast, is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity. It is intended to prepare Christians for the greatest feast of the church year, Easter.
Great Lent shares its origins with the Lent of Western Christianity and has many similarities with it. There are some differences in the timing of Lent, besides calculating the date of Easter and how it is practiced, both liturgically in the public worship of the church and individually.
One difference between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity is the calculation of the date of Easter. Most years, the Eastern Pascha falls after the Western Easter, and it may be as much as five weeks later; occasionally, the two dates coincide. Like Western Lent, Great Lent itself lasts for forty days, but in contrast to the West, Sundays are included in the count while Holy Week is not.
Great Lent officially begins on Clean Monday, seven weeks before Pascha, and runs for 40 continuous days, concluding with the Presanctified Liturgy on Friday of the Sixth Week. The next day is called Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.
Fasting continues throughout the following week, known as Passion Week or Holy Week, and does not end until after the Paschal Vigil early in the morning of Pascha.
Purpose
The purpose of Great Lent is to prepare the faithful to not only commemorate, but to enter into the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. The totality of the Byzantine Rite life centers around the Resurrection. Great Lent is intended to be a "workshop" where the character of the believer is spiritually uplifted and strengthened; where their life is rededicated to the principles and ideals of the Gospel; where fasting and prayer culminate in deep conviction of life; where apathy and disinterest turn into vigorous activities of faith and good works.Lent is not for the sake of Lent itself, as fasting is not for the sake of fasting. Rather, these are means by which and for which the individual believer prepares himself to reach for, accept and attain the calling of their Savior. Therefore, the significance of Great Lent is highly appraised, not only by the monks who gradually increased the length of time of the Lent, but also by the lay people themselves. The Eastern Orthodox lenten rules are the monastic rules. These rules exist not as a Pharisaic law, "burdens grievous to be borne", but as an ideal to be striven for; not as an end in themselves, but as a means to the purification of heart, the enlightening of mind, the liberation of soul and body from sin, and the spiritual perfection crowned in the virtue of love towards God and man.
In the Byzantine Rite, asceticism is not exclusively for the "professional" religious, but for each layperson as well, according to their strength. As such, Great Lent is a sacred Institute of the Church to serve the individual believer in participating as a member of the Mystical Body of Christ. It provides each person an annual opportunity for self-examination and improving the standards of faith and morals in their Christian life. The deep intent of the believer during Great Lent is encapsulated in the words of Saint Paul: "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus".
Through spending more time than usual in prayer and meditation on the Holy Scripture and the Holy Traditions of the Church, the believer in Christ becomes through the grace of God more godlike. The emphasis towards this period differs somewhat from Western Christianity- the Eastern focus is less on repentance and more of an attempt to recapture humanity's original state.
History
The pattern of fasting and praying for 40 days is seen in the Christian Bible, on which basis the liturgical season of Lent was established. In the Old Testament, the prophet Moses went into the mountains for 40 days and 40 nights to pray and fast "without eating bread or drinking water" before receiving the Ten Commandments. Likewise, the prophet Elijah went into the mountains for 40 days and nights to fast and pray "until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God" when "the word of the Lord came to him". The early Christian bishop Maximus of Turin wrote that as Elijah by "fasting continuously for a period of forty days and forty nights...merited to extinguish the prolonged and severe dryness of the whole world, doing so with a stream of rain and steeping the earth's dryness with the bounty of water from heaven", in the Christian tradition, this is interpreted as being "a figure of ourselves so that we, also fasting a total of forty days, might merit the spiritual rain of baptism... a shower from heaven might pour down upon the dry earth of the whole world, and the abundant waters of the saving bath might saturate the lengthy drought of the Gentiles." In the New Testament, Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for 40 days and 40 nights; it was during this time that Satan tried to tempt him. The 40-day and night fasts of Moses, Elijah, and Jesus prepared them for their work.Early Christianity records the tradition of the Black Fast before Easter; for the meal of the day consumed after sunset, the Apostolic Constitutions permit the consumption of "bread, vegetables, salt and water, in Lent" with "flesh and wine being forbidden." The Canons of Hippolytus authorize only bread and salt to be consumed during Holy Week. The practice of fasting and abstaining from alcohol, meat and lacticinia during Lent thus became established in the Church.
Observance
Self-discipline
Observance of Great Lent is characterized by fasting and abstinence from certain foods, intensified private and public prayer, self-examination, confession, personal improvement, repentance and restitution for sins committed, and almsgiving. Fasting is defined as not consuming food or liquids until evening. In the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Black Fast is the normative way of fasting during Great Lent; these Oriental Orthodox Christians go without water and food from midnight to sunset; after that time, the consumption of water and one vegetarian meal is permitted.The Lenten supper that is eaten after the fast is broken in the evening must not include certain foods. Foods most commonly abstained from are meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, wine, and oil. According to some traditions, only olive oil is abstained from; in others, all vegetable oils. While wine and oil are permitted on Saturdays, Sundays, and a few feast days, and fish is permitted on Palm Sunday as well as the Annunciation when it falls before Palm Sunday, and caviar is permitted on Lazarus Saturday, meat and dairy are prohibited entirely until the fast is broken on Easter Sunday. Additionally, married Eastern Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians traditionally abstain from sexual relations during Lent "to give themselves time for fasting and prayer.".
Besides the additional liturgical celebrations described below, Christians are expected to pay closer attention to and increase their private prayer. According to Byzantine Rite theology, when asceticism is increased, prayer must be increased also. The Church Fathers have referred to fasting without prayer as "the fast of the demons" since the demons do not eat according to their incorporeal nature, but neither do they pray.
Liturgical observances
Great Lent is unique in that, liturgically, the weeks do not run from Sunday to Saturday, but rather begin on Monday and end on Sunday, and most weeks are named for the lesson from the Gospel which will be read at the Divine Liturgy on its concluding Sunday. This is to illustrate that the entire season is anticipatory, leading up to the greatest Sunday of all: Pascha.During the Great Fast, a special service book is used, known as the Lenten Triodion, which contains the Lenten texts for the Daily Office and Liturgies. The Triodion begins during the Pre-Lenten period to supplement or replace portions of the regular services. This replacement begins gradually, initially affecting only the Epistle and Gospel readings, and gradually increases until Holy Week when it entirely replaces all other liturgical material. During the Triduum even the Psalter is eliminated, and all texts are taken exclusively from the Triodion. The Triodion is used until the lights are extinguished before midnight at the Paschal Vigil, at which time it is replaced by the Pentecostarion, which begins by replacing the normal services entirely and gradually diminishes until the normal services resume following the Afterfeast of Pentecost.
On the weekdays of Great Lent, the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated, because the joy of the Eucharist is contrary to the attitude of repentance which predominates on these days. Since it is considered especially important to receive the Holy Mysteries during this season, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts—also called the Liturgy of St. Gregory the Dialogist— may be celebrated on weekdays.
This service starts with Vespers during which a portion of the Body and Blood of Christ, which was reserved the previous Sunday, is brought to the prothesis table. This is followed by a solemn great entrance where the Holy Mysteries are brought to the altar table, and then, skipping the anaphora, the outline of remainder of the divine liturgy is followed, including holy communion. Most parishes and monasteries celebrate this liturgy only on Wednesdays, Fridays and feast days, but it may be celebrated on any weekday of Great Lent.
Because the divine liturgy is not celebrated on weekdays, the Typica occupies its place in the canonical hours, whether or not a liturgy is celebrated at vespers. On Saturday and Sunday the Divine Liturgy may be celebrated as usual. On Saturdays, the usual Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is celebrated; on Sundays the longer Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great is used.
The services of the Canonical Hours are much longer during Great Lent and the structure of the services is different on weekdays. The usual evening small compline is replaced by the much longer service of Great Compline. While in the Russian tradition Great Compline is used on Friday night, in the Greek practice, ordinary Compline is used together with, on the first four weeks, a quarter of the Akathist to the Theotokos. On the fifth Saturday, known as the Saturday of the Akathist, everywhere, the entire Akathist is sung at Matins.
In “The Typikon Decoded”, Archbishop Job Getcha offers this comparison of the commemorations associated with the Sundays of Great Lent in the “Ancient Triodion”. These more ancient commemorations are retained in the hymnography still in use for the “Contemporary” Sundays of St Gregory Palamas, St John of the Ladder, and St Mary of Egypt. On each of these, the troparia of the 1st Canon at Matins reference the more ancient commemoration, the Prodigal Son, Good Samaritan, and the Rich Man and Lazarus respectively.
During Palm Week, between the Sunday of St Mary of Egypt and Lazarus Saturday, the 1st Canon at Matins on each weekday references the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus as a parallel to the Lazarus of Bethany who falls ill and is raised from the dead after four days in the tomb.
| Ancient Triodia | Contemporary Triodia |
| ' | ' |
| Sunday of the Holy Prophets | Sunday of Triumph of Orthodoxy |
| Sunday of the Prodigal Son | Sunday of St Gregory Palamas |
| Sunday of the Publican & Pharisee | Veneration of the Cross |
| Sunday of the Good Samaritan | Sunday of St John Climacus |
| Sunday of the Rich Man & Lazarus | Sunday of St Mary of Egypt |
| Palm Sunday | Palm Sunday |