Introduction: A Fast Not Only of Peter and Paul
In the midst of summer, when the earth yields its first fruits and the sun reaches its zenith, the Church calls the faithful to a fast that is not especially strict, yet profound in its spiritual meaning—the Apostles’ Fast. It is often referred to simply as “the Fast of Peter and Paul.” Yet the liturgical cycle reveals a broader significance. On the eve of the fast, the Church celebrates the Sunday of All Saints, and the first Sunday of the Apostles’ Fast is dedicated to All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land. Thus, the Apostles’ Fast is a celebration of all the saints, including the saints of Russia, while Peter and Paul stand as the foremost leaders of this innumerable host.
But who are the saints? By what means did they overcome the world? And what significance does their life have for ordinary people who fast, pray, and strive to keep the commandments, yet feel that they are getting nowhere, that even partial correction of their lives seems completely beyond their grasp?
The apostolic reading provides the answer to these questions, and that answer is at once inspiring and sobering.
Victors in Spiritual Warfare
For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith (1 John 5:4).
The Apostle calls the saints victors. The war they wage is not against flesh and blood, but against “spiritual wickedness in high places” (cf. Ephesians 6:12). It is a spiritual battle. The battlefield is the human heart itself. The enemy’s weapons are pride, despondency, fear, lust, and gluttony. The saints’ victory does not consist in never having fallen, but in steadfastly pressing toward the goal set before them—the Kingdom of Heaven—and remaining faithful to God until the end.
How, then, did they conquer? The Apostle answers: through faith. Yet the Apostle James reminds us: The devils also believe, and tremble (James 2:19). The demons know more about God than any theologian, and yet their faith does not save them. Therefore, the faith of the saints is not an abstract concept. It is the virtue that the Apostle Paul calls, faith which worketh by love (Galatians 5:6). Within it we may discern three inseparable stages.
The first stage is certainty—the foundation. The saints are those who attained absolute certainty that God exists and that He is their Father. The martyrs walked into the jaws of lions and into the flames because the reality of Christ was more real to them than the reality of their mortal flesh. Without this certainty, it is impossible to take even the first step, to make even the first bow on the path toward Christ.
The second stage is trust—the journey. It is not enough to believe that medicine can heal; one must actually take it. Trust is faith put into practice. Abraham departed from his homeland without knowing where he was going. Peter walked upon the waters toward Christ and did not sink until he began to doubt. Trust means becoming like Christ and following after Him.
The third stage is faithfulness—the perfection of faith. Faithfulness is the state in which all consoling feelings have vanished, when the darkness of Gethsemane surrounds the soul, and yet a person remains with God. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life (Revelation 2:10). Faithfulness is an indivisible union with Christ, what the Holy Fathers called deification (theosis, θέωσις).
The saints of the Russian land attained this not in some abstract spiritual vacuum, but within the concrete realities of history: St. Vladimir the Great, St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Seraphim of Sarov, Holy Tsar Nicholas II, St. Luke (Voino-Yasenetsky), and the great host of the New Martyrs and Confessors.
The Calling of All to Holiness
The Church commemorates the saints in order to dispel our unbelief. On the Feast of All Saints and on the Feast of All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land, the clear voice of divine truth resounds: all are called to holiness.
Ye shall be holy: for I am holy (Leviticus 11:44). This is not advice for a spiritual elite. It is the norm of Christian life. The Apostle Paul calls all the faithful in Christ “saints” (cf. Philippians 1:1). Holiness is not some mystical hovering above reality; it is the true normal condition of man as his Creator intended him to be.
Holiness is not mystical exaltation; it is the genuine normality of the human person as God created him.
Why, then, do saints seem so rare in our everyday perception? Why do people remain captive to sin while holiness appears to be an unattainable summit? The answer is simple: We lack spiritual zeal born of faith.
“We have no determination,” said St. Seraphim of Sarov, “yet the grace and help of God granted to the faithful and to those who seek the Lord with all their heart are the same now as they were in former times. We too could live as the ancient Fathers lived, for according to the word of God, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (cf. Hebrews 13:8).
Zeal is not irritability or fanaticism, as the world often imagines. It is firmness of spirit, a readiness to follow the commandments of God everywhere and always, without compromise. It is that spiritual “muscle” which impelled the Prophet Elijah to rebuke kings and the martyrs to enter the arena to face the lions. In modern Christian experience, faith is often divided into “church faith” and “everyday faith.” In church a person is zealous, but at work he tolerates falsehood; at home he gives way to irritation; in his thoughts he drowns in judgment of others. What is lacking is the resolve to say to oneself: “I am a Christian always—even when no one sees me, even when it is difficult.”
What hinders this zeal? The Apostle John the Theologian points to the root:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world... For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world (1 John 2:15–16).
What hinders it is attachment to the world. A person clings to comfort, to the opinions of others, and to familiar habits. Behind that attachment always stand two masters: self-love and pride. They whisper: “Take it easy. Spare yourself. This is not your fault. Everyone lives this way.”
The dangerous illusion that holiness is difficult
One of the enemy’s most subtle suggestions is the idea that holiness is difficult, while sin is easy and natural. This is a lie. An infant is naturally kind, trusting, and pure. Human nature, as created by God, is beautiful and harmonious. Sin is the distortion, the disease, the spasm, the darkness. Holiness is the soul’s simplicity, its health, freedom, and light. Holiness is natural to man because he was created in the image and likeness of God. The soul breathes holiness and was made to live by it.
The problem is not that the commandments are difficult. The problem is that man has become overgrown with sinful habits and passions. People live so long with vanity, irritation, envy, and gluttony that these states begin to feel familiar, even native to them. It seems impossible to live without sin. But this is not freedom—it is addiction.
The chief difficulty lies not in attaining some extraordinary height of virtue, but in overcoming the particular passions that have taken root in the heart. And here we hear the most comforting word of Christ.
“My Yoke Is Easy, and My Burden Is Light”
These words are spoken by Him Who created man: Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 30). The path of the commandments is not an unbearable weight. What is difficult is fighting our sinful addictions by our own strength—they resist like wild beasts. But as soon as a person, in obedience to the Church, begins to fast, prays, and restrains both bodily and spiritual impressions and distractions, the Lord Himself places His shoulder beneath the burden. The one who thought he could never forgive receives strength to forgive. The one who feared he could not refrain from judging others finds divine help. The one who believed that holiness was not meant for him beholds the example of St. Matrona of Moscow, who could not walk, yet became a great saint.
The obstacle is not the “height” of holiness, but our attachment to the comfortable little swamp of sin. The saints were people just like us. Speaking of the Prophet Elijah, the Apostle James says: Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months (James 5:17). The difference is only this: the saints desired to be with God more than they desired sleep, food, anger, or the gratification of their own ego. And God, seeing their desire, did not withhold His help from them, but bestowed upon them His saving grace.
The Apostles’ Fast: A School of Victory
The Apostles’ Fast is the perfect time to stop dreaming about holiness from a distance and begin becoming holy here and now. There is no need to wait for special circumstances. The lives of the Russian saints—Xenia of Saint Petersburg, Seraphim of Sarov, and Tikhon of Zadonsk—show that holiness is possible in every rank, vocation, and condition of life. What is lacking? Zeal is lacking.
The Apostles’ Fast is the best time to stop dreaming about holiness from afar and begin becoming holy here and now.
A prayer to God’s holy saints may be as simple as this: “You were weak as I am weak. Teach me spiritual determination. Help me cease loving this world so much. Help me see that attachment to sin is not merely a ‘human weakness,’ but a deadly illness from which I long to be healed.”
The fast teaches certainty: to stop doubting and to know firmly that God is love.
The fast leads to trust: to take a step toward reconciliation, toward prayer, toward renouncing what is unnecessary.
And most importantly, the fast nurtures faithfulness—not some dramatic heroism, but a quiet, daily faithfulness, so that at the end of life a person will not stand as a stranger at the threshold of the Kingdom, but as one of whom the Lord will say: Well done, thou good and faithful servant… enter thou into the joy of thy lord (Matthew 25:21).
Holiness does not consist in never falling, but in rising again each time we fall and continuing on our way. For beside us stands Christ, together with the host of all the saints who have already walked this path and who pray for us all.
The fast is a season to cast off the heavy burden of sinful habits and to clothe ourselves in the light garment of the freedom of the children of God.
