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Today, Roman Catholics receive ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads, helping mark the beginning of their Lent, a season of fasting in preparation for Easter.
For about 50 members of St. Elias Orthodox Church, preparation for their Great Lent began three weeks ago, and the Lenten season begins Monday.
Perhaps more than in any other Christian tradition, fasting plays a major role in the lives of Orthodox Christians. On a calendar from St. Elias, on Copeland Avenue, pink marks the days of fasting throughout the year. Almost all Wednesdays and Fridays are pink. A block of pink in June marks the 10-day Apostle Fast. The 14-day Dormition Fast is in August. The 40-day Nativity Fast begins in November.
The Rev. John Chagnon, the priest at St. Elias, said part of the reason to fast is simply to do what’s always been done.
“It is tradition, keeping the pattern of faith throughout time,” said Chagnon, 45, who also works as activity coordinator at Parkwood Shores, an assisted living facility just outside of Minneapolis. “We’re not particularly innovative. Our job as Orthodox is to take the faith that is given to us and preserve it intact for the next generation.”
Before Great Lent begins, four Sundays prepare the Orthodox for the Fast. The first two focus on humility and repentance. The next Sunday, Meatfare Sunday, is the last day church members eat meat. And the following Sunday, which this year falls on March 5, is called Cheesefare Sunday. After that day, the next 40 days are spent fasting from meat and dairy products, with certain days of fasting entirely.
While fasting helps give structure to the Orthodox tradition throughout time, it also helps in two other ways, according to the members of St. Elias.
The first is social: Fasting helps the faithful empathize with those who spend their whole lives hungry.
“Imagine if you could have half the planet leave off meat,” said Dennis Costakos, 47, president of St. Elias and director of neonatology at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center.
“There’d be that much more food to go around,” he said. “When you think of humanity today, we’re either eating way too much or you turn on the TV and you see those without enough to eat.”
Fasting is also a spiritual discipline.
As a Lutheran, Edie Storey, 58, had always found fasting more central to her spirituality than it was for her church in general. When her son died in a drowning accident in July 1996, her anger and grief made her consider stop being a Christian. Her Lutheran pastor sent her to an Orthodox pastor for counseling, and that winter Storey participated in the Great Fast.
The experience, Storey said, helped her understand Jesus’s sacrifice, because her own son had died but saved her grandson in the process. In the front of her Bible, she wrote the words she heard in her heart at the end of that year’s fast: “Count your suffering a blessing. It is a means or vehicle for God to reveal his grace and mercy.”
Storey and her husband, Bob, joined the Orthodox Church in 2000.
“There’s more to the fast than just abstaining from foods,” said Storey. “There’s prayer, not concentrating as much on self as looking to God.”
Chagnon agrees.
“Spiritually, it allows us to redirect our focus off of ourselves and feeding our hungers,” said Chagnon. “We live for God, we live for others, and find ourselves in the process.”
Joe Orzo can be reached at jorso@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8429.
ROMAN CATHOLIC
EASTERN ORTHODOX
