Cheesefare Week

Cheesefare Week belongs to the graduated system of pre-Lenten preparation governed by the Triodion, the liturgical book that opens the Lenten cycle. The Church eases the faithful into the fasting discipline in stages: a fast-free week, then a week of normal fasting, then the meatless restrictions of Cheesefare Week, so that the transition into Great Lent is gentle rather than abrupt.

The week is framed by two Sundays that carry its themes. It begins after Meatfare Sunday — also called the Sunday of the Last Judgment — after which no meat is eaten, while eggs, fish, and dairy remain permitted through the following days. It ends on Forgiveness Sunday, also called Cheesefare Sunday, which brings the preparatory period to its close and gives the whole week its name.

During Cheesefare Week the services already begin to take on a Lenten character while remaining shorter than the full Lenten offices. The Prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian is introduced during this week, and in keeping with the emerging fast the full Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on Wednesday and Friday. Ancient hymns of the season speak of the 'Lenten Spring,' associating the onset of the fast with spiritual renewal.

In the Slavic world the week acquired the popular name Maslenitsa, and it absorbed a set of folk customs whose roots reach back well before their christianization. Archaeological evidence has been taken to suggest that Maslenitsa may be among the oldest surviving Slavic observances, with possible origins as early as the second century AD, and older agrarian rites — such as the burning of an effigy and the scattering of ash to fertilize the fields — were later absorbed into and reshaped by the Orthodox calendar.

The public scale of these celebrations shifted over time. Large festivities declined toward the end of the Russian Empire, and after the Revolution of 1917 and subsequent Soviet policies the observance became largely private. It was revived in the 1960s and 1970s, at first with contemporary secular elements, and underwent a further and more substantial renewal after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Cheesefare Week expresses the Church's pastoral wisdom of gradual ascent into the fast. Rather than imposing the full rigor of Great Lent all at once, the Church withdraws meat while still permitting dairy, preparing both body and soul by degrees for the abstinence to come. The week is the last stage of a deliberate progression from feasting to fasting.

The week is also understood as the last occasion for the ordinary social life — secular music, dancing, celebration, and other diversions — that the more prayerful, sober, and introspective Lenten season sets aside. In this sense Maslenitsa is a threshold: a final gathering of table and company before the faithful turn inward.

Its deepest meaning is gathered up in Forgiveness Sunday, on which the Church commemorates the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, recalling how through disobedience humanity became heir to death and corruption. Against this remembrance of the fall, the day sets the necessity of reconciliation. Drawing on the teaching that the heavenly Father forgives those who forgive others their trespasses, the Church makes mutual forgiveness the indispensable preparation for the fast — so that the faithful may enter Great Lent, as tradition puts it, with a clean slate.

The services of Cheesefare Week mirror the structure of the coming Lenten offices while remaining shorter. During the week the Prayer of Saint Ephrem the Syrian is introduced into the services, anticipating its central place in Great Lent. Ancient hymns of the season speak of the arriving fast as the 'Lenten Spring,' connecting its onset with the theme of spiritual renewal. At the Vespers of Forgiveness that close the week, paschal hymns accompany the mutual exchange of forgiveness, sounding the note of Pascha even at the threshold of the fast.

The Church's practice during Cheesefare Week is a preparatory, graded fast: meat is no longer eaten, but dairy products, eggs, and cheese are permitted on every day of the week, including Wednesday and Friday. It is the final week on which milk products may be consumed before Great Lent, during which meat, dairy, and eggs are all set aside, and on most days of the fast fish, wine, and oil are likewise restricted. The week thus serves as the last easing step before the strictness of the Great Fast.

In Slavic practice the week is kept as Maslenitsa (Butter Week or Pancake Week), marked by dairy-rich foods, especially bliny — pancakes made from butter, eggs, and milk.

Traditional Slavic folk customs absorbed into the week include sleigh rides, snowball fights, the storming of snow fortresses, and the burning of an effigy called Lady Maslenitsa on the closing Sunday evening; leftover pancakes were burned and the ashes buried in the fields, a remnant of older agrarian rites christianized by the Orthodox calendar.

During the week relatives and friends ask one another for forgiveness and may exchange small gifts.

The week closes with the Vespers of Forgiveness on Sunday evening, at which the faithful make a bow (poklon) before one another and ask forgiveness; the priest and people prostrate before each other, and the following day — Clean Monday — begins Great Lent.

• Matthew 6:14 — The teaching that the heavenly Father forgives those who forgive others, read as the foundation of the mutual forgiveness of Forgiveness Sunday; the Gospel readings of the day also warn against ostentatious piety and call for genuine, humble fasting.

The final day of Cheesefare Week is Forgiveness Sunday, also called Cheesefare Sunday, which concludes the pre-Lenten preparatory period. On this day the Church commemorates the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise and their descendants' inheritance of death and corruption, linking human mortality to the primal disobedience and setting the spiritual foundation for the fast to come.

The day emphasizes mutual reconciliation as the essential preparation for fasting. Following Vespers, worshippers approach the priest individually to venerate an icon and make prostrations while asking forgiveness; the priest reciprocates, prostrating and answering that God forgives, and the faithful then seek forgiveness from one another. The choir accompanies the rite with paschal hymns. The next day is called Clean Monday, because the faithful, having confessed, asked forgiveness, and been reconciled, begin Great Lent with a clean slate.