Orthodox Christians enter the period of the great fast on Monday. Patriarch of Moscow and All-Russia Alexy II will administer the first lenten service - Andrei Kritsky’s canon of repentance, at the Christ the Savoir Cathedral in the evening.
For seven weeks Orthodox believers will restrict themselves in having earthly pleasures and devote most of their time to spiritual life. The Lent will be crowned with Easter Sunday that is marked this year by Orthodox Christians on April 8. One of the earliest celebrations of Easter was held on this day. Under rules established back at the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea in 325, Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox and first March full moon. Special charts called paschal tables are made by the Church in order to calculate exact dates.
Sanctifier St. John Chrysostom accused those people who, refusing from meat and fish, at the same time “consume” people around. The meaning of the fast, as men of faith teach, is not a diet, but spiritual self-perfecting, and special Lent services the songs of which are marvellous in beauty and depth of meaning help to achieve this.
Saint Efrem Sirin’s prayer for absolution inspired Russia’s great poet Alexander Pushkin to write a poem “Ottsy pustynniki” (Desert Fathers) that ends with almost quoted words of prayer.
MOSCOW, February 19 (Itar-Tass)
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