Fast together, and give away what the fast saves.
The fasting calendar is the Ethiopian one — Wednesdays, Fridays and the long seasons, no animal products, nothing before the ninth hour. The mahber, the parish fellowship, meets monthly, eats together and collects for funerals, weddings and the poor of the parish. In a country with no independent civil society left, the mahber is one of the last things people organise for themselves.
The mahber is the working unit of Eritrean Orthodox life: an association of households under the patronage of a saint, meeting monthly, eating a common meal, and holding a fund for funerals and emergencies. It is also how fasting works as a social fact rather than an individual discipline — the same food is cooked in every house in the same week. Eritrean national service has been open-ended since 2002, which removes young adults from village life for years at a time, and clergy have reported the strain this puts on parish fellowships. Deacons and seminarians have been conscripted along with everyone else.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.