The Dormition Fast is a two-week fast from August 1 through August 14 that prepares us for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15. It’s one of four major fasting seasons in the Orthodox Church, though it’s the shortest.
We’re fasting to ready ourselves for one of the greatest feasts of the year, the day we commemorate the falling asleep (dormition) of the Virgin Mary and her bodily translation into heaven. The Church has always fasted before her major feasts. Just as we fast before Pascha and before Nativity, we fast before celebrating the Theotokos’s passage from this life into glory. It’s a time to quiet ourselves, to pray more intentionally, and to ask for her prayers as we prepare to celebrate her entrance into the fullness of God’s presence.
The fasting rules are similar to Great Lent but a bit less strict. We abstain from meat, dairy, eggs, and fish throughout the fast. Wine and oil are allowed on Saturdays and Sundays. On weekdays, the traditional rule calls for xerophagy, dry eating, which means vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and bread prepared without oil. If you’re working twelve-hour shifts at the refinery or juggling three kids in the August heat, talk to Fr. Michael about what’s realistic. The point isn’t to make yourself sick. It’s to practice some discipline and turn your attention toward God.
There’s one bright exception in the middle of all this. On August 6, right in the middle of the fast, we celebrate the Transfiguration of our Lord. It’s a major feast, so fish, wine, and oil are permitted that day. Many parishes also bless grapes and other fruit at the Transfiguration liturgy. It’s a moment of light breaking into the fast, reminding us that even our fasting is meant to transfigure us, to change us into something more than we are.
During these two weeks, many parishes serve the Paraklesis, a service of supplication to the Theotokos. It’s beautiful and it’s short, usually about twenty minutes. The hymns ask for Mary’s intercession and protection. If your parish offers Paraklesis during the Dormition Fast, try to come. There’s something about standing in a small weeknight congregation, singing those ancient prayers to the Mother of God, that makes the fast feel less like a rule you’re following and more like a relationship you’re entering.
The spiritual themes here aren’t complicated. We’re preparing for death. Not in a morbid way, but honestly. The Theotokos faced her own death with the same trust she’d shown her whole life. She didn’t cling to this world. She fell asleep in the Lord, and the Church believes her body was taken up into heaven because she was the dwelling place of God himself. When we fast before her Dormition, we’re asking her to teach us that same trust. We’re practicing letting go of our appetites, our comforts, our insistence on having things our way. It’s a rehearsal for the final letting go we’ll all face.
And then on August 15, the fast breaks with the feast. The Dormition liturgy is full of funeral imagery but also full of joy. We sing about the apostles being gathered miraculously to her bedside, about Christ himself coming to receive his mother’s soul, about her body being laid in the tomb and then taken up. It’s not a sad feast. It’s a feast about hope, hope that death isn’t the end, that our bodies matter to God, that the Theotokos who prayed for us in this life still prays for us from heaven.
If you’ve never kept the Dormition Fast before, this August might be the year to try. Start simple. Skip the meat and dairy. Come to Paraklesis if your parish offers it. Read the Akathist to the Theotokos at home one evening. See what happens when you give these two weeks to preparation instead of just letting August roll by in the usual blur of heat and back-to-school shopping. The Theotokos has a way of meeting us when we turn toward her, even if we’re not sure exactly what we’re doing.
