Lenten service in Sretensky Monastery. Photo by M. Rodionov, Pravoslavie.ru
The First Week of Great Lent: Advice from pastors
The First Week of Great Lent: Advice from pastorsWith whatever inner disposition we begin any task—that is how we will carry it out. It is the same for the fast: with whatever disposition we enter the fast—that is probably how we will go through it. That means that we need to relate to the first week of Lent with particular responsibility.The First Week of Great Lent: Pastoral Advice
Great Lent in Questions and Answers
Priest Vasily Pistsov
Great Lent in Questions and AnswersGreat Lent is a very special time, including in the Church calendar, but not all days of Great Lent are the same. Taking up Our Own Crosses. First Homily on the Lenten Season
St. Augustine
Taking up Our Own CrossesToday we enter upon the observance of Lent, the season now presented to us in the passage of the liturgical year. An appropriately solemn sermon is your due so that the word of God, brought to you through my ministry, may sustain you in spirit while you fast in body and so that the inner man, thus refreshed by suitable food, may be able to accomplish and to persevere courageously in the disciplining of the outer man. For, to my spirit of devotion, it seems fitting that we, who are about to honor the Passion of our crucified Lord in the very near future, should fashion for ourselves a cross of the bodily pleasures in need of restraint. Before the Fast
St. John of Shanghai
Before the FastThe doors of repentance are opening, Great Lent is beginning. It is repeated every year, and each time it brings us great benefit if we spend it the right way. On Fasting and its Benefits
Archimdrite Kirill (Pavlov)
On Fasting and its BenefitsThe Church combined weeping over sins with fasting, for fasting gives our repentance wings and bears it upward to God’s Throne. The labor of fasting is sacred and quite ancient. The First Week of Great Lent: The Dawn of Abstinence
Archpriest Gregory Debolsky
The First Week of Great Lent: The Dawn of AbstinenceThe first week of the Holy Forty Days of Lent, in the words of our pious ancestors and all Orthodox Christians, is called the dawn of abstinence, the week of purity. Lent with Children: They Should Remember That it’s Warm and Good with God
Maria Pospelova
Lent with Children: They Should Remember That it’s Warm and Good with GodEven before Orthodox blogging became popular, a young mother from Moscow, Maria Pospelova, had registered on Instagram. Through photographs of her everyday life she showed how bright and lively our Orthodoxy can be. Let Us Embark Joyfully on the Path of the Holy Forty Days Fast
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
Let Us Embark Joyfully on the Path of the Holy Forty Days FastGreat is the path ahead, both in length of time, and especially in importance of spiritual labors commanded of us by the Church. The Essence of Great Lent
Archpriest Victor Potapov
The Essence of Great LentGreat Lent proclaims the Good News that man is a child of God, by which God has forever united Himself with His creation.Monday
Monday of the First Week of Great Lent
Monday of the First Week of Great LentTrue fasting is putting away evil deeds. Forgive your neighbor his offences, forgive him his debts. “Do not fast in judgments and fights.” You may not eat meat, but you devour your brother. You may not drink wine, but you do not refrain from offence. You may wait till evening to take food, but you spend the day in places of judgment. Open to Me the Doors of Repentance, O Lifegiver
St. Innocent of Kherson
Open to Me the Doors of Repentance, O LifegiverTherefore, the first and last hope of those who are truly repenting is not themselves, not their minds or hearts, but the grace of God. Let Us Enter the Fast With Joy
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
Let Us Enter the Fast With JoyThis pledge of love is expected and required, and even lovingly entreated of us by Christ—the Divine lover of our souls!Tuesday
Tuesday of the first week of Great Lent
Tuesday of the first week of Great LentPoor Lent! How much chiding, insult, and persecution it endures! But you see, it still stands, by the grace of God. And how else could it be? It has strong support! The Lord fasted, the Apostles fasted, and quite a lot at that, as the Apostle Paul said of himself, in fastings often (2 Cor. 11:27). And all the saints kept strict fasts, so that if we had an opportunity to look over the habitations of paradise we would not find there a single inhabitant who was alien to fasting. Have Mercy on Me, O God, Have Mercy On Me!
St. Innocent of Kherson
Have Mercy on Me, O God, Have Mercy On Me!Yes, my brethren, this prayer comes to an end at the universal Dread Judgment of God, not before: It will stop when the fate of every one of us will be decided forever, before the face of the whole universe. A Time for Healing Our Spiritual Ailments
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
A Time for Healing Our Spiritual AilmentsThe holy Church has been preparing us for this time for a while, as a great and special endeavor for all Christians.Wednesday
Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent
Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent Let us keep the Fast not only by refraining from food, but by becoming strangers to all the bodily passions; that we who are enslaved to the tyranny of the flesh may become worthy to partake of the Lamb, the Son of God, slain of His own will for the sake of the world, and spiritually may celebrate the feast of the Savior’s Resurrection from the dead. So shall we be raised on high in the glory of the virtues, and through our righteous actions we shall give joy to the Lord who loves mankind (Aposticha at Vespers for Wednesday). Homily on Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent. On the Danger of Hypocrisy
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)
Homily on Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent. On the Danger of HypocrisyVainglory and its offspring, hypocrisy, are ruinous at their very root—they deprive a person of all heavenly reward, representing the vain human praise he has chosen and desired as the only reward. The Lord condemned vainglorious hypocrites. Let My Prayer Arise from Coarseness and Impurity. A Homily for Clean Wednesday
St. Innocent of Kherson
Let My Prayer Arise from Coarseness and ImpurityThe holy Church, among other subjects of petitions, teaches us to pray about our prayer itself, that it might be as it ought: Let my prayer arise, in Thy sight as incense. “Arise” from what? From heaviness and encumbrance, from coarseness and impurity, lethargy and lifelessness. Lent as a Remembrance of the Savior’s Forty-Day Fast
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
Lent as a Remembrance of the Savior’s Forty-Day FastThe Lord Jesus spent the entire time of His forty-day fast in the wilderness, in deep stillness and solitude.Thursday
Thursday in the First Week of Great Lent
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov), Archimandrite Lazar (Abashidze)
Thursday in the First Week of Great LentOften the mind does not remember a sin committed, or may hardly recognize it as a sin. However, the soul remembers—it feels hell inside, it languishes and suffers, and the whole person is filled with a kind of melancholy, anxiety, and despondency. Do You Want to Fast Truly? A Homily for Clean Thursday
St. Innocent of Kherson
Do You Want to Fast Truly?This verse can rightly be called a teaching of the Church for all holy fasts. Great Lent Is a Time of Necessary Spiritual Sorrows
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
Great Lent Is a Time of Necessary Spiritual SorrowsLet us traverse the path of the Fast as the path of the grace-filled purification of our souls and bodies. “That Thou Might Be a Great Trader”
Igumen Tikhon (Borisov)
“That Thou Might Be a Great Trader”Lent is a space of love, kindness, compassion, self-reproach, leniency towards others, penitential tears, watching your heart and soul!Friday
Friday of the First Week of Great Lent
Friday of the First Week of Great LentWhen we loved sin, these sins were living boughs on the tree of our life and they fed from it. When we turned away from them, became disgusted with them, repented and confessed, we thereby severed them from ourselves. At the moment of absolution they fell away from us. Now they are dry branches, and the Lord comes to scorch in us this forbearance of transgression. Through the absolution of sins He is preparing a worthy dwelling place for Himself in us. —St. Theophan the Recluse Offer Your Confession as Though It Were the Last Time. A Homily for Clean Friday, Before Confession
St. Innocent of Kherson
Offer Your Confession as Though It Were the Last TimeIndeed, my brethren, there is none on earth who could tell us for sure that our present confession won’t be our last. Great Lent Is a Time to Test and Amend Ourselves
Archbishop Evlampy (Pyatnitsky)
Great Lent Is a Time to Test and Amend OurselvesWho doesn’t need to think about themselves? Who doesn’t need to delve into his own heart? Who doesn’t need to look at the inner state of his life and works?Saturday
Saturday of the First Week, and the Sweetness of Boiled Wheat
Saturday of the First Week, and the Sweetness of Boiled WheatFifty years after the death of St Theodore, the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), wanting to commit an outrage upon the Christians, commanded the city-commander of Constantinople during the first week of Great Lent to sprinkle all the food provisions in the marketplaces with the blood offered to idols. St Theodore appeared in a dream to Archbishop Eudoxius, ordering him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the marketplaces, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey (koliva). To Combine the Strictness of Fasting with Love for People
Hieromonk Innokenty (Prisadkov)
To Combine the Strictness of Fasting with Love for PeopleWe celebrate a prayer service to Greatmartyr Theodore the Tyro with gratitude to him and with the faith that true fasting is never put to shame, but the Lord covers the faster with His power, giving him spiritual joy and strength.
