March 10, 2008

• ~Καθαρή Δευτέρα~

  Happy Clean Monday, everyone! Wishing everyone a blessed and refreshing Lent. Kali Sarakosti! Enjoy the day!

  Clean Monday marks the start of the great 48-day fast for Lent or Sarakosti and Holy Week – Megali Evdomada. All this builds up into the feast of Easter or Pascha, which is determined by the Julian Calendar and is the most celebrated holiday for Orthodox Christians.

  The theme of Clean Monday is set by the Old Testament reading appointed to be read at the Sixth Hour on this day (Isaiah 1:1-20), which says in part:

  Wash yourselves and ye shall be clean; put away the wicked ways from your souls before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well. Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, consider the fatherless, and plead for the widow. Come then, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool (v. 16-18).

  Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food,^[2] and the widespread custom of flying kites. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, molluscs, fish roe etc). Traditionally, it is considered to mark the beginning of the spring season, a notion which was used symbolically in Ivan Bunin‘s critically acclaimed story, Pure Monday.

  The happy, springtime atmosphere of Clean Monday may seem at odds with the Lenten spirit of repentance and self-control, but this seeming contradiction is a marked aspect of the Orthodox approach to fasting, in accordance with the Gospel lesson (Matthew 6:14-21) read on the morning before, which admonishes:

  When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret… (v. 16-18).

  In this manner, the Orthodox celebrate the fact that “The springtime of the Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open…”^[3]

  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • 11:03 am
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