The Apostles’ Fast: joy and thanksgiving
– The Apostles’ Fast begins on the Monday after All Saints Sunday, that is, one week after Pentecost (in 2025: Monday 16 June), and ends on the eve of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on 29 June (12 July for those following the old calendar). It can last anywhere from one day to about six weeks, depending on the date of Easter: the feasts after Easter (Ascension, Pentecost and All Saints) are movable, so the period ending at the feast of the Apostles becomes longer or shorter accordingly.
Note: in the past, the Church fasted until sunset, not until noon as is done today in Great Lent. Saint Basil the Great († 379) addresses the Pharisaic spirit among Christians, that is, those who reduce Christian fasting to physical abstinence and neglect spiritual fasting: prayer, repentance and love of neighbour. They proclaim their love for God but do not care about loving their neighbour as Scripture commands. The great saint says: “You do not eat meat, but, alas, you devour your brother; you do not drink wine, but you cannot keep your tongue from insults; you wait until evening to eat, but you spend your whole day in the law courts.”
The Apostles’ Fast is very ancient. It is mentioned in the Apostolic Constitutions (late fourth century), which record this instruction attributed to the Apostles: “After you have celebrated the feast of Pentecost, keep festival for one week; and after that week, fast. For it is right to rejoice at the gift given by God (the Holy Spirit) and to fast after rejoicing.”
The Acts of the Apostles confirm this in several passages: the Apostles lived in prayer and fasting, especially before an important decision in the Church of Christ, or in thanksgiving to God for a blessing and a great joy: “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them” (Acts 13:2-3).
And the Lord says: “This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting” (Matthew 17:21).
The length of the fast was set by the interval between All Saints Sunday and the feast of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul on 29 June, followed the next day by the joint feast of all the holy Apostles. Originally the fast is a thanksgiving to God for the Holy Spirit who came down on the Church at Pentecost, and a consecration of life through fasting. Once peace was restored to the Church under the Emperor Constantine the Great, the practice spread and became fixed: in honour of the holy Apostles, teachers of true piety and shepherds of the whole world, Christians fast – abstaining from meat, cheese and all their by-products – from the Monday after All Saints Sunday until the feast of the Apostles.
So this fast is an ancient tradition, originally shared by East and West. Saint Basil the Great says: “Do not limit fasting to abstaining from food, for true fasting is abstaining from evil.” Let us thank the Lord for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and for the salvation he wrote on the cross in the ink of his holy blood; he raised us from the death of our sins and crowned us with grace and life. So let us fast and rejoice in the divine love he has shown us, the weak, raising us to the dignity of sons. Let us fast together, lifting up our prayers and our hearts to him, that he may also send down his peace on our lands, all our lands where our brothers of right faith live, and on the whole world; and that he may make us, in the footsteps of the holy Apostles, his witnesses for ever.
Amen.
Fr. Boutros Zein
