Clean Monday is the first day of Great Lent. It’s when we begin the forty-day fast before Pascha.
The date moves each year because Pascha moves. Count seven weeks back from Orthodox Easter and you’ll land on Clean Monday. In 2025, that’s March 3rd. In 2026, it’ll be February 23rd. You get the idea.
Why “Clean”?
The name points to what we’re doing. We’re cleaning house spiritually. Think of it like this: you wouldn’t host an important guest in a filthy home. Pascha is coming, the feast of feasts, the resurrection of Christ, and we need to get ready. That means repentance, confession, prayer, and fasting. We’re washing ourselves, so to speak.
Some Orthodox traditions call it by its Greek name, Kathara Deftera. Same idea. Clean. Pure. A fresh start.
What Actually Happens
The Church switches gears completely on Clean Monday. The services change. We start using the Triodion, which is the Lenten service book. Great Compline begins that first week, usually Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings. We hear portions of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, which is this long, penitential prayer that walks through salvation history while asking God for mercy. It’s beautiful and it’s hard. That’s the point.
Many people go to confession around this time if they haven’t already. The whole season is about turning back to God, and confession is where that happens sacramentally. You can’t really do Lent without it.
And then there’s the fasting. Clean Monday is traditionally one of the strictest fast days of the year. A lot of Orthodox Christians eat nothing until evening, or they keep it extremely simple, bread, water, maybe some vegetables. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, no oil, no wine. Just the basics. Some folks in Southeast Texas find this challenging when they’re working a twelve-hour shift at the plant, and that’s a real pastoral question. Talk to Fr. Michael about what’s realistic for your situation. The goal is healing, not collapsing from hunger at work.
After that first strict day, the fasting continues but most people eat at least a simple Lenten meal each day. We’re talking beans, rice, vegetables, fruit, bread. In Middle Eastern tradition, which is our tradition at St. Michael, you might see special Lenten dishes, olives, hummus, that sort of thing. It’s not fancy, but it’s not supposed to be.
The Bigger Picture
Clean Monday isn’t just about what you stop eating. It’s the doorway into a whole season. Great Lent is the Church’s annual pilgrimage toward the resurrection. We walk with Christ toward Jerusalem, toward the Cross, toward the empty tomb. But we can’t do that carrying all our junk. So we fast. We pray more. We show up to services we might normally skip. We read Scripture. We give alms. We try to forgive people. We ask forgiveness from people we’ve hurt.
The services during this first week set the tone. They’re longer than usual. They’re more somber. The priest wears dark vestments. We do a lot of prostrations (or at least we’re supposed to, bad knees get a pass). The whole atmosphere says: pay attention. Wake up. Lent is here.
If you come from a Baptist background, this might feel foreign. You’re used to Easter showing up after a regular week, maybe with a Good Friday service if your church did that. But we’ve got seven weeks of preparation. It’s like training for a marathon instead of just showing up on race day. You can’t appreciate Pascha without Lent. The joy doesn’t mean anything if you haven’t done the work.
A Practical Note
Some parishes have special Clean Monday gatherings or meals (Lenten food, of course). Some don’t. It depends on the community. In Greece, people fly kites on Clean Monday and have picnics with fasting food. That’s a cultural thing, not a Church requirement. At St. Michael, we focus on the services and the fast itself. If you’re not sure what’s happening, check the parish calendar or ask someone.
One more thing: if this is your first Lent, don’t try to be a hero. Talk to a priest about what fasting rule makes sense for you. The Church has economia, flexibility, for a reason. A new mom nursing a baby isn’t going to fast the same way a healthy single guy in his twenties does. Someone with diabetes isn’t going to skip meals. The point is to struggle a little, to feel the fast, to make space for God. It’s not about perfect rule-keeping. We’re not Pharisees.
Clean Monday is an invitation. The door to Lent is open. Walk through it.
