How Is a Christian Recognized?
In the early centuries, when being a Christian meant putting one’s life in daily danger, the disciples of Christ needed a sign by which to recognize one another. That sign was the fish — ΙΧΘΥΣ — a Greek acrostic meaning Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. It was a discreet sign, unintelligible to persecutors, but clear to those within. Whoever saw the sign of the fish traced in the sand with the tip of a foot knew: here is a brother.
Today, in the countries in which we live, we are no longer compelled to hide our faith as in the catacombs. No one any longer requires us, by law, to deny Christ. We are free to confess openly what we believe. And precisely for this reason, the question becomes more pressing, not easier: how is a Christian recognized today?
Not by declarations. Everyone makes declarations. Not by the books one reads. Not by the icons in one’s home. Not by the small cross worn around the neck. Not by the fact that one goes to church at Christmas and Pascha, like everyone else. Not even by the fact that one is baptized — in Orthodox countries nearly everyone is baptized, yet the faithful are few.
There are, however, two things that are visible, simple, objective, and not easily falsified. Two things that a sincere Christian has, and one who is Christian only in name does not. Two things that require no superhuman struggle, but an obedience accessible to any healthy Christian, according to his strength and with the counsel of his spiritual father. Two things that anyone can do, in any place, in any circumstance, if he truly wills.
These are the two pillars of the Christian life: the fast as ordained by the Church, and presence at the Divine Liturgy.
Whoever keeps them lives as an active son of the Church. Whoever sets them aside, however much he speaks of “personal faith,” “flexible spirituality,” or “the God within,” visibly weakens his living membership in the Body of the Church. Baptism remains, its grace is not erased — but the Christian life atrophies like a limb one no longer moves. This article is about these two pillars: why they are essential, why they admit no invented justifications, and what is built upon them.
The Two Pillars — What They Are and Why They Are Essential
Before entering into the depth of each, it must be said clearly what the two pillars are not.
They are not the measure of holiness. He who fasts and goes to Liturgy on Sundays is not, by this alone, a saint. Many fast without profit; many stand in church with their minds elsewhere. Holiness is a long labour, an ascent, a gift of grace. The two pillars do not guarantee holiness.
They are not the crown of the spiritual life. They are its beginning. They are the foundation. They are the gate through which one enters, not the altar at which one arrives.
Nor are they great ascetic struggle. The fast as ordained by the Church is not the fast of the Desert Fathers. The Sunday Liturgy is not the all-night vigil of Athos. They are the measures the Church has set for the ordinary Christian, for the father of a family, for the working woman, for the weakened elder, for the busy young person. They are adapted to ordinary capacities.
Why then are they essential?
Because they are the objective sign that one receives the order of the Church. Not one’s own order. Not “how I feel.” Not “how I interpret.” But what the Church herself, through the Holy Synods and through the apostolic Tradition, has determined for all. To keep the two pillars is to say by one’s deeds: I am not above the Church. I am a son of the Church. I receive what she has received, I do what she does, I eat when she tells me to eat, I abstain when she tells me to abstain, I come to the Chalice when she calls.
And the rest of the Christian life — pure prayer, the conquest of the passions, almsgiving undefiled by vainglory, true humility, the love that never fails — all of these are natural weaknesses of the fallen nature that are corrected slowly, in time, through grace, through struggle, through innumerable falls and risings. He who demands that a beginning Christian become free of the passions tomorrow demands the impossible. He who demands ceaseless prayer like the hesychasts demands a level that comes only after years. He who demands almsgiving wholly free of vainglory demands perfection itself.
But the two pillars — the fast and the Liturgy — demand no such thing. They demand only this: that you submit to the order. That you do not eat meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. That you come to church on Sunday. That you keep the Great Fast, the Apostles’ Fast, the Dormition Fast, the Nativity Fast. That is all. It is not heroism. It is the visible minimum of faith.
And precisely because it is so accessible, it becomes the harshest criterion of sincerity. For he who says I cannot to the easy things does not speak the truth. He says only that he does not will.
The Pillar of the Fast — The Commandment Given in Paradise and Kept in the Church
The first commandment that God gave to man in Paradise was a commandment of fasting.
Not a commandment of prayer. Not a commandment of almsgiving. Not a general moral commandment. But a commandment concerning food: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
This is no coincidence. This is the revelation of a depth that modern man, lost in his psychologism, no longer grasps. Food is not an indifferent thing. Food is the place where the will of man meets the will of God in the most concrete, the most bodily, the most daily manner. What you eat, when you eat, whether you stop when you are told to stop — all of these are confessions of obedience or disobedience.
Adam fell through a disobedience concerning food. The whole human race fell through the mouth of Adam, because he listened to the serpent rather than to God, and ate what he was not to eat. And Christ, the new Adam, began His saving work in symmetrical fashion: through forty days of fasting, through the conquest of the first temptation, which was again the temptation of food: “Command that these stones be made bread” (Matthew 4:3). Where Adam fell, Christ conquered. Where the first man opened the door to corruption through a single bite, the second Adam closed it through abstinence.
About this truth Saint Basil the Great speaks with a clarity we no longer encounter today, neither in sermons nor in books of spiritual counsel. He says: “Fasting is a gift of old; it has not grown old, it has not aged. It is ever new, ever in flower. The law of fasting was given in Paradise. Adam was the first to receive the commandment to fast: ‘You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ The words ‘you shall not eat’ are a law of fasting and abstinence. We fell sick through sin; let us be healed through repentance! And repentance without fasting is powerless. We did not fast, and we were driven out of Paradise! Let us fast, then, that we may return to Paradise!”
These words must be read slowly. Fasting is as old as humanity itself. It is not an oriental custom, not a monastic tradition transplanted into the world, not a medieval ecclesiastical invention. It is the law of Paradise. And the refusal to fast, under whatever motive it may be dressed, is a continuation of the refusal of Adam.
For this reason the Church, having received this primordial commandment and having seen it perfectly fulfilled by Christ Himself, has ordained for all her children the concrete ways in which the commandment may be kept. She has ordained the four great fasts: the Fast of Pascha, the Fast of the Holy Apostles, the Fast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, the Fast of the Nativity of the Lord. She has ordained Wednesday, in remembrance of the betrayal by Judas, and Friday, in remembrance of the Crucifixion. She has ordained the days of preparation before the great feasts. All of these are not “local customs” or “ancient practices that may be adapted.” They are the order of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. The same in fourth-century Antioch and in twenty-first-century Cardiff. The same on Athos and in the world. One.
Saint Basil also speaks of the depth of true fasting: “For fasting to be worthy of praise, it is not enough to abstain from food alone; we must fast a fast received and pleasing to God. And the true fast is estrangement from sin, restraint of the tongue, putting away of wrath, removal of lusts, of slander, of falsehood, of false oaths. The absence of these things is the true fast.” The fast of the body without the fast of the soul is dry. But the fast “of the soul alone” does not exist in Tradition. It is a modern invention of those who wish to feel spiritual without paying the small price of a meal without meat.
Saint John Chrysostom carries this further: “Do you fast? Then prove it by your deeds! What deeds? — you ask. Here they are: when you see a poor man, have mercy on him; when you see an enemy, be reconciled with him. When you see your neighbour prospering, do not envy him. Keep your eyes in check, that they may not cast lustful and impure glances. Not only your mouth must fast, but also your eyes and your ears, your feet and your hands and every member of your body. Let your hands fast by remaining clean from unjust gain and the greed of profit. Let your feet fast by not going to unseemly amusements. Let your eyes fast by not looking with lust and inflamed desire.”
Fasting, therefore, begins at the table and extends over the whole being. It begins with food and rises to speech, to gaze, to thought. But it begins at the table. It cannot leap over the table. For man is not a bodiless angel. Man is body and soul, and salvation embraces the whole of him. He who wishes to fast “with the soul alone” deceives himself: he does half a work and calls it whole.
Saint Basil the Great also has words that strike directly at the most common objection — that of bodily weakness. He says briefly and forcefully: “Do not find excuse in bodily illness or weakness!” This is how the most commonly used excuse is cut at the root. It is not an invitation to imprudence toward genuine health — the Church has real dispensations for the sick, as we shall see — but a blow against the habit of inventing imaginary illnesses in order to avoid a small ascetic effort. Those who invoke weakness without being truly weak deceive themselves; and before God, who made their nature and knows what they can bear, this deception does not pass.
Saint Basil also has a powerful image about the social fruit of fasting, which the modern man, so anxious about “justice” and “peace,” would do well to ponder: “If fasting reigned, no arms would be forged, there would be no tribunals, no prisons. Fasting would have taught all to restrain themselves not only from food, but also to cast out the love of money, greed, and every vice” (Homily II on Fasting). Here is another way of seeing things. He who wants a better world begins not with political reforms, not with manifestos, not with televised indignations — but with his own table. The world changes where each Christian begins to fast. For fasting cuts the root of greed, and greed is the root of nearly all social evils.
This is what the pillar of fasting means: to receive the order of the Church as it is, without trimming it to suit your appetite, without negotiating with your spiritual father for dispensations you have no real grounds for, without telling yourself “I fast in another way.” To say simply, humbly, as a child: Thus has the Church ordained. Thus I do.
And one more thing must be said about fasting, for it is a common confusion: fasting is not a diet. He who fasts in order to lose weight, or to eat more healthily, or for any other earthly motive, does not fast in the Orthodox sense. Orthodox fasting has a single aim: God. It is abstinence offered as a sacrifice, not as a personal benefit. And the difference between the two lies not in the food — the difference lies in the heart. Two people may eat exactly the same salad on a fast day, but one fasts for Christ and the other diets for himself. Before God, the first salad is a sacrifice; the second is a waste of time.
For this reason the Fathers insist: fasting without prayer is hunger; fasting without confession is pride; fasting without the Liturgy is a wasteland. The pillar of fasting does not stand alone. It stands beside the pillar of the Liturgy, and together they hold up the roof.
The Pillar of the Liturgy — The Place Where God and the Saints Are
The second pillar is the Divine Liturgy. And here a truth must be stated from the outset, one that many have forgotten or have never heard: the Liturgy is not a service. It is not a religious ceremony. It is not a Sunday worship among the other Sunday worships of other confessions. It is Heaven opened upon earth.
In the Divine Liturgy, through the working of the Holy Spirit, the bloodless Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ is offered. Christ Himself, really, fully, without separation from His heavenly glory, is present upon the Holy Table. The angels minister together with the priests. The saints stand by. The Mother of God is there. Heaven and earth are united in a single place, for a single purpose: that he who comes may commune with the living God.
To be absent from the Divine Liturgy does not mean “to skip a service.” It means to choose not to be there where Christ awaits you in the most concrete way. It means to say, by your silence, that you have business more important than the encounter with the Master. For a sincere Christian, this thought is incomprehensible. For a Christian in name only, it is natural.
The Church of the first centuries understood this with a severity that our comfortable times have lost. The ancient order of the Church, preserved in the Apostolic Canons and received by all Tradition, decrees in the 9th Apostolic Canon: “All the faithful who enter the church and listen to the Scriptures, but do not remain for the prayer and for the Holy Communion, must be excommunicated, as causing disorder in the Church.” And the 8th Canon, concerning the clergy: “If any bishop or presbyter or deacon, or anyone on the list of the clergy, does not partake when the Holy Sacrifice is offered, let him state the cause; and if it be a worthy one, let him be forgiven; but if he should not state it, let him be excommunicated, as having become a cause of harm to the people.”
These canons must be pondered. The Apostles — through whom Christ founded the Church, and whose authority is set within Tradition — do not, in this canon, excommunicate those who do not come to the Liturgy at all, but those who come and prepare themselves yet do not communicate without a worthy cause. How deep was the ancient ecclesial conscience: absence from the Chalice was reckoned as disorder, as rupture from the Body of the Church, as scandal. How much more, then, was complete absence from the Divine Liturgy unthinkable for a Christian in full standing.
This consciousness was strengthened still further by the explicit canonical order of the Church. The 80th Canon of the Quinisext Council (also called the Council in Trullo, held in 691-692) decrees clearly: he who, without genuine necessity and being in the city, is absent from church for three Sundays in a row, is subject to canonical penance. Three Sundays. This was the canonical measure of the seriousness of liturgical belonging. Three weeks in which a person could come but did not — and the Church considered him, by this very fact, in visible rupture from the assembly.
Today, many who call themselves Christians are absent for three months, three years, a lifetime. And they tell themselves all is well because they “believe in God.” But neither the Apostles nor the Synods taught so. And the Apostles and the Synods are the voice of the One Church, through which Christ Himself speaks.
Why this apostolic severity? Because the Liturgy is the place where the Christian is made a Christian. He is not made a Christian at home, reading. He is not made a Christian in the forest, contemplating. He is not made a Christian in his bed, praying “interiorly.” He is made a Christian in the church, in the holy assembly, receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord. Christ said plainly: “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). Here no evasion is permitted. There is no Communion outside the Liturgy. There is no full Christian life without Communion. And Communion without preparation — without fasting, without confession, without reconciliation with one’s neighbour — is, according to the word of the Apostle, “unto judgement” (1 Corinthians 11:29). Here we see how the two pillars uphold one another: the fast prepares for the Chalice; the Chalice gives meaning to the fast.
And the Divine Liturgy is, above all, the place where God and the saints are. There you do not pray alone. You pray together with the whole Church — the one on earth and the one in heaven. You pray together with the martyrs who poured out their blood, with the venerable who crucified themselves to the world, with the Mother of God who gave birth to the Word. There time stops. There the present age touches the age to come. There, for a few hours, man comes out of this world that grows old and dies, and enters the world that does not pass away.
This reality is not a spiritual metaphor. It is ontological truth. At the words “It is meet and right to worship the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” the whole heavenly Church joins itself to the earthly one in a single assembly. At the words “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth,” our voice mingles with the voice of the Seraphim whom Isaiah heard singing around the divine throne (Isaiah 6:3). And at the consecration of the Gifts, when the Holy Spirit descends upon the bread and wine and makes them the Body and Blood of the Lord, heaven itself opens above the Holy Table, and the angels cover their faces before the radiance of the Glory.
This is the Liturgy. And to stand before this reality and say “I have no time” or “I prefer to sleep” is, if you truly ponder it, a grave judgement that man brings upon himself.
He who chooses to stay at home on Sunday chooses solitude over this assembly. He chooses his own house over the house of God. He chooses the television, the telephone, sleep — over heaven.
And here again comes the second essential truth: to come to the Liturgy does not demand great things. It demands a few hours, once a week. It demands that you rise a little earlier than on working days. It demands that you dress decently. It demands that you stop your running about. That is all. It does not demand heroism. It does not demand theological studies. It does not demand special grace. It demands only the will.
Something must also be said about how you come to the Liturgy, for it is not enough merely to show up. You come prepared: with the evening prayers said the night before, with fasting from food and drink from midnight, with peace in the heart toward those with whom you are at variance, with Communion when your spiritual father gives you his blessing. You come with a wakeful mind, attentive to the words of the prayers, not with your thoughts on business or the cares of the day. You come from beginning to end, not just halfway, not just at the end to receive the antidoron. For the Liturgy is a single unbroken work, from the first blessing to the dismissal, and each part has its purpose. He who comes to half receives half.
And one more thing: the Liturgy is listened to with the whole being, not with the ears alone. You bow when bowing is called for. You make the sign of the Cross when the sign of the Cross is called for. You stand when all the people stand. You sing, if you can sing, or at least follow the sung words with your lips. For the Liturgy is not a spectacle to be watched. It is a work in which you are called to take part with your body, your voice, your heart. He who comes only to assist, as at a concert, loses more than half.
A pause must be made here, and a difficult truth must be looked at plainly. For the reader, having read the above, may say to himself: “These are matters for the very devout. I am not such, but neither am I alone. Many do not come weekly. That is how the world is today.” This consolation has, however, a problem: it is not true.
I have treated this theme at length in the article How Many Orthodox Actually Go to Church? published previously on OrtodoxWay, and the conclusions are truly sobering. The official surveys — INSCOP, IRES, Pew Research — state that around twenty-three percent of Romanians declare that they go to church on Sundays. This is the answer they give to those who ask. This is the answer that appears in the press and in the declarations of the hierarchs: an apparently religious country, with nearly a quarter of the population at service every week.
If, however, we take not the declarations but an estimate based on the actual counting of the faithful present in churches, related to the population of the cities, the picture becomes wholly different. In the earlier article on OrtodoxWay I argued, through a methodology of counting and proportion, that the real Sunday attendance in the urban environment appears to stand somewhere around three percent. This is not an official statistic — no such statistic exists, for the Church does not count. It is OrtodoxWay’s own estimate, based on direct observation, on the counting of those present in several churches across several cities, and on the proportion to the respective population. In Bucharest, by the same methodology, the estimate falls below two percent. In the diaspora, somewhere between one and two percent. The ratio between what is declared and what appears to be actually done is roughly eight to one — that is, out of a thousand people who say they come weekly to Liturgy, around one hundred and twenty actually come.
What does this figure mean? It means that in a class of thirty pupils, only one comes to Liturgy on Sunday. On a street of a hundred flats, only three families go to church. In a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants — such as Ploiești — around six thousand people come on Sunday, distributed among forty or fifty churches, which means an average of one hundred and fifty persons per church. And on closer inspection of each church, you see that these are mostly elderly women, a few middle-aged women, very few men, and almost no young people. This is the reality of Orthodoxy as lived in Romania today. Not an Orthodox country with a minority that does not practise. Rather, a declaratively Orthodox country in which only three out of a hundred keep the pillar of the Liturgy.
And now the hardest question: which category are you in, reader? Are you among the eighty-five percent who declare themselves Orthodox but do not come? Are you among the twenty-three percent who say they come weekly? Or are you truly among the three percent who come? For between these three positions there is not a small difference of piety. There is a fundamental difference of belonging. The eighty-five percent are baptized but do not confess. The twenty-three percent confess with the mouth what they do not confess with the feet. Only the three percent confess by their deeds.
This figure — three percent — ought to shake any Christian who reads it for the first time. For it shows that, although Romania remains institutionally Orthodox, the actual practitioners are a minority within their own confession. Those who keep the pillar of the Liturgy are today, among their own people, like the first Christians in the Roman Empire: a minority visible only to those who know how to look. And in this minority is also your place, if you wish to be truly a Christian. For Christ did not promise that the flock would be great. He said, on the contrary: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). The little flock. This is the figure of the real Church in every age, including our own.
The two pillars are now set in place. Now we must answer the hardest question: but what if I cannot?
Why Precisely These Two — They Demand No Heroism, They Admit No Invented Justifications
Here we reach the heart of the argument. For the Church demands of the ordinary Christian neither the fast of Saint Anthony the Great, nor the all-night vigils of Athos, nor the ceaseless prayer of the hesychasts, nor the almsgiving that sells the very coat off one’s back. These heights are for those called to the monastic life, or for those whom grace raises above the ordinary measure. For the rest — for you, for me, for any ordinary Christian — the Church demands only this: the two pillars.
And precisely because she demands so little, she admits no invented excuses. Here one can no longer say “I could not, I tried and I could not,” as one can truly say of the struggle against pride or against impure thoughts. There yes — you struggle a lifetime and sometimes fall. Here it is not a struggle with fallen nature. It is a matter of will.
But before we turn to the false excuses, we must say clearly what real economy is. The Church does not crush man. The Church does not lay burdens upon those whom nature itself prevents. The pregnant woman, the nursing mother, the young child, the weakened elder, the chronically ill person who must follow a special diet, the person undergoing chemotherapy, the worker on heavy shifts who cannot keep the table at the usual hour, the carer who watches over a helpless person — all of these have the Church’s blessing to fast in an adapted way, according to the counsel of the spiritual father. Economy is part of Tradition, not a weakness of it. And as for the Liturgy, it is the same: he who works on Sunday by the very nature of his calling (the doctor, the nurse, the policeman, the fireman, the soldier, the carer) is not judged. He comes when he can. He seeks Liturgies on other days. He fulfils his duty of faith according to the adapted order his spiritual father sets for him.
Economy, however, is not the same as the abolition of the order. Economy is the application of the order with discernment, in real cases. And none of what follows speaks of those in these situations. It speaks of the rest. Of the overwhelming majority. Of those who invoke the excuses below without being either ill, or hindered by the nature of their work, or in any real situation of impossibility.
Let us take them one by one, the excuses we hear most often.
“My health does not permit the fast.” The Church has real and clear dispensations for those who are truly ill. The pregnant woman, the small child, the weakened elder, the man with chronic illnesses requiring a particular diet — all these have the Church’s blessing to fast in an adapted manner. The impossible is not asked. But the truth is that the majority of those who invoke “health” are not ill. They are comfortable. They are accustomed to a certain way of eating and do not wish to change it. And if you truly have doubts, ask your spiritual father. He will tell you what you can and cannot do. But do not decide alone, after the desire of the heart, that health does not permit — for in the depth of your soul you know it is something else.
“I am too busy on Sunday to come to the Liturgy.” The first Christians were so busy that they risked being burnt alive, devoured by beasts, beheaded. They came nonetheless. The martyrs of Abitina, in Roman Africa, when they were seized in the midst of the Divine Liturgy and brought before the proconsul, answered with a word that has endured through the ages: “Sine dominico non possumus” — “Without the Sunday Liturgy we cannot live.” They died for this word. And we say we cannot come for a few hours once a week because we have shopping, sleep to catch up on, visits to relatives, work around the house. The truth is that it is not lack of time that stops us. It is lack of will. He who has time for matches, for films, for hours on the telephone, has time for the Liturgy too. The true priority is simply elsewhere.
“Fasting does not help me. I feel nothing. It makes me more irritable.” No one asks you to feel. The Church does not ask you for experiences. She asks you for obedience. You fast because the Church which you received through Holy Baptism so ordains. That is all. If you feel something, give thanks to God. If you feel nothing, fast nonetheless, and give thanks to God that obedience has been granted to you. And if it makes you irritable, ask yourself why — for a true fast, accompanied by even a little prayer, does not make a man worse, but reveals him to himself. It makes you see what was hidden beneath the food: your anger, your impatience, your greed. This is not failure of the fast. This is the work of the fast.
“I do not go to church because there are too many hypocrites there.” This is perhaps the worst of all arguments, for it answers itself. If you see so many hypocrites, it means you have a clear eye for hypocrisy — then why do you not come and be sincere yourself, in their midst, as a small light? And at the Liturgy you do not come for the others. You come for Christ. The others — be they saints, be they hypocrites, be they like you — are secondary. There is Christ. For Him you go.
“I believe in God in my heart; I have no need of rules and rituals.” This is perhaps the sweetest of arguments, for it seems pious. But it is also the most false. For God Himself founded the Church, God Himself ordained the Mysteries, God Himself fasted forty days, God Himself was incarnate and took flesh that He might be touched, seen, eaten. If He did not stop at “faith in the heart” alone, but took flesh, then neither can you stop at “faith in the heart.” Faith in the heart without the works of the body is a half, and Christ came to save the whole man, not half a man. He who refuses the two pillars by invoking “interior faith” does not even have interior faith — he has only an opinion about God, shaped after his own desire.
“Fasting is a Jewish tradition, surpassed in Christ.” This argument is heard especially from those influenced by Protestantism, which has abolished all fasts. The answer is simple: Christ Himself fasted, after Judaism had existed for thousands of years. The Apostles fasted before ordinations (Acts 13:2-3). The Church of the first centuries fasted. This is not a matter of a Jewish tradition, but of an order which Christ received and fulfilled, and which the Church has kept from the Apostles onward, unbroken, for two thousand years. He who says fasting is “surpassed” places himself above Christ, above the Apostles, and above all the Holy Fathers — a position no honest Christian can uphold without blushing.
“I pray at home; I have no need of church.” Prayer at home is good and necessary. No Father has taught otherwise. But prayer at home does not replace the Liturgy, just as no solitary meal replaces the Mystical Supper. Christ ordained not only individual prayer, but also the Mystery of the Eucharist, which cannot be celebrated except in the Church, by the priest, in the assembly of the faithful. If you pray at home, very well — do so. But do not imagine that this replaces the Liturgy. These are two different things, both necessary, and the second — the Liturgy — is the pillar. Home without church is a Christianity invented by you, not the one received from Christ.
The pillars admit no justifications because they demand no heroism. They demand only this: that you receive the order. And if you do not receive an order so gentle, so adapted to human nature, so feasible for anyone — then what will you receive? Nothing. And not because you are weak. Weakness is understood; weakness is forgiven. But because you do not will. And lack of will is not weakness. It is choice.
A word must also be said here about those who make, without realising it, an opposite error: they leap directly to the great ascetic struggles, skipping over the two pillars. There are those who wish to say the Jesus Prayer without coming to the Liturgy. Who wish to read the Philokalic Fathers without keeping Wednesdays and Fridays. Who wish to give large alms without ever having taken bread from their own mouth on a fast day. Who wish to be “spiritual” without first being Christians according to the ordinary order.
This is a subtle snare. It indulges vainglory, for it makes a man feel special, chosen, above the common table of Christians. But without the foundation of the two pillars, all these “high struggles” collapse at the first serious temptation. He who leaps over the simple order of the Church in order to do “great” things — does neither the great things nor the small. The Fathers are very clear on this point: the beginner does not undertake the matters of perfection. The beginner learns to obey. And obedience begins with the two pillars.
The Voice of the Paterikon — Obedient Fasting, Not Individualist Fasting
The Egyptian Desert Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries left to the Church a heritage of words short, simple, sharp as a razor. The Paterikon is one of the most precious books Orthodoxy possesses, for it speaks not from theory but from a life lived. And concerning fasting, the Fathers speak often, but always in a certain manner that modern man loses sight of.
The fasting of the Paterikon is not my fast, as I feel. It is obedient fasting. The Fathers fasted to extremes — some once a week, some every other day, some on bread and water alone — but never according to their own minds. Always under the obedience of the elder. And the elder could, at any moment, command them to eat, and they ate on the spot, without protest, because obedience was greater than fasting.
Amma Syncletica, the venerable woman of Alexandria who enlightened many other women, joined fasting to prayer as two things that do not part: “As the strongest medicines drive out the venom of beasts, so prayer and fasting drive out every evil thought.” Here are the two pillars in older, more concentrated form: prayer (which for Christians begins with the Liturgy) and fasting. Together they are the strongest medicine. Separated, they are powerless.
Abba Hyperechios said simply: “For the monk, fasting is a bridle against sin.” And if for the monk fasting is a bridle, how much more for the layman who lives in the world, surrounded on every side by temptations. He who removes the bridle should not be surprised that his body runs where it wills.
Abba Evagrius, the great teacher of prayer, joined fasting to love: “Dry and irregular food, united with love, swiftly brings the monk to the haven of passionlessness.” Words of gold. Fasting alone, without love, leads nowhere. Love alone, without fasting, is sentimentalism. Together they are the road.
Saint John Climacus, later, in the fourteenth step of the Ladder, says: “Fasting is illumination of the soul, the guard of the mind, health of the body, forgiveness of sins, the door and the delight of Paradise.” Behold all the fruits of fasting gathered into a single sentence. And the last part — “the door and the delight of Paradise” — closes the circle with what we said at the beginning. Adam was driven from Paradise because he ate. We return to Paradise by fasting. Fasting is the door.
But something must also be said of what the Fathers teach about fasting without discernment. For there is also this snare, especially for the zealous beginner. The Paterikon is full of examples of monks who fasted beyond measure, after their own minds, without blessing, and fell — either into pride, or into bodily weakness, or into diabolic delusion. Fasting without obedience, individualist fasting, fasting “on one’s own” — all these are dangerous. For this reason the Church has ordained measures for all, and the spiritual father has the authority to adapt them for each. Do not make yourself the sole judge of your fast. Listen to the Church. Ask the spiritual father. That is all.
Saint Isaac the Syrian, who gathered the whole wisdom of the Syrian desert into his Ascetical Homilies, gives fasting the highest place: “Fasting is the holy way of God and the foundation of every virtue. It is the crown for those who practise abstinence, the beauty of virginity and of holiness, the mother of prayer, the forerunner of every good work” (Homily 85). And in another place: “Fasting is a weapon wrought by God. And if the Lawgiver Himself fasted, who of those who keep the Law is not bound to fast? And who of those who despise it shall not be condemned?”
Here is the clearest confirmation of the two pillars, from the mouth of a great hesychast. Saint Isaac names fasting “the foundation of every virtue” and “the forerunner of every good work.” That is: upon fasting one builds. Before any other good work comes fasting. And the Saviour Himself, the “Lawgiver,” fasted. Who reckons himself above the Saviour and so does not fast?
Saint Basil the Great adds an image of rare beauty, worthy of meditation: “For those who fast willingly, fasting is profitable at all times; for the demons do not dare attack the one who fasts, and the angels, guardians of our life, stand gladly beside those who cleanse their souls by fasting.” Here is what the eyes do not see: around the one who fasts there is a demonic silence and an angelic nearness. To bodily eyes, the one who fasts appears only to be eating no meat. To the unseen world, he is surrounded otherwise. Battles are fought on his behalf which he does not feel. He himself wins battles he did not consciously begin. For fasting is a weapon, and weapons act even when the one who bears them is not fully aware of all they do.
And concerning the link between fasting and prayer, the Desert Fathers had a teaching they never forgot. There is a saying in the Paterikon about an elder who ate twice a week and said: “On the day when I speak with someone, I cannot keep my rule of fasting as usual, but am compelled to break it.” That is: many words dissolve fasting. The body fasts, but the mind, through chatter, eats. For this reason the Fathers always joined fasting to silence, to prayer, to retreat. For the layman who lives in the world, this teaching translates as follows: when you fast, fast also from much talk, from gossip, from too many empty words. For these take back all you have gained by the table.
Saint Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism, had a short and deep word about the bond between body and soul: “The body has a natural movement of the same nature as itself, but it does not act unless the soul wills.” That is: the body is not the enemy. The body is an instrument. He who uses it directs it. Fasting is just this — the way by which the soul takes back command over the body, instead of being dragged along by it. He who does not fast is dragged. He who fasts directs.
And one more great word from the Paterikon, attributed to several Fathers: fasting and abstinence are the wealth of the soul. Here is how the spiritual man sees things: he calls wealth precisely what the worldly man calls deprivation. To the world, fasting is poverty of pleasures. To him who truly fasts, fasting is enrichment of the soul; for what you no longer give to the body, you give to the soul. And the soul, fed on abstinence, grows, is enlightened, begins to see things it did not see before.
The Two Pillars Witness the Faith — Like the Sign of the Fish
Now we return to the image with which we began. The first Christians were recognised by the sign of the fish. It was a discreet sign, but objective. He who made it confessed. He who saw it understood. It was a cipher of belonging.
Today the sign of the fish has faded, for persecution has ceased. But the need for an objective sign of belonging has not ceased. On the contrary, it has grown greater, for today so many call themselves Christians without being so that the name alone no longer means anything.
The two pillars — fasting and presence at the Liturgy — are today the sign of the fish. Not because they are invented symbols, but because they are the two objective, visible, unambiguous things by which a man attests, without words, that he receives the faith of the Church.
He who fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, who keeps the four great fasts — confesses. He confesses through his table, through his refrigerator, through the way he denies himself pleasures. He says not a word, but his body says everything: I am Christ’s. I receive the order of the Church. I am not alone; I am a member of the Body.
He who comes on Sunday to the Divine Liturgy — confesses. He confesses through his feet, which bring him to church instead of taking him elsewhere; through his time, given to God instead of given to someone else; through his body, which stands in the holy assembly instead of staying in bed. He says not a word, but his presence says everything: Here are God and the saints. Here I must be.
These two witnesses are much harder to falsify than declarations. They are not infallible — a man may fast in the manner of the Pharisees, may stand in church with a cold heart, may do good things with a bad intention. But they are objective in a way that words are not. You can lie with words; you can present yourself as more pious than you are in posts on social networks; you can quote the Fathers and wear a cross. But your table does not lie about what you eat. Your calendar does not lie about Wednesdays and Fridays. Your presence or absence at the Liturgy on Sundays does not lie. These are visible measures of faith, even if they are not the measure of the heart.
There is in this objectivity a hidden humility, which preserves the Christian from the most dangerous traps of the spiritual life. For man, weak as he is, has a terrible inclination to measure his own spiritual life by criteria he himself invents. Today he thinks he is better because he has read a book. Tomorrow he thinks he is better because he has restrained himself from a quarrel. The day after he thinks he is better because he has given a coin to a beggar. All these measures are deceiving, for they come from his own judgement, and his own judgement is, according to the Fathers, a well of error. The two pillars are different. They do not depend on my judgement. They depend on the order of the Church. And the Church is not deceived as I am deceived.
And precisely because they are objective, they are also the criterion which any sincere Christian must accept that the Church uses when she looks upon him. Not in judgement — God judges hearts, not we. But in discernment. For the Church has the right and the duty to recognise her own.
He who keeps the two pillars is, whatever his sins, whatever his weaknesses, whatever his struggles — a Christian in growth. He has the foundation. Upon it he will build. He falls and rises, but he returns to fasting and to the Liturgy because here is his home.
He who does not keep the two pillars — whether he says so openly or hides it under fine words about “personal faith” — is, objectively, outside. Not because God is cold toward him. God awaits him with open arms. But because he himself has chosen to stand outside, refusing the two things by which one enters.
What Is Built upon the Two Pillars
Someone might rise and say: but is fasting and the Liturgy alone enough? Does that mean to be a Christian? Only that?
No. It is not enough. I have never said it is enough. I have said they are the foundation. And the foundation is not the house. The house is built upon it.
Upon the two pillars are built, slowly, in time, through grace and through struggle, all the other virtues of the Christian life.
Prayer is built. He who comes constantly to the Liturgy begins to feel, in time, the longing for prayer also outside the Liturgy. He begins to say the evening prayers. He begins to say at least two or three times a day: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And from this seed, with the passing of the years, under the guidance of a spiritual father and according to the measure God grants him, deep prayer grows — the prayer of the heart, the prayer that accompanies the whole day. But it begins from the Sunday Liturgy.
Victory over the passions is built. He who keeps the appointed fasts discovers, in a felt way, how much he is enslaved to the belly. And from this discovery the struggle begins. First with the gluttony of the belly, then with the other passions which, as the Fathers teach us, are all interlinked. He who conquers a little of the belly begins to conquer a little of unchastity. He who conquers a little of unchastity begins to see pride more clearly. And so on. A whole lifetime. Falling, rising, falling again, rising again. But the road has been opened through fasting.
Almsgiving is built. He who fasts begins, without realising it, to feel for the hungry. He begins to understand what it means to deprive yourself of something, because he does it weekly. And from this felt understanding grows true mercy — not the sentimental mercy that drops a coin and walks away, but the working mercy that gives of what it would itself have needed. Fasting opens the heart. And the opened heart begets almsgiving.
Humility is built. He who comes humbly to the Liturgy, acknowledging that he is unworthy yet coming nevertheless because Christ calls him, learns humility from the very act of coming. He who bows before the Holy Gifts knowing he does not deserve them, but receiving them because the Church gives them to him, learns humility. Humility is not learned from books. It is learned from the weekly practice of acknowledging that you have need.
Love is built. All of the above, when gathered together and warmed by the grace of God, become love. Love of Christ. Love of the Church. Love of neighbour. Love even of enemies, which is the highest measure. This is the flower. But the flower does not grow from the air. It grows from the foundation upon which the two pillars have been set.
And he who would leap over the pillars and go directly to “love” — trying to love without fasting, trying to pray without coming to the Liturgy — builds castles in the air. Castles that look beautiful from afar, but do not stand at the first trial of life, because they have no foundation. At the first real pain, at the first real temptation, at the first real testing of faith — they collapse. For virtue without the two pillars is moral self-deception, not Christian life.
One more thing must be pondered. What is built upon the two pillars is built gently, organically, without the one who keeps them always noticing it. You do not wake one morning and discover that you are meek. You do not rise after a night of sleep and find that you have conquered anger. The work is long and underground, like that of water which, drop by drop, hollows the stone. You do your simple duty of the two pillars — you fast when the Church tells you to fast, you come on Sunday to the Liturgy, you go to Confession when your spiritual father bids you — and God works in the depths. After years, you look back and no longer recognise yourself. Not because you have done great struggles, but because you have stood at the steady foundation, and grace has done the rest.
And if you want the proof that this is the Orthodox way, look at the people you have known who, without being monks, have left you with the deep impression of their holiness: your grandmother who fasted from as long as you can remember; the old woman in the back stall who never missed a Liturgy; the simple man who during the Great Fast became gentler, more peaceful, more enlightened. None of these was a great theologian. None wrote books of spiritual counsel. None did explicit hesychasm. They kept only the two pillars, in humility, in obedience, for decades. And grace made them vessels of light. This is Orthodoxy lived. This is the heritage which the Church sets before us. And the road is open for anyone who would take it.
The Two Things You Can Do Now
This article does not wish to leave you with information. It wishes to leave you with a question. And the question is simple — so simple that it hurts: do you keep the two pillars?
You are not being asked whether you are a saint. You are not being asked whether you have conquered the passions. You are not being asked whether you pray ceaselessly or whether you give alms according to the measure of the Gospel. All these are long struggles, hard ascents, and no one expects from you tomorrow what the saints could not achieve except after years.
You are being asked something else. Two small things, feasible, accessible.
Do you fast on Wednesdays and Fridays? Do you keep the four great fasts? Or do you have a list of excuses ready prepared — health, fatigue, “it does not help me,” “I cannot now in my life” — which you bring out each time to quiet your conscience?
Do you come on Sunday to the Divine Liturgy? The whole Liturgy, from beginning to end, with a wakeful mind, with preparation beforehand, with Communion when you have your spiritual father’s blessing? Or do you only pass through from time to time, on great feasts, and tell yourself that “God sees the heart”?
The honest answer to these two questions says more about you than all the books you have read, than all the icons in your home, than all the fine words you can utter about faith.
If the answer is no, do not be discouraged. Do not condemn yourself. Do not be seized by paralysing shame. But neither deceive yourself any longer. Acknowledge clearly: here I have a lack. Here I have no foundation. And begin. This week. This Friday, do not eat meat — that is all. This Sunday, come to the Liturgy — that is all. Do not decide everything at once. Do not make grand programmes that collapse after a week. Begin simply, with the two pillars, and let the rest come in time, under the guidance of your spiritual father.
And if the answer is yes, then you have something on which to build. Give thanks to God that obedience has been granted to you, and struggle further — for the pillars are not the end, they are the beginning. Upon them is yet to rise the whole spiritual house of your life. With patience. With repentance. With hope in the mercy of God, Who sees the heart and rewards even the cup of cold water given in His name.
The two pillars are not salvation. They are the road to it. They are the gate. They are the sign of the fish, which the Christian today carries not in his hand, but in his life.
And after this life lived in obedience, Christ will recognise His disciple.