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Great Lent, or the Great Fast (Greek: Μεγάλη Τεσσαρακοστή, Megali Tessarakosti or Μεγάλη Νηστεία, Megali Nisteia, meaning "Great 40 Days", and "Great Fast", respectively), is the most important fasting season of the church year within many denominations of Eastern Christianity.
Thursday fasting is common among the Hindus of northern India. On Thursdays, devotees listen to a story before opening their fast. On the Thursday fasters also worship Vrihaspati Mahadeva. They wear yellow clothes, and meals with yellow colour are preferred. Women worship the banana tree and water it. Food items are made with yellow-coloured ghee.
In the early centuries, the Lenten fast lasted all day, and so towards the evening, the Christians of Rome would begin to gather at a church known as the collecta ("gathering place"), where they would be joined by the assembled clergy of the city and the pope. [4] The procession would then move through the streets to the station church, not far ...
There were shorter periods of fasting observed in the pre-Nicene church (Athanasius noted that the 4th-century Alexandrian church observed a period of fasting before Pascha [Easter]). [41] However it is known that the 40-day period of fasting – the season later named Lent – before Eastertide was clarified at the Nicene Council. [44]
Ordinary communicants would calculate the time until the moment they took communion; priests fasted based on the time they began saying Mass. [1] The new fasting rules opened the way to scheduling evening Masses, which the fast from midnight regime made all but impossible for those desiring to receive communion. [2]
Their physical work made fasting during the week very difficult and an exception was granted to allow British miners to fast on Sundays instead of Thursdays. The practice became popular among the wider membership of the church in Britain and quickly spread. In 1896, Fast Day was changed to the first Sunday of the month, instead of the first ...
The National Day of Prayer is an annual day of observance designated by the United States Congress and held on the first Thursday of May, when people are asked "to turn to God in prayer and meditation". The president is required by law (36 U.S.C. § 119) to sign a proclamation each year, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day.
In the Episcopal Church, the September Ember Days are still (optionally) observed on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after Holy Cross Day, [19] so that if September 14 is a Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday, the Ember Days fall on the following Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday (in the second week of September) whereas they fall a week later (in the ...