Yes. Great Lent isn’t one uniform fast from start to finish. The Church gives us different levels of strictness depending on the day of the week and where we are in the season.
Weekdays are stricter than weekends. On Monday through Friday, we abstain from meat, dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, eggs), fish with backbones, olive oil, and wine. That’s the baseline. But Saturdays and Sundays relax the fast a bit. We still don’t eat meat or dairy, but we can use olive oil and drink wine on these days. Think of weekends as breathing room within the fast.
The first week of Lent is especially strict. Many Orthodox Christians keep a very tight fast during Clean Week, with some eating nothing at all on Clean Monday or limiting themselves to bread, fruit, and nuts on Tuesday evening. Wednesday’s fast is often kept until after the Presanctified Liturgy that evening. This isn’t because the Church wants to punish us. It’s because we’re making a strong start, setting the tone for the forty days ahead.
Then comes Holy Week, which is the strictest time of all. From Holy Thursday evening through Holy Saturday, we’re encouraged to fast as strictly as we can manage. Some people eat very little during these days. Others keep to one simple meal. The point is to enter as fully as possible into Christ’s suffering and death, preparing our bodies and souls for the joy of Pascha.
There are a few feast days when the fast lightens up even more. On the Annunciation (March 25) and Palm Sunday, we’re allowed to eat fish along with oil and wine. These are major celebrations that break through even the Lenten discipline. When the Annunciation falls during Holy Week, as it sometimes does, that exception still applies.
Now, here’s what trips up a lot of people coming from Protestant backgrounds. They hear these rules and think it’s legalism, like we’re earning our salvation by not eating cheese. That’s not it at all. The fast is medicine, not merit. It’s a tool the Church gives us to quiet our bodies so our souls can hear God better. St. Basil the Great wrote about fasting as a way to recover what Adam lost in the Garden. We’re not trying to impress God with our willpower. We’re accepting a prescription for healing.
Your priest can and should adapt the fast for you personally. Pregnant women, nursing mothers, people with diabetes or other health conditions, those who work offshore on the rigs with limited food options, children, the elderly, all of these situations call for pastoral adjustment. The Antiochian Archdiocese has always emphasized this. If keeping the full fast would harm your health or make it impossible to do your job, talk to your priest. He’ll help you figure out what’s reasonable for your situation.
Some practical notes for folks in Southeast Texas: shellfish are allowed during Lent because they don’t have backbones. So shrimp, oysters, crab, and crawfish are all on the table. Vegetable oils (like canola or corn oil) can substitute for olive oil when olive oil is restricted on weekdays. And if you’re working a turnaround at the plant with twelve-hour shifts, your fasting discipline is going to look different from someone who works a desk job with regular hours.
The levels of fasting aren’t arbitrary. They follow the rhythm of the Church’s prayer. Weekdays are for intense focus and discipline. Weekends give us a taste of the resurrection we’re moving toward. The first week launches us into the journey. Holy Week brings us to the foot of the Cross. And then Pascha explodes with feasting because Christ has trampled down death by death.
Don’t try to be a hero your first Lent. Start where you are. Maybe you keep the full fast on weekdays and weekends. Maybe you start by just giving up meat and dairy. Maybe you focus on one week at a time. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s showing up, failing, getting back up, and letting the fast do its work in you over time. Talk to your priest. He’s not going to shame you for asking questions or needing adjustments. That’s what he’s there for.
