“Oh, if you only knew what happened to the Lord on Wednesday and Friday, you would put nothing in your mouth. Neither bread, nor oil. Do not break the fast of Wednesday and Friday.”
Saint Sophia Kleisoura the Eldress
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“Fasting appears gloomy until one steps into its arena. But begin and you will see what light it brings after darkness, what freedom from bonds, what release after a burdensome life.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse
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“Food is not evil, but gluttony is. Childbearing is not evil, but fornication is. Money is not evil, but avarice is. Glory is not evil, but vainglory is. Indeed, there is no evil in existing things, but only in their misuse.”
Saint Maximos the Confessor
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“True fasting lies in rejecting evil, holding one’s tongue, suppressing one’s hatred, and banishing one’s lust, evil words, lying, and betrayal of vows.”
Saint Basil the Great
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“Are you fasting? Show me your fast with your works. Which works? If you see someone who is poor, show him mercy. If you see an enemy, reconcile with him. If you see a friend who is becoming successful, do not be jealous of him! Love your neighbour.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“During the time that the body of one fasting becomes thin and light, the Spiritual life attains to perfection and reveals itself through Miraculous manifestations. The spirit then performs its actions as if in a bodiless body. External feelings are as shut out, and the mind, renouncing the worldly, ascends to the Heavenly and becomes completely immersed in the contemplation of the Spiritual world. Yet not everyone can take upon himself strict rules of abstinence from everything, nor deprive himself completely of all that serves to relieve infirmities: “He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matthew 19:12).”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“He who keeps watch over the words he is about to say, also keeps watch over the deeds he is about to do.”
Saint Nektarios of Aegina
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“Fasting is wonderful, because it tramples our sins like a dirty weed, while it cultivates and raises truth like a flower.”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“Devils take great delight in fullness, and drunkeness and bodily comfort. Fasting possesses great power and it works glorious things. To fast is to banquet with Angels.”
Saint Athanasios the Great
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“Bodily fasting alone is not enough to bring about perfect self-restraint and true purity; it must be accompanied by contrition of heart, intense Prayer to God, frequent meditation on the Scriptures, toil and manual labor. These are able to check the restless impulses of the Soul and to recall it from its shameful fantasies. Humility of Soul helps more than everything else, however, and without it no one can overcome unchastity or any other sin. In the first place, then, we must take the utmost care to guard the heart from base thoughts, for, according to the Lord, ‘out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, unchastity’ and so on (Matt.15:19).”
Saint John Cassian
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“Let us fast, my children, do not listen to those who say that fasting is nothing, and that this is something from Monks. This is not from Monks, my children, forgive me, God says this. The first Commandment of God is fasting, and our Christ fasted.”
Saint Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia
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“When I abstain from food I am better able to understand the Soul of man.”
Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia
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“If fasting was all about food, then cows would be Saints.”
Saint John of Damascus
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“Fasting and self-control are a double wall of defense and whoever lives within them enjoys great peace.”
Saint Gregory Palamas
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“To fast is to do violence to nature. It is to do away with whatever pleases the palate. Fasting ends lust, roots out bad thoughts, frees one from evil dreams. Fasting makes for purity of Prayer, an enlightened Soul, a watchful mind, a deliverance from blindness.”
Saint John Climacus
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“Once, someone came to me and said: “My Priest, they told me that fasting doesn’t exist.” “And who told you that there was no fasting? Go tell the Priest to open the Bible and see that which discusses fasting: ‘without Prayer and fasting’ (Matthew 17:21, Mark 9:29), which our Christ says, and other things.’ And the demons, and sicknesses, and all the passions are cast out with fasting. The Holy Forerunner, what did he eat in the desert? What did the Venerable David eat? With an Antidoron, he passed the whole week in his Cell of Asceticism.”
Saint Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia
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“Let not the mouth only fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast, by being pure from rapine avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing from running to the unlawful spectacles.”
Saint John of Kronstadt
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“The Holy Church cries out: fasting is not avoiding food, but putting away all evil, controlling the tongue from idle talking and gossip, forbearing from anger, and abstaining from lust, falsehood, and flattery. Whoever fasts in this way, his fast is pleasing to God.”
Saint Anthony of Optina
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“I shall speak first about control of the stomach, the opposite to gluttony, and about how to fast and what and how much to eat. I shall say nothing on my own account, but only what I have received from the Holy Fathers. They have not given us only a single rule for fasting or a single standard and measure for eating, because not everyone has the same strength; age, illness or delicacy of body create differences. But they have given us all a single goal: to avoid over-eating and the filling of our bellies… A clear rule for self-control handed down by the Fathers is this: stop eating while still hungry and do not continue until you are satisfied.”
Saint John Cassian
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“Without fasting neither pure Prayer will be attained nor chaste virginity achieved, nor will the Christian not subjugating his body through the suitable means of fasting be able to bear the Cross of Our Saviour Jesus and follow Him. He, Our Saviour Jesus, fasted forty days and nights as an example for us. And when? After His Baptism. This shows us that all Baptized Christians are obliged to fast according to their strength.”
Saint Daniel of Katounakia
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“Do not neglect the fast; it constitutes an imitation of Christ’s way of life.”
Saint Anthony the Great
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“Fasting and self-control are a double wall of defence and whoever lives within them enjoys great peace.”
Saint Gregory Palamas
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“We know the power of fasting and its significance at least from the fact that it is somehow particularly hated by our enemy the devil.”
Saint Barsanuphius of Optina
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“Nothing humbles the Soul more than the scarcity of bread and water. When the enemy wants to take a city, he first stops the food and water supplies, and they thus give themselves up even against their will. So is it for a Monastic – unless he restrains his stomach with hunger and thirst, he cannot rid himself of evil thoughts.”
Saint Sarah of the desert of Scete
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“We are told to fast not only to mortify our body, but also to keep our intellect watchful, so that it will not be obscured because of the amount of food we have eaten and thus be unable to guard its thoughts. We must not therefore expend all our effort in bodily fasting; we must also give attention to our thoughts and to spiritual meditation, since otherwise we will not be able to advance to the heights of true purity and chastity. As our Lord has said, we should ‘cleanse first the inside of the cup and plate, so that their outside may also be clean’ (Matt. 23:26).”
Saint John Cassian
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“Those who indulge themselves with an excess of meats and in a surfeit of pastries are always bowing their heads towards their full plate and are unable to lift their gaze up to Heaven. Their god is their belly and their glory is their shame.”
Saint Nektarios of Aegina
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“There are two kinds of fasting: inner and outward fasting. The first is the safeguarding of our vision, hearing and all our feelings from all bad and impure things; the second is the abstinence from certain kinds of food. Both of them are inseparable from one another. Some people pay attention only to the outward fasting and do not comprehend the inner fasting at all.”
Saint Barsanuphius of Optina
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“To what end do fasting and penitence lead? For what purpose is this trouble taken? They lead to the cleansing of the Soul from sins, to peace of heart, to union with God; they fill us with devotion and sonship, and give us boldness before God.”
Saint John of Kronstadt
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“A true fast consists not only in exhausting the flesh, but also in giving away to the hungry that piece of bread you would have liked to eat.”
Saint Seraphim of Sarov
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“Let the mouth also fast from foul words and unjust criticism. For what does it profit if we abstain from fish and meat and yet bite and devour one another?”
Saint John Chrysostom
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“The law of Fast seems to be a law for body but it is a law for mind in fact.”
Saint Ignatius Brianchaninov
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