Eastern Orthodox Christianity 2.0

…is a Patristic characterization of the Orthodox attitude during the Great Fast.  Archbishop LAZAR (Puhalo) from Canada expands upon this:
The Holy Prophet said, “Let the four fasts of the year be joy and gladness to Israel.” Truly, it is a time for repentance. But repentance is a joyous experience, a lifting of burdens, an illumination [...]

IIUC, some say one of the reasons for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in the West starting in the 1580s, and in favor of the Orthodox New Calendar or “Revised Julian Calendar” starting in the 1920s, was that with the movement of the astronomical Vernal Equinox with respect to the ‘official’ - or what [...]

…or as some of us prefer, the Great Fast, or Great Lent, is today, Clean Monday (or Pure Monday), and runs till Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.  (Orthodox Easter, Pascha, is April 27, this year.)  Here’s the OCA’s piece on the start of the Fast.

This year the Orthodox Great Fast aka Great Lent begins on Monday, March 10, Clean Monday aka Pure Monday.  This week, Monday through Sunday, is Cheesefare Week, and last week was Meatfare Week.
During Meatfare, we eat-up any meat left in our houses, because we won’t have any more meat until Pascha, the Great Feast of [...]

On Monday August 1, we entered the Transfiguration / Dormition Fast, which continues through 8/14. (It’s usually just called the Dormition Fast.) And it occurred to me that Orthodox commemorate Mary’s falling asleep on the 15th, but the West, her Assumption, which we say took place within three days of her burial. That is, the [...]