Check your parish’s fasting calendar. Most Antiochian parishes provide one, and the Archdiocese publishes an official version each year as a PDF you can download from antiochian.org.
That’s the short answer. But let me walk you through how this actually works in practice, because if you’re new to Orthodoxy, the fasting discipline can feel like trying to learn a foreign language while everyone around you speaks it fluently.
The Church calendar follows a pattern set by the Typikon, which is the book of liturgical instructions that governs Orthodox worship. Certain days are always fast days. Every Wednesday and Friday, for instance, unless it’s a fast-free week. Then there are four major fasting seasons: the Nativity Fast (November 15 through December 24), Great Lent, the Apostles’ Fast, and the Dormition Fast (August 1-14). Some of these shift dates each year because they’re tied to Pascha, which moves around like a liturgical nomad.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Not all fasting is the same. Some days you abstain from meat but can have fish. Other days it’s no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish, but wine and oil are fine. Still other days, like most weekdays in Great Lent, it’s strict: no animal products, no oil, no wine. Just vegetables, fruit, bread, and a lot of hummus if you’re smart about it.
So how do you keep track?
Your best friend is that fasting calendar I mentioned. Print it out. Stick it on your fridge. The Antiochian Archdiocese version has a legend that shows what’s allowed each day. Green might mean fish is okay. Red might mean strict. You get used to reading it the way folks around here get used to checking the hurricane forecast in August.
Some parishes also put the fasting rules in their weekly bulletin or on their website. St. George in Arizona does this. Ss. Peter and Paul up in Ben Lomond, California has an online calendar. If St. Michael doesn’t have one readily visible, ask Fr. Nicholas or whoever’s serving. They’ll point you in the right direction.
You can also check antiochian.org’s liturgics page, which lists each day’s commemorations and fasting rules. The OCA has a similar resource at oca.org. Both are solid. I wouldn’t rely on random Orthodox blogs or apps unless they’re clearly tied to a canonical jurisdiction, because you’ll find everything from reasonable guidance to rigorist nonsense that’ll make you think you need to eat nothing but lentils for six months straight.
Now here’s the thing nobody tells inquirers up front: you’re not expected to go from zero to full monastic fasting overnight. You’ll burn out. The fasting rules you see on those calendars represent the full tradition, but your priest will help you figure out where to start. Maybe it’s just giving up meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. Maybe it’s doing the first week of Great Lent strictly and then backing off a bit. This isn’t about earning God’s favor through dietary performance. It’s a healing discipline, something you grow into as your spiritual life deepens.
Talk to your priest. Seriously. He’s your spiritual father, and part of his job is helping you figure out what’s actually doable given your work schedule (I know some of you are on turnarounds at the plants), your family situation, your health. The Church has this concept called oikonomia, which is pastoral flexibility. It’s mercy built into the system. A pregnant woman fasts differently than a monk. Someone with diabetes fasts differently than someone who’s twenty-five and healthy. God knows this. The Church knows this.
One more practical note: feast days often override the normal fasting rules. If it’s a Wednesday but also the feast of St. Nicholas, you might get to have fish and wine even though Wednesday is normally a strict fast day. Your parish calendar will note this. Patronal feasts, the feast of your parish’s patron saint, also get special treatment.
The rhythm becomes second nature after a while. You’ll start to feel when Great Lent is coming the way you feel fall coming when the air changes. You’ll know it’s Wednesday without checking because your body expects it. That’s when fasting stops being a checklist and starts being part of how you pray.
If you want to dig deeper into the theology behind all this, Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s book Great Lent is worth reading. But for now, just get that calendar and start simple. Ask your priest. Don’t stress about perfection. The point is to learn hunger, both physical and spiritual, so you remember that man doesn’t live by bread alone.
