Lent
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When I was a religious believer I was Eastern Orthodox. There were no real options about the minimum you were expected to give up for Great Lent. The dietary rule was that you were to abstain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil. (By dairy is really meant anything taken from an animal, so that category includes eggs. Wine is taken to include any alcoholic drink.) You're supposed to keep your food plain and simple, just what you need to sustain yourself and no luxury foods, and any money you save that you'd ordinarily spend on food you were to give to charity.
So basically, back in those days I went all carb, not no-carb. Always lost weight too, simply because I was eating less. Then Easter came and I'd put it all back on in fairly short order...Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox Christians make Lent easy to understand and uniform in practice.
Have things changed recently? My experience with Byzantine Catholics is that they followed the same Lenten rules as Roman Catholics, and abstained from meat only on Fridays during that season. That was several decades ago, and I know there's been a movement to return to something closer to traditional Eastern roots, so my experience may be out of date.2 -
My sister is Celtic Orthodox and she tried to explain the fasting rules during Lent to me but I don't remember them all. It just seemed complicated to me.0
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Avetotustuus wrote: »It is worth considering that during Lent, Catholics are expected to abstain from eating meat which might make this a challenging (and perhaps unhealthy) sacrifice to observe during Lent in light of what you are still going to be eating.
Only on Fridays (and you can still eat fish), but I wouldn't assume OP is Catholic anyway.
Historically Catholics abstained from meat (and various other things) for all of Lent, and that's one reason I like the no meat practice as part of my own observance, but Catholic rules these days are pretty light (as my friend who is Orthodox likes to tell me). ;-)4 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Avetotustuus wrote: »It is worth considering that during Lent, Catholics are expected to abstain from eating meat which might make this a challenging (and perhaps unhealthy) sacrifice to observe during Lent in light of what you are still going to be eating.
Only on Fridays (and you can still eat fish), but I wouldn't assume OP is Catholic anyway.
Historically Catholics abstained from meat (and various other things) for all of Lent, and that's one reason I like the no meat practice as part of my own observance, but Catholic rules these days are pretty light (as my friend who is Orthodox likes to tell me). ;-)
Your Orthodox friend may be spending Wednesdays and/or Fridays during Lent eating absolutely nothing at all until evening. It sounds like what Muslims do every day during Ramadan, but it's actually a tad more stringent. (If only for 1 or 2 days per week anyway.) On those days many Orthodox Christians receive communion at the Presanctified Liturgy, where a Host (the Orthodox call it a "Lamb") consecrated the previous Sunday is distributed. This takes place as part of a Lenten Vespers service, and it's typically well after dark by the time they're done. (Muslims in Ramadan get to feast as soon as the sun goes down.)
Well OK. Except that Orthodox also still keep the old-fashioned Eucharistic fast, eating and drinking nothing from midnight on prior to taking communion. So when they want to attend the Presanctified Liturgy, they go for quite a long time without allowing anything at all to pass their lips. This is followed by a Lenten supper, and usually some spiritual ascetic readings.
This will be part of what your Orthodox friend has in mind when he tells you that.0 -
They can't mean all carbs.
Even vegetables?0 -
When I was a religious believer I was Eastern Orthodox. There were no real options about the minimum you were expected to give up for Great Lent. The dietary rule was that you were to abstain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil. (By dairy is really meant anything taken from an animal, so that category includes eggs. Wine is taken to include any alcoholic drink.) You're supposed to keep your food plain and simple, just what you need to sustain yourself and no luxury foods, and any money you save that you'd ordinarily spend on food you were to give to charity.
So basically, back in those days I went all carb, not no-carb. Always lost weight too, simply because I was eating less. Then Easter came and I'd put it all back on in fairly short order...Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox Christians make Lent easy to understand and uniform in practice.
Have things changed recently? My experience with Byzantine Catholics is that they followed the same Lenten rules as Roman Catholics, and abstained from meat only on Fridays during that season. That was several decades ago, and I know there's been a movement to return to something closer to traditional Eastern roots, so my experience may be out of date.
The Byzantine I go to goes by the same Lenten rules as the Eastern Orthodox. Most of the parishoners are from the Middle East though, or descendants of, and are very traditionalist. I don't know if it makes a difference, as compared to the Russian and Eastern European Orthodox Lenten traditions.
For reference, we follow the Russian traditions (day 3 today) and lent lasts 7 weeks. First and last week involve one day of complete water fasting and abstaining from oil and cooking for most of the week, but bread is allowed. The weeks in between you are only allowed oil on Saturdays and Sundays, but you are allowed to cook (without oil) two other days a week. No animal products allowed on any day except for honey, and except for two specific days where you are allowed fish. Not sure how it compares to other traditions, but that's how my family does it.0 -
It doesn't make a difference as far as the original traditions, but it makes a great deal of difference in their American experience. Most Byzantine Catholic churches in the US are "Ruthenian" in origin; that is, Rusyn, an ethnic group similar to Ukrainian but a bit further West and who mostly lived outside the Russian Empire. "Byzantine Catholic" in the strict sense refers to the Archeparchy of Pittsburgh. This jurisdiction went through a huge wave of Westernization around the middle of the 20th century, to the point where older churches even ripped out their iconostasis (to replace them with a communion rail) and new parish churches were built without them. This trend started to reverse in the 1980s or so, but since by then most parishioners were 3rd or 4th generation Americans who had grown up with the Westernization, they had to re-learn their church's traditions in a kind of artificial way, so progress in restoring them was very slow. As I said, my knowledge of this is several decades old, and they may be farther ahead than I think in returning to their roots.When I was a religious believer I was Eastern Orthodox. There were no real options about the minimum you were expected to give up for Great Lent. The dietary rule was that you were to abstain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil. (By dairy is really meant anything taken from an animal, so that category includes eggs. Wine is taken to include any alcoholic drink.) You're supposed to keep your food plain and simple, just what you need to sustain yourself and no luxury foods, and any money you save that you'd ordinarily spend on food you were to give to charity.
So basically, back in those days I went all carb, not no-carb. Always lost weight too, simply because I was eating less. Then Easter came and I'd put it all back on in fairly short order...Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox Christians make Lent easy to understand and uniform in practice.
Have things changed recently? My experience with Byzantine Catholics is that they followed the same Lenten rules as Roman Catholics, and abstained from meat only on Fridays during that season. That was several decades ago, and I know there's been a movement to return to something closer to traditional Eastern roots, so my experience may be out of date.
The Byzantine I go to goes by the same Lenten rules as the Eastern Orthodox. Most of the parishoners are from the Middle East though, or descendants of, and are very traditionalist. I don't know if it makes a difference, as compared to the Russian and Eastern European Orthodox Lenten traditions.
Eastern-rite Catholics from the Middle East wouldn't have had this Westernizing experience, and would have brought their traditions over with them more or less intact.
How closely the Orthodox in America follow their older traditions can vary quite a lot between jurisdictions, and sometimes even between dioceses within jurisdictions.3 -
This thread is a fascinating education, thank you all.4
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »This thread is a fascinating education, thank you all.
More educational than catechism class.
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CattOfTheGarage wrote: »This thread is a fascinating education, thank you all.
It is indeed.
Apparently when my parents were choosing a wedding date (which they needed by a particular time because my Dad had got a new job and they were moving away) they went to see the vicar to discuss it and he told them that the date they had chosen fell during Lent and the ceremony would be very pared down. There would be no flowers in the church and no hymns would be sung (I don't know if this is common to other churches). Also the vicar told them that he usually only married people during Lent who **had** to get married.
The last thing my Mum wanted was nosy neighbours thinking she was pregnant (this was the 1950s after all), so they got married on Shrove Tuesday.4 -
deluxmary2000 wrote: »annacole94 wrote: »Rice and beans would be more true to the goals of Lent, while donating the grocery savings to the poor.
But hey, if you want to spend more money and live entirely on meat and pretend it's about God, I guess that's an option.
It's been a long time since I went to church, but I seem to remember as a kid that the point of Lent is to NOT eat meat... at least on Fridays, correct?
This seems super backwards to me.
No that's not the point of Lent at all. The point of Lent is to deny oneself some things of this world in order to simplify life and spend the time focusing on God.4 -
BruinsGal_91 wrote: »CattOfTheGarage wrote: »This thread is a fascinating education, thank you all.
It is indeed.
Apparently when my parents were choosing a wedding date (which they needed by a particular time because my Dad had got a new job and they were moving away) they went to see the vicar to discuss it and he told them that the date they had chosen fell during Lent and the ceremony would be very pared down. There would be no flowers in the church and no hymns would be sung (I don't know if this is common to other churches). Also the vicar told them that he usually only married people during Lent who **had** to get married.
The last thing my Mum wanted was nosy neighbours thinking she was pregnant (this was the 1950s after all), so they got married on Shrove Tuesday.
Love the idea of a Pancake Day wedding!1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »On the other hand, I did have pancakes this morning! (Pancake/Shrove Tuesday.) My assistant usually brings in paczkis, but I don't think she did today.
The idea behind that goes back into the Hebrew text of leavening being related to the contamination of the world in our religious life. So cleaning out all the leaven before Lent? Might as well use it up. Hence Shrove Tuesday.0 -
Give up refined and simple carbs1
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I've given up chocolate for lent for past few years. The point for me is to develop self discipline through resisting temptation ( I am a great lover of chocolate) and to remind myself how privileged I am to be in a position to do this thus appreciating my. Blessings in life.3
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This won't answer OP's question, but I thought I'd post here since it follows with the discussion. So, if we're fasting today, the calories are not going to be met. MFP is going to give the "not eating enough" warning. Does this affect our diary recording streak? I love how I see my days increasing, as I'm not usually good at keeping with anything for very long.0
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theroyalmurphys wrote: »This won't answer OP's question, but I thought I'd post here since it follows with the discussion. So, if we're fasting today, the calories are not going to be met. MFP is going to give the "not eating enough" warning. Does this affect our diary recording streak? I love how I see my days increasing, as I'm not usually good at keeping with anything for very long.
No. I have not closed my diary in more than 2 years, it still records everything.
ETA: you mean streak? Yeah, streak doesn't break. I had a water fast 2 days ago and it didn't break, shows 471 days. As long as you check in you're good to go.4 -
theroyalmurphys wrote: »This won't answer OP's question, but I thought I'd post here since it follows with the discussion. So, if we're fasting today, the calories are not going to be met. MFP is going to give the "not eating enough" warning. Does this affect our diary recording streak? I love how I see my days increasing, as I'm not usually good at keeping with anything for very long.
You don't have to close out your diary daily to have in count in your streak--you simply have to open it and track something--water intake, exercise--and your streak will continue.3 -
allenpriest wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »On the other hand, I did have pancakes this morning! (Pancake/Shrove Tuesday.) My assistant usually brings in paczkis, but I don't think she did today.
The idea behind that goes back into the Hebrew text of leavening being related to the contamination of the world in our religious life. So cleaning out all the leaven before Lent? Might as well use it up. Hence Shrove Tuesday.
Raised Polish Catholic. Sugar, lard, and fruit also had to be used up prior to Lenten atonement. Hence paczki (which is plural).0 -
allenpriest wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »On the other hand, I did have pancakes this morning! (Pancake/Shrove Tuesday.) My assistant usually brings in paczkis, but I don't think she did today.
The idea behind that goes back into the Hebrew text of leavening being related to the contamination of the world in our religious life. So cleaning out all the leaven before Lent? Might as well use it up. Hence Shrove Tuesday.
I have never head of eliminating leavened bread during Lent (just Passover in the Jewish tradition)--out of curiosity, what tradition are you a part of? Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras refers to the fat of animals; in the Orthodox church today, and in the far more rigorous tradition of the early church, ALL meat, animal fat, and animal products were cut out, hence the feasting on richer breads/pancakes/waffles/crepes/beignets/doughnuts (using eggs, milk, butter, and often being fried) before the fasting period kicked in. Over the centuries the Catholic church became more and more lenient, while the Orthodox, as shown by the previous comments, remained quite hard core.
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