2/20/2023
St. Tikhon of Zadonsk
Rating: 10|Votes: 13
Cheese Fare Week is the threshold and the beginning of the fast. That is why for the true children of the Church it is necessary to act all the more temperate in Cheese Fare Week than in the previous days, although they should always do so. However, will the Christian listen to the sweet odes of his loving mother?
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), Hieromonk Job (Gumerov), Priest Alexy Darashevich
Rating: 10|Votes: 8
It is the last week before the beginning of Great Lent—the week the Russians call "maslenitsa." In the West it is called "carnival," which had a similar meaning originally, but is now understood quite differently.
Rating: 6|Votes: 2
“In our Church the week before the Great Lent is called Cheese-Fare Week in translation from Greek. When Christianity came to Russia, Russian people did not know about cheese or butter. The name Maslenitsa was created to explain what can be eaten during these days because the word Maslenitsa is derived from the Russian word for butter. During the week before the Great Lent people may eat dairy products but are not allowed to eat meat.”
Archpriest Alexander Saltykov
Maslenitsa—Cheesefare Week—has begun. During this time, both fasting and the absence of fasting, festivity and thoughts of death, resurrection, and the Last Judgment are paradoxically united.
Fr. Seraphim Holland
Rating: 7.7|Votes: 7
Cheesefare week, the last full week before Great Lent begins, is an “in between” week liturgically in the Orthodox Church. Each day is “kind of like” Great Lent and “kind of like” outside of Great Lent. This is to provide a transition into Great Lent.
Elder Epiphanios (Theodoropoulos)
Rating: 8|Votes: 4
Cheesefare Sunday received it's name because the previous week we did not eat meat, but only dairy products, such as milk, cheese, etc., as well as eggs and fish.Many find this rule of the Church to be "unreasonable", saying: "How is milk of a lamb allowed but not the meat of the lamb, since milk is produced by the lamb? How are eggs allowed and not chicken, since the first are produced by the second?"
