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Orthodox fasting seasons: a practical guide for couples

The four Orthodox fasting seasons, the weekly fast days, the fast-free weeks, what a strict fast excludes and how two people keep it together without friction.

By Orthodate Editorial15 minute read

The Orthodox year has four fasting seasons, two weekly fast days, a handful of one-day fasts and four fast-free weeks, and together they shape roughly half the calendar. For a couple this matters in a very ordinary way: it decides what you can eat on a date, when you can be married, which weeks your families will be celebrating and which weeks they will not, and how two people who keep the fast differently will handle a Wednesday evening. This guide lays out the whole cycle and then shows how to work out a shared practice without either of you becoming the other person’s conscience.

At a glance

Key takeaways

  • The fasting year has four seasons, Great Lent with Holy Week, the Apostles’ Fast, the Dormition Fast and the Nativity Fast, plus Wednesdays and Fridays and four one-day fasts, and four fast-free weeks where even Wednesday and Friday are released.
  • A strict fast day excludes meat, eggs, dairy, fish, wine and oil, but the degree actually kept varies enormously by person, parish and jurisdiction, and every traditional statement of the rules includes mitigation for health, age and circumstance.
  • Couples run into trouble over fasting far more often through commentary than through food, so agree in advance on the shared table, the difficult occasions and the rule that neither of you reports on the other’s plate.

1. The shape of the fasting year

Orthodox fasting is not a single Lent with a long ordinary season around it. It is a rhythm that runs through the whole year, alternating preparation, feast and release. Roughly half the days in the calendar carry some form of fasting, and four whole weeks carry none at all, including their Wednesdays and Fridays.

The cycle has two parts that move differently. The moveable cycle hangs off Pascha and carries Great Lent, Holy Week, Bright Week, the Apostles’ Fast and Trinity Week, so those shift each year. The fixed cycle sits on calendar dates and carries the Dormition Fast, the Nativity Fast and the one-day fasts. This is why some years the Apostles’ Fast is nearly six weeks long and other years barely a week: it begins after a moveable Sunday and ends on a fixed date.

Understanding that structure is what turns fasting from a list of prohibitions into something you can plan a year around. Once you can see where the fasts fall, you can see where the feasts fall too, and the feasts are the point.

2. The four fasting seasons

The four canonical fasting periods are the ones every Orthodox jurisdiction keeps, although their reckoning and their strictness differ.

Great Lent and Holy Week run from the first Monday of Great Lent to Great and Holy Saturday, the longest and strictest stretch of the year. It is preceded by two preparatory weeks that have their own rules: a general release after the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee, and then the week before Lent, sometimes called Cheesefare or Meatfare week, in which meat is forbidden every day but dairy, eggs and fish are permitted even on Wednesday and Friday.

The Apostles’ Fast, also called the Fast of Saints Peter and Paul, begins after All Saints Sunday and ends on their feast, so its length is set by the Paschal cycle and changes each year. The Dormition Fast runs from the first to the fourteenth of August, a short and notably strict fast in honour of the Theotokos. The Nativity Fast, known in Slavic practice as Saint Philip’s Fast, runs from the fifteenth of November to the twenty-fourth of December, forty days of preparation for the Nativity.

  • Great Lent and Holy Week: first Monday of Great Lent to Great and Holy Saturday. Moveable.
  • Apostles’ Fast: begins after All Saints Sunday, ends on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Length varies each year.
  • Dormition Fast: the first to the fourteenth of August. Short, and traditionally kept strictly.
  • Nativity Fast: the fifteenth of November to the twenty-fourth of December. Forty days.

3. Wednesdays, Fridays and the single-day fasts

Outside the seasons, Wednesdays and Fridays are kept as fast days throughout the year, except during the fast-free weeks. Wednesday recalls the betrayal and Friday the crucifixion, which is why they return every week rather than only in Lent. In some monasteries Monday is added.

Four single days also carry a fast. The eve of Theophany on the fifth of January, the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist on the twenty-ninth of August and the Elevation of the Cross on the fourteenth of September are kept as strict days in their own right even though they stand outside any season. The last of these often catches people out, because it lands in a period that is otherwise unremarkable.

For a couple, the weekly rhythm matters far more than the seasons do. Two fasting seasons a year are an event; two fast days a week are a habit, and habits are what a shared life is actually made of.

  • Every Wednesday and Friday, except during the four fast-free weeks.
  • The Eve of Theophany, the fifth of January.
  • The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, the twenty-ninth of August.
  • The Elevation of the Cross, the fourteenth of September.

4. The fast-free weeks, and why they exist

Four weeks in the year release the fast entirely, including Wednesday and Friday. Newcomers rarely know about them, and they are one of the most attractive things about the Orthodox calendar once you do.

The first runs from the Nativity of Christ on the twenty-fifth of December to the eve of Theophany on the fourth of January, the twelve days of Christmas kept as one long feast. The second is the week following the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, a deliberate dispensation placed immediately before the Lenten build-up begins, traditionally understood as a rebuke to the Pharisee who boasted of fasting twice a week. The third is Bright Week, the week after Pascha until Saint Thomas Sunday, when the Church is at its most festive. The fourth is Trinity Week, the week after Pentecost up to the Saturday before All Saints Sunday.

These weeks are not loopholes. They are part of the same discipline, and refusing to feast when the Church feasts is treated in the tradition as a fault rather than as extra zeal. If you are dating someone who cannot enjoy Bright Week, the difficulty is not their fasting.

  • The Nativity of Christ to the eve of Theophany: the twenty-fifth of December to the fourth of January.
  • The week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, in the second week of the Triodion.
  • Bright Week, from Pascha until Saint Thomas Sunday.
  • Trinity Week, from Pentecost until the Saturday before All Saints Sunday.

5. What a strict fast actually excludes

Where a day is marked as a strict fast, the traditional rule excludes meat, eggs and dairy, fish, wine and oil. Wine here means alcohol generally and oil traditionally means olive oil. Shellfish and molluscs are usually permitted, which is why octopus appears so often on Orthodox Lenten tables.

Within the seasons the rule varies by day. During the Dormition Fast, wine and oil are traditionally allowed only on Saturdays and Sundays. During the Apostles’ and Nativity Fasts the older typikon allows fish on Saturdays and Sundays, oil and wine on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and neither on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with fish withdrawn altogether from the twentieth of December. During Great Lent, fish is permitted on the Annunciation and on Palm Sunday, and the strictness is relaxed on Saturdays and Sundays.

The degree kept in practice differs widely. Many parishes teach a simpler version: no meat, no dairy, no fish on the appointed days, with oil and wine treated as a matter for each person’s spiritual father. The published rules themselves say that they should be relaxed for the elderly and those in poor health, and that someone living in a non-Orthodox household or eating in a workplace canteen has a different situation to consider. The classic statement of the rules closes by warning against interpreting them with pedantic legalism, and that warning is part of the rule rather than an escape from it.

6. Why your fasting dates and theirs may differ

Two people can both be Orthodox, both be fasting faithfully, and be doing it on different days. The reason is the calendar. Pascha is reckoned in the same way throughout the Orthodox Church, so everything hanging off it, Great Lent, Holy Week, Bright Week, the Apostles’ Fast and Trinity Week, aligns for everyone.

Fixed dates are where the divergence appears. Churches following the Julian calendar keep the Nativity on what is the seventh of January on the civil calendar, so their Nativity Fast runs about two weeks later than a Revised Julian parish, and their Dormition Fast similarly shifts. In practice this means a Russian, Serbian or Georgian household may still be fasting while a Greek, Antiochian or Romanian household has already begun the twelve days of feasting.

One important case is unsettled. Ukrainian practice has been in transition in recent years, so the sensible thing is to ask the specific parish rather than assume from the jurisdiction. That is good advice generally: a calendar question is answered by a parish, not by an internet table.

For a couple from two calendars, this is a scheduling problem with a warm solution. Many such households keep both, fasting to the later date and feasting from the earlier one, which produces a long Nativity season and a great deal of food. Others pick one and are consistent. Either is workable; what causes injury is one person treating the other’s calendar as a mistake.

7. Oriental Orthodox fasting is longer, and not the same

The Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac and Indian churches are Oriental Orthodox. They are not in communion with the Eastern Orthodox churches, and their fasting calendars are their own, generally longer and often beginning earlier.

The Coptic and Ethiopian traditions in particular keep a very substantial number of fasting days across the year, with their own Nativity fast, Apostles’ fast, Fast of Nineveh and additional observances, and with the fast frequently understood to include abstaining from food entirely until a set hour of the day. The Armenian calendar has its own shape as well, including the combined celebration of the Nativity and Theophany.

If you are dating across that line, do not assume that a shared word means a shared practice. Ask what days, what foods and what hours, and ask early, because the difference is much larger than between two Eastern Orthodox jurisdictions.

8. What this means for dating, hospitality and weddings

Three practical consequences come up constantly, and all three are easier when they are discussed before they happen.

The first is the shared table. Fasting seasons cover a large part of the year, so a couple that only knows how to meet over dinner will find a lot of the calendar awkward. The simple fix is to build a short list of fasting-friendly places and fasting-friendly things to do, and to stop treating a restaurant as the default plan.

The second is other people’s tables. Sooner or later you will be a guest at a meal where the host has cooked something you would not eat on that day. Orthodox tradition generally treats hospitality and charity as weightier than the letter of the fast, and this is exactly the sort of case that belongs to your priest rather than to a rule you found online. Decide your approach in advance and agree that neither of you will comment on the other’s decision at the table.

The third is the wedding date. The sacrament of marriage is not normally celebrated during the fasting seasons, nor on certain feasts and eves, which removes a significant part of the year from the list of possible dates. This surprises couples who have already put a deposit on a venue. Ask the parish which dates are available before you ask a hall.

  • Keep a standing list of three fasting-friendly places you both like, so a Wednesday plan takes thirty seconds.
  • Agree what you each do as a guest in someone else’s house, and agree not to comment on it afterwards.
  • Check available wedding dates with the parish before booking anything else.
  • Expect the fast to be harder in the fourth week than the first, and plan the encouragement, not the rules.

Build a shared fasting plan for the year ahead

This takes about an hour and is worth doing at the start of a relationship rather than in the middle of Lent. The aim is not to agree on a level of strictness. It is to remove the friction points before they appear, so that the discipline stays between each of you and God rather than becoming a running negotiation between the two of you.

  1. Step 1

    Put the next twelve months on one page

    Take a parish calendar from each of your churches and mark the four fasting seasons, the fast-free weeks and the one-day fasts. Note where the two calendars diverge on fixed feasts, and note when the Nativity Fast begins for each of you. Add the family occasions you already know about: birthdays, anniversaries, weddings you have been invited to, and the weeks when relatives visit. You will immediately see which events fall inside a fast, and those are the ones worth planning now rather than arguing about later.

  2. Step 2

    Say plainly what each of you actually keeps

    Describe your own practice in specifics, without softening it and without dramatising it. How strictly do you keep Wednesday and Friday? Do you keep oil and wine? What do you do when travelling or eating at work? What has your priest asked of you personally, and what are you still working towards? Then listen to the other answer without correcting it. The goal is accurate information about the person you are dating. Differences here are normal, and they are almost never the real problem; what people find painful is being surprised, or being graded.

  3. Step 3

    Agree the shared table and the outside table

    Decide what you will cook and eat when you are together during a fast, and pick the strictness that the more careful of you keeps, since that is the only arrangement in which neither person is being asked to give something up on the other’s account. Then decide separately what each of you does as a guest in a non-Orthodox home, at a work event or at a family meal, and agree that this is a matter for each person and their confessor. Write down the one rule that prevents most damage: neither of you comments on what the other one ate.

  4. Step 4

    Plan the feasts as carefully as the fasts

    Mark the four fast-free weeks and decide how you will actually celebrate them. Plan something specific for Bright Week, for the twelve days after the Nativity and for Trinity Week rather than letting them pass as ordinary time. If your calendars differ, decide whether you will keep both feasts or choose one, and tell both families the decision early enough that nobody is hurt by it. A couple that knows how to feast together handles fasting much better than a couple that only knows how to abstain.

  5. Step 5

    Take the hard cases to a priest, together if you can

    Make a short list of the situations neither of you is sure about: illness, pregnancy, a demanding job, an eating disorder in either history, a non-Orthodox household, travel, or a family member who will be offended. Take that list to a priest rather than deciding it between yourselves or looking for an answer online. If you attend different parishes, each of you should ask your own, and then tell each other what you were told. This is also the moment to ask about wedding dates, since fasting seasons close off a large part of the year.

Common questions

How many fasting seasons does the Orthodox Church have?

Four: Great Lent with Holy Week, the Apostles’ Fast, the Dormition Fast from the first to the fourteenth of August, and the Nativity Fast from the fifteenth of November to the twenty-fourth of December. Wednesdays and Fridays are also kept as fast days for most of the year.

What can you not eat on an Orthodox fast day?

A strict fast day traditionally excludes meat, eggs and dairy, fish, wine and oil. Shellfish are usually permitted. Many parishes teach a simpler version and leave oil and wine to each person’s spiritual father, and the rules are relaxed for illness, age, pregnancy and travel.

Are there weeks with no fasting at all?

Yes, four. From the Nativity to the eve of Theophany, the week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, Bright Week after Pascha, and Trinity Week after Pentecost. During these weeks even Wednesday and Friday are released.

Why do some Orthodox Christians start the Nativity Fast later?

Because of the calendar. Churches following the Julian calendar keep fixed feasts about two weeks later, so their Nativity Fast and Dormition Fast shift accordingly. The Paschal cycle is reckoned the same way everywhere, so Great Lent aligns for all.

How long is the Apostles’ Fast?

It varies every year. It begins after All Saints Sunday, which depends on the date of Pascha, and ends on the fixed feast of Saints Peter and Paul, so in some years it lasts several weeks and in others only a few days.

Can you get married during a fasting season?

Ordinarily no. Weddings are not celebrated during the fasting seasons or on certain feasts and eves, which removes a large part of the year. Ask the parish which dates are available before booking a venue.

What do I do if my partner fasts more strictly than I do?

Keep the stricter practice when you eat together, so that nobody is asked to relax on the other’s account, and keep your own practice otherwise. Agree explicitly that neither of you comments on the other’s plate, and take genuinely difficult cases to a priest instead of settling them between yourselves.

Do Oriental Orthodox churches fast in the same way?

No. The Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Armenian, Syriac and Indian churches keep their own calendars, which are generally longer and sometimes involve abstaining from food until a set hour. If you are dating across that line, ask about days, foods and hours rather than assuming.

Sources and further reading

Pastoral practice can vary by diocese and jurisdiction. For questions about your circumstances, speak with the priest responsible for your pastoral care.