The Thoughts of Father Epiphanios on fasting and Orthodox Tradition

On Mount Athos we fast from oil on Monday as well. Three days. The laity are not obliged to observe this. Only the monks. It is a monastic rule, because of the fact that monasticism is an angelic order. In honor of the archangels. Well, we fast from oil on Monday too. What applies to Wednesday and Friday applies to Monday. If it happens to be a saint, if it’s a great feast – devotional, theophanic, there can be a fish firing there. As is true of many holidays.

Every Wednesday and Friday we have an oil bath on Mount Athos, unless of course there is a celebrated saint, honored by the monastery, every monastery on Mount Athos. That is to say, we may celebrate St. Euthymius solemnly at Pantokratoros, so we put oil, we have a doxology. In another monastery they may not celebrate him. Of course, this particular saint is venerated by all monasteries. As an example I mention it. So one monastery may have no oil on that day because it does not honor that saint, while another monastery may honor him because it has devotion, has a holy relic, and so on. There are many such exceptions, because, as is well known, there are many holy relics of many saints kept on Mount Athos. So when we have the relic of a saint, even a very small fragment, we honour this saint as we say, there in the Athonite dialect. With doxology, with an entrance many times, depending on what sequence there is to the Saint and how the monastery wants to honor him, or at least with doxology. So when we have a doxology on the Orthros and homonymous day of the feast of the Saint, then oil, oil and wine are catalyzed. The wine always goes with the oil. When we have catalysis of oil, we also have catalysis of wine.

There are only two days of the year when we have wine catalysis without oil catalysis. These two days are on Holy Week. The Thursday of the Great Canon, due to the fact that it is preceded by the vigil of the Great Canon, from Wednesday night, dawn to dusk on Thursday. So at the altar – after we have the Preceding Divine Liturgy – we pour wine not oil. In some monasteries, they may have oil catalysis as well, but at least in most they only have wine catalysis. Also on Maundy Thursday, because of the day, because it is the day when the sacrament of the Eucharist was celebrated, in which wine is used and it is symbolic of the wine of the blood of Christ spilled on the cross, we also catalyze wine. We do not have oil on Holy Thursday, only wine we catalyze.

Arjiburji is the twelve days of Christmas starting from Christmas Day until the four days of January. All these days… how many days are there? So eleven, plus Epiphany, whichever day falls, it has a cancellation forever, it’s Arjiburji. And Wednesday and Friday and Monday to fall, we’ll eat everything. And when it comes to outside the Holy Mountain, it means meat. But for the Holy Mountain, up to cheese, eggs and fish. On the eve of Epiphany, of course, there is a break. There is a gap there. We eat, unleavened, because we have to precede this fast, to prepare ourselves from all this abuse, if I may say so, of the Twelve Days that we catalyze forever. To prepare ourselves a little spiritually, ascetically, for the communion of Epiphany. Afterwards we have the next Arjivorchio It is the first week of the entrance into the Holy Triduum. The Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee. So we begin the 2nd Arjivorchio which is from the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee to the Sunday of the Prodigal, the second Sunday of the Triduum. The dates change. This year it may be in February, next year it may be in March. Not March, it doesn’t go that far. It could be January, February. The triode drops there, so it’s a cataclysm for ever and Monday and Wednesday and Friday, for ever.

And as we said before, for the people, forever means meat. To us it even means fish and cheese. Next week is from Sunday. From Ascension Sunday, the Monday after Ascension, I suppose, to the Sunday of the Apocalypse. It is a normal week, as are all the weeks of the year. That is, Monday, Wednesday, Friday we fast, we have the unleavened bread. On the other days we eat everything. On Thursday we have, of course this does not apply on Mount Athos, as it is prevalent outside, on Ash Wednesday, which is the last day of the abolition period. It is on Ash Wednesday that they catalyze, by and large, meat. Then it is Saturday and Sunday, Apokreo Sunday, where we then Apokreo, hence Apokreo. We also abstain from meat; those who eat meat.

On that Sunday the abolition stops. Until 12 o’clock at night one can eat. Once 12 o’clock at night, no more meat. From then on, we begin to gradually and gradually enter the period of fasting. This Sunday now, Monday rather, after the Apokreos up to and including Tyrian Sunday, is Arjiburji, but it is limited Arjiburji. Only up to fish and milky, no meat. Meat already, it’s stopped. On the Sunday night we said Apokreo. So these days we eat Wednesday and Thursday and Monday and Wednesday and Friday. We also eat fish, if we want to. It’s not compulsory. And dairy. On Tyrrh Sunday in the evening, this Arjiburji also stops and now the fast of Lent begins. From the Monday after Tyrrh. The first three days are strict fasting. For everyone, of course, depending on how their health allows. On Mount Athos it is observed with absolute fasting in most monasteries. We don’t even drink holy water. Imagine not even the antipasto these days, as early as 12 o’clock at night. On the Sunday of Tyrrh until Wednesday at noon, we drink neither holy water nor counter-sacrament.

Much more, not even water. In some monasteries they may be saving things, because there are also weak brothers. Who perhaps can’t afford it, and have health reasons, and can save money with a little tea or some fruit or nuts, or at any rate with dry food. Thereafter the programme of Lent is followed. But since we are talking about Arjiburji, let us go to the next one, which is from Easter Day to Thomas Sunday. At this time, this week has catalysis for all, and meat and fish and milkshakes. Then after that, from Easter Monday until Pentecost, is the Pentecostal period, as we say. And we have, of course, a regular period where we eat everything except Monday, Wednesday Friday. From Pentecost Sunday to All Saints Sunday. Immediately after Pentecost, until All Saints Sunday we have the last Arjiburji, which also catalyzes everything and meat and fish and milky. And on Mount Athos up to fish and milky only.

And of course, when we make the buffalo, we put the special stamp on it, which has some letters engraved on it. Jesus Christ wins, which is called a lamb. This is also the sign which the priest will take out to offer to God for the Eucharist. It has what are called the nine orders which are characteristic. He has the portion that comes out in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is a triangle and above it has the Theotokos and some other designs that complete the circle.

The high ground is different from the low ground. It is round and has a lamb in the centre, at the top it has another lamb, at the bottom it has another lamb. On the right, as we see it, there are the nine orders which are nine triangles which are nine triangles which are protruding. These are taken out one by one by the priest, commemorating the nine orders of the angels and various saints, in hierarchy. On the left there is a large triangle unique, which contains the letter T inside, symbolizing the Virgin Mary. This is taken out separately, and placed on the holy chalice on the left. The other two lambs, the upper and the lower, from these lambs, the second one, the priest takes out in a special way, a long piece, commemorating a name that the faithful offering the communion plate wants to be specially remembered. Either because George is celebrating, or because he is ill, or because he has a special request. A mound comes out, to George, and taking it out, the priest blesses it and above the holy things – the special one – he commemorates the name of that particular person and then gives it to the person who has requested it. This is the so-called elevation.

The collybos as a name, prevailed from the area of Eucalyptus. As mentioned in the story, this is how they called collies in this area. The boiled wheat was called collywa. And when in Lent the emperor, who was not a Christian, wanted to defile the Christians by withdrawing all food and for the whole week, the first week of Lent, forcing them to eat idol food. The weekend, which as he knew, as it was done and as it is done to this day, was kept by the believers all that week. He brought out the delicacies, the idols sprinkled with blood or meat from the idols, to sell in the marketplace. And since there would be nothing else clean, that was necessarily what the Christians would take to eat. But St. Theodore kept the believers safe. He appeared to the Bishop, to the Patriarch and said to him. So on the Sabbath when it begins to fall, don’t go and buy any of the food that the emperor offers in the marketplace, because it’s all idolatrous. And sprinkled therefore with the blood of idols, of idolaters. But how the Christians, how will the Christians be edified? And you will distribute them to the believers, so that they may be justified, as they say, so that they may eat, so that they may be able to endure the rest of the fast. And indeed that is what happened. They boiled collies, distributed them to the faithful, and so none of the Christians bought any special food to eat and became infected, and the Patriarch understood that it was St. Theodore, because he saw him in his vision. He asked him, “And who are you? What is this? Collywa is boiled wheat, as we call it here at home. It was St. Theodore, Teron.

The wheat, when man sows it and throws it down into the earth and it is digested into the soil, it is covered by the soil, it rots and so it grows. The sting is thrown out and it comes out. And so then the new shoot comes out, which while it is one pimple, eventually yields a hundredfold more pimples. Well, that’s just the way the soul is. When it leaves this body, and when this body goes into the earth and is buried and seems to be now melted, it is born. The soul blossoms and the new spiritual body, which will come forth afterwards, on judgment day at the Second Coming, will be like wheat which yields a hundredfold.

When some kids were playing outside the St. Church, there in Leda I think, they were winning some particular ones. One little kid who was seemingly weaker, didn’t have that opportunity, to win, and was left complaining and disadvantaged, so he had no other option. He begged St. George and said to him, St. George, please help me to win, even in one sport. Then the children’s games were the ones that perhaps the older ones will remember. Shooting a bullet, throwing arrows, throwing stones, who will go farthest with marbles, with the chilika and so on. So what the child had, since he had no money to give, was of course the food which his mother would offer him to eat for lunch or dinner. So he knew apparently that day that his mother was preparing sponge cake for him. And he says to the saint, holy man I’m not going to eat my sponge cake. I’ll get you a sponge, he says. Because that’s what the kid had. And indeed, as soon as he made this vow, this prayer rather, to the Saint, he won in sport this game, the one he was playing, and he was so happy that he ran home. He actually found the sponge his mamma had made. I don’t remember the incident exactly, he took it and took it to St. George. And he left it in front of the icon. The little child was pure, clean, simple. So he believed that St. George accepted it, accepted it, and apparently that he would eat it too. But to the good fortune of some passers-by, even seafood, they passed by at that time to worship at the Church of the Saint, for they were honoring the Saint. And as soon as they went in they saw the sponge steaming, hot-hot, and they said who brought the sponge to the Saint? Obviously they were expecting us to eat it. Hungry as they were, they said: now does St. George eat sponge cake or does he need sponge cake? I wonder if it is for us, to take it, to eat it. So they took it, they ate it. But here when they went to go out of the church the Saint stuck them, pinned them down and they couldn’t escape the threshold, they couldn’t get out of the church and they stayed there, backwards. They were facing forward to get out. They couldn’t. So they also began the pleas, the prayers. St. George, St. George, nothing. St. George I will bring you a pot of oil, nothing again. I’ll get you a candle, nothing again. Two pots of oil. Well, after promising two or three cans of oil, they finally broke down. Once they were unstuck, they walked out of the church. They walked a little further away, they felt, or so they thought, safe. They say in a humorous way St. George, you sell your sponges dearly! So this sponge is made of fresh onions, eggs, which we fry to wilt. Add the eggs, salt, a little cheese and herbs. Mix them and spread them, usually for practical reasons, on a baking sheet, on a baking tray and then cut them into pieces and serve. And it’s eaten hot, not cold. It’s this story of the sponge, St. George. In short!