What Great Lent is
Great Lent is the Church's main season of repentance and of preparation for Pascha. It is not a Western Lent shifted in the calendar; it has its own services, its own hymns and its own rhythm, and it looks quite different from ordinary parish life.
The season has three parts. The weeks before Lent prepare us: the Sundays of the Publican and Pharisee, the Prodigal Son, the Last Judgment (Meatfare) and Forgiveness (Cheesefare). Then come forty days of Lent proper. Then Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week, which are not part of the forty days but belong to the fast.
The dates in 2027
Forgiveness Sunday is 14 March 2027, and Great Lent begins on Clean Monday, 15 March. Pascha is on 2 May, so Holy Week begins on 25 April with Palm Sunday. Meatfare Sunday is 7 March, and the Ecumenical Memorial Saturday is 6 March.
The date of Pascha sets all of these. If you are reading this in a later year, check the parish calendar for the current dates.
Forgiveness Sunday and the first week
On the evening of Forgiveness Sunday, the Church serves Vespers with the rite of mutual forgiveness. Everyone present asks forgiveness of everyone else and says "Forgive me" and "God will forgive". The Church does not want anyone to enter the fast carrying a grudge.
The first week is the strictest. The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete is read in four parts on the first four evenings, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served on Wednesdays and Fridays, when there is no full Liturgy.
The fasting rule
In its full form, the rule asks for no meat, eggs or dairy throughout Lent, and in the strictest weeks and on the weekdays, no fish, wine or oil as well. Fish is permitted on the Annunciation and on Palm Sunday, and wine and oil on Saturdays and Sundays. The first and last weeks are the strictest.
The same caveat applies as for any fast: the Church asks the sick, the elderly, children and those who travel to keep it according to their strength. The right thing to do is to ask your priest for a rule you can keep, and to keep it. If you have never fasted, a gentler beginning is more useful than a big one that is dropped in the second week.
The Sundays and the services
Each Sunday of Lent has its own theme: the Triumph of Orthodoxy, St Gregory Palamas, the Veneration of the Cross, St John Climacus, and St Mary of Egypt. During the week the services are longer and the hymns are slower. The Church asks us to come to as many as we can manage and to receive Communion more often, after Confession.
The Lenten weekdays also have a different tone of prayer, with the prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian, "Lord and Master of my life", said with prostrations.
How to begin
Three simple steps: talk to your priest about your rule; confess before Lent starts or in the first weeks; and pick one or two things to add to the fast, such as a regular time for prayer, a book of the Gospels read slowly, or almsgiving. Do not try to do everything.
Great Lent ends at Pascha, and the fast is worth keeping because of the feast that follows. Everything in the season is aimed at the night of the Resurrection.
