The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Denomination·Founded 330 CE·est. ~36 million and rising; Ethiopia's 2007 census put Orthodox Christians at 43.5 per cent of the population, and the church claims closer to 50 million.

Judaism → Christianity → Oriental Orthodoxy → The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

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Precept of The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Fasting is the ordinary condition, not the exception.

A devout Ethiopian Orthodox layperson fasts around 180 days a year and a monastic up to 250 — Wednesdays and Fridays, the eight-week Great Fast, Advent, the Fast of the Apostles, the Fast of the Assumption and the Fast of Nineveh. Fasting here means no animal product at all and nothing before the ninth hour. It is the reason Ethiopian restaurant menus have a whole vegan half.

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What it asksFast on Wednesday and Friday and through the long seasons; eat no meat, no milk, no eggs on those days
Who it bindsEveryone past childhood, monks and farmers alike
Where it bitesIn the diaspora, where the working week does not pause at the ninth hour
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

Fasting in this tradition is a matter of both diet and clock: on fasting days no animal products at all, and nothing eaten before the ninth hour, which in practice means one meal in the afternoon. The Great Fast runs fifty-five days. Ethiopians describe the fast as communal rather than private — the household cooks the same food and the market stocks accordingly. In the diaspora the practice has proven durable, though clergy in North America and Europe report that the ninth-hour rule bends where the working day does not.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
A fast is as long as it is. The Ancient Church of the East Go deeper →
The ten, kept literally. The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God Go deeper →
The dharma of one's station. Hinduism Go deeper →
Uposatha — the observance day. Buddhism · rite Go deeper →
Paryushana. Jainism · rite Go deeper →
The commandments are how the covenant is lived. Judaism · core tenet Go deeper →

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