FASTING AND ABSTINENCE
The Church, in her earliest days, recognized the necessity for her children to “chastise the body and bring it under subjection”, as St. Paul advises. The body is ever striving for mastery over the spirit; besides the external sources of temptation, “the world”, we have always another source with us which is a part of our nature. This is the reason for mortification. Self denial is in lawful things enables us to turn with great earnestness to spiritual things. It is on these grounds that the Ethiopian church has strictly adhered to the injunctions of the Didascalia and enjoyed on the faithful the longest and most austere fasts in the world.
Fasting implies abstention from food and drink. Special days are appointed for fasting. Every Wednesday and Friday are days of fasting because on Wednesday the Jews held a council in which they rejected and condemned our Lord and on Friday they crucified him.
The fasts are ordained in the Fetha Negest are:
1. Fast for Hudadi or Abiye Tsome (Lent), 56 days.
2. Fast of the Apostles, 10-40 days, which the Apostles kept after they had received the Holy Spirit. It begins after Pentecost.
3. The fast of Assumption, 16 days.
4. The gahad of Christmas (on the eve of Christmas).
5. The fast preceding Christmas, 40 days. It begins with Sibket on 15th Hedar and ends on Christmas eve with the feast of Gena and the 28th of Tahsas.
6. The fast of Nineveh, commemorating the preaching of Jonah. It comes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the third week before Lent.
7. The gahad of Epiphany, fast on the eve of Epiphany.
In addition to these, there is the fast of repentance which a man keeps after committing sin, it being imposed as a penance by the priest for seven days, forty days or one year. There is a fast which a bishop keeps at the time he is consecrated.
There is a fast of desire which a man keeps if he thinks he will increase his value in the sight of God or that he will subdue his body by extra good works. Monks and nuns observe additional fast days not required of the laity. All persons above the age of 13 observe the church fasts. The priest rarely grants dispensations. The man who ignores or neglects any injunction of the church is not considered good Christian.
The total number of fasting days amounts to about 250 a year, of which about 180 are obligatory for all, and the rest are only for priests, monks, nuns and other special groups in the church. The longest periods of fasting are those of Lent. Advent and Kweskwam (forty days preceding the fast of the flight to Egypt). Fast generally implies one meal a day to be taken either in the evening or after 2.45 p.m. with total abstention from meat, fats, eggs and diary products. Instead they use cereals, vegetables and other type of food devoid of fats. Smoking is a breach of the fast.
There is no fasting while Christmas, Epiphany, and the feast of feast of fifty days are being kept. From Easter to Pentecost a man may eat and drink what he likes on Wednesday and Friday. There is no fast if the Christmas and Epiphany fall on a Wednesday or Friday. On Saturday and Sunday people may take breakfast at 9 or 9:30.
Special prayers are conducted during the fasting seasons. In all the churches we have daily services held from morning to 2:45 p.m.. Priests regularly attend night services and they perform the canon, they remain in the churches praying incessantly, and in sadness ponder and read their Psalter from cock-crow by light of a taper, and throughout the day eat dry grain and drink water.
4. ADVENT
The aim of the church is to cause her children to reflect. During the year she sets apart two seasons in which she imbues the faithful with a spirit of penitential fervor. One of these seasons, which is called Advent, from the Latin word adventus, (arrival), embraces about five Sundays.
The Law and practice of the church is observed strictly, though not so much as in Lent. It is a time for devout and penitential preparation of the soul for the proper and worthy celebration of the great feast of Christmas.
In advent (Sibket, in Amharic) a fast is kept, the Christmas fast of 40 days beginning on 15 Hedar and ending on Christmas eve with the Feast of Gena on the 28 of Tahsas.
5. CHRISTMAS
Year after year the Christmas season brings to the minds of all Christians the story of the Child in the manger, the shepherds on the Judean hills, the Celestial songs “Glory to God in the highest”, and the Angle’s message, telling that the Long expected one had come.
Liddet or Gena is the Ethiopian name for Christmas which is marked by special ceremonies. The origin is basically the same as is universally accepted. It is celebrated on 7th January (Tahsas 29 E.C) preceded by a fast of 40 days. The difference of date is due to a calendar of discrepancy since the Ethiopian calendar is based on the year of Grace 7 or 8 years after Anno Domini. The Ethiopian Christmas coincides with the date of this observance in the Eastern Orthodox dispensation.
Qiddus Bale Wold is another name for Christmas in addition to Liddet or Gena. Gena is also a name for a Christmas game played by boys and grown up men (like hokey).
6. LENT AND HOLY WEEK – HUDADI AND HIMAMAT
The church has always taught the necessity of penance for justification. She has instituted Lent as a remembrance of the forty days fast of our Blessed Lord in the desert and as a means of sanctification for her children.
To the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Lent means a period of fasting when the faithful undergo a rigorous schedule of prayers and penitence. This fast is observed with greater rigor than any other fast and it is a test of one’s Christianity. One who fails to keep it is not considered a good Christian. Properly observed in nullifies the sins committed during the rest of the year. The faithful should abstain from all food except bread, water and salt. It consists of 56 days. All kinds of meat is forbidden, and also diary products. On all the fasting days only one meal is allowed and this is to be taken in the afternoon, at 3 p.m. or in the evening. On Saturdays and Sundays people are allowed to eat in the morning.
Daily Services are conducted in all the churches. Each day services are held from morning to 2.45p.m. Priests regularly attend night services starting at midnight up to 7 a.m.
Qibela is the Sunday – before the opening of Lent, Monday –when the people eat their fill. In lent many grown tired and thin.
7. HOLY WEEK
In accordance with the chronology of the Gospel account of the last days of our Lord’s mortal life it is natural that the sacred Triduum of Thursday, Friday and Saturday developed. A special “Holy Week” became established in which all the faithful re-lived and received graces from the fundamental mysterious of redemption.
Palm Sunday or Hosanna is celebrated with proper ceremonies with palm, processions and special services.
Then follows Holy Week, the week of Pains, the Himamat. For some, from Thursday afternoon until Easter morning no morsel of food nor a drop of water enters the mouth and three days are known as “Qanona”. The priests neither eat nor drink but remain in the churches singing and praying incessantly. No absolution is given.
MAUNDY THURSDAY is a special day on which in the Mass unleavened bread is used. For those who can, it is spent out of doors. When the fast is broken late in the afternoon no one eats ordinary bread, a mixture of special flour is compounded and boiled. A solemn Mass is celebrated on that day. The ceremony of washing the feet is conducted the same day in imitation of what our Lord did to the twelve Apostles at the Last Supper. All the faithful with clean souls should communicate on Holy Thursday.
GOOD FRIDAY. The solemn liturgical service of Good Friday is attended by thousands of believers. There is a sense of sorrow and desolation. All the symbols, images and instruments used in the passion of the Saviour are publicly exhibited in the church. Men and women go to church to prostrate themselves, remaining there from early morning till 3 p.m. the hour of the death of Jesus Christ. Believers confess their greater and lesser offenses to the confessor or sit reading their Psalter. It is believed that on Good Friday blood fell from Christ on the cross and dripped into the grave of Adam beneath and there rose up from the dead about 500 people; the thief on the left was sent into darkness but the one on the right went before Adam into Paradise. On this Friday the Devil was bound with cords and Christ descending to purgatory (seol) sent forth to paradise all the souls that were in darkness (Seol). Good Friday is a special day for confession.
HOLY SATURDAY is Qidame shur on which the good news went forth. Everyone who fasts passes the day and night in expectation. On this night before Easter many go to the Church and pass the night in making prayers and in prostration on clenched hands. Confession is heard on that day.
EASTER, the feast of feasts, is celebrated with special solemnity. The church is filled with fragrance of incense and myriad’s of lights. The clergy are arrayed in their best vestments. All the people hold lighted tapers. Greetings are exchanged, drums are beaten, hands are clapped and singing is heard everywhere: “our resurrection has come, hosanna.” Men are heard saying “O Lord Christ have mercy upon us.” They pray for a blessing “O God make it to be a festival of our good fortune and of our well being! Let us have another threshing floor and another year if thou wilt.” Letters or messages are exchanged between friends and the whole day is one of spiritual and physical feasting, a commemoration of the holiest occasion of all history – a truly blessed time when Christ rose from the dead.
The monthly feast days
Edited by Aymero W and Joachim M., The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, published by the Ethiopian Orthodox mission, Addis Ababa 1970.
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