Forgiveness Sunday

Forgiveness Sunday is the culmination of the Orthodox pre-Lenten cycle, arriving on the Sunday after Meatfare Sunday. It falls within Cheesefare Week, the seventh week before Pascha, during which meat is already prohibited but dairy products, eggs, butter, and milk remain permitted, distinguishing it from the stricter discipline of Great Lent that follows, when meat, fish, dairy products, and eggs are all forbidden.

The services of Cheesefare Week already anticipate the Lenten season: they mirror the services of Great Lent itself, though shorter in duration. During this week the Prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian is said for the first time, and the Divine Liturgy is forbidden on Wednesday and Friday — weekday restrictions that will be observed throughout Great Lent. The hymnography of the Triodion for this period emphasizes the theme of the 'Lenten Spring,' linking spiritual renewal with the seasonal renewal of the Northern Hemisphere.

In the Eastern Slavic tradition the whole of this last week before Great Lent is called Maslenitsa (Cheesefare Week), and its final day is called Forgiveness Sunday (Прощёное воскресенье), when relatives and friends ask each other for forgiveness and may exchange small gifts. The day is also called Cheesefare Sunday because it is the last day on which dairy products may be consumed until Pascha; fish, wine, and olive oil will likewise be forbidden on most days of Great Lent.

The rite of mutual forgiveness gives the day its enduring form. After the dismissal at Vespers, the priest stands beside the analogion, or before the ambon, and the faithful come forward one by one to venerate an icon and to prostrate themselves. Each person requests forgiveness, saying 'Forgive me, a sinner,' while the priest responds, 'God forgives. Forgive me.' As this exchange proceeds, the choir sings quietly the irmoi of the Paschal Canon, or else the Paschal Stichera. Following the priest's blessing, the faithful also ask forgiveness of one another. The day after Forgiveness Sunday is Clean Monday, so called because the faithful, having confessed their sins, asked forgiveness, and begun Great Lent, do so with a clean slate.

The commemoration of Adam's expulsion sets the theological frame for the whole of Great Lent. The Church teaches that God commanded Adam to fast from the fruit of a tree, but Adam disobeyed this directive. Through that transgression Adam and Eve were removed from Eden and forfeited their state of blessedness, their direct knowledge of God, and their communion with the Divine — a loss whose consequences extended to all their descendants, who became subject to mortality and physical decay. Recalling this on the threshold of the fast places repentance and the return to Paradise at the heart of the Lenten journey.

Against this background the Church presents fasting not as mere abstinence from food but as an opportunity to be freed from the sinful desires and urges of fallen human nature, and to nourish the soul with prayer, repentance, participation in the services, and reception of the life-giving Mysteries of Christ. The liturgical texts of Forgiveness Vespers accordingly call the faithful to purify both soul and body, joining bodily abstinence to freedom from the passions and the pursuit of spiritual virtue.

The Gospel appointed for the day binds forgiveness to fasting as the twin conditions of an acceptable Lent. Christ's teaching that God forgives those who forgive others, and withholds forgiveness from those who will not forgive, makes reconciliation with one's neighbor the precondition for reconciliation with God. The same reading gives practical instruction on fasting: it is to be authentic and hidden, directed to God rather than displayed as an ostentatious act of piety. The rite of mutual forgiveness enacts this teaching, so that the faithful enter the fast at peace with one another.

The hymnography of the Triodion for Cheesefare Week develops the theme of the 'Lenten Spring,' joining the beginning of the fast to the renewal of the natural season. The proper texts of Forgiveness Vespers call the faithful to a fast of both body and soul, pairing abstinence from food with release from the passions and the cultivation of spiritual virtue.

The rite of mutual forgiveness is set to Paschal music: as the faithful come forward, the choir sings quietly the irmoi of the Paschal Canon or the Paschal Stichera, so that the beginning of the fast already sounds the note of the Resurrection toward which it is directed.

Forgiveness Sunday falls at the end of Cheesefare Week, a meat-fast week in which meat is already prohibited while dairy products, eggs, butter, and milk remain permitted. The Sunday itself is the last day on which dairy products may be consumed until Pascha, after which the stricter Great Lenten discipline begins; fish, wine, and olive oil are also forbidden on most days of Great Lent. The day thus marks the transition from ordinary observance to strict fasting, with Clean Monday opening the fast the following day. Fasting norms vary by jurisdiction and household; the faithful keep the fast under the guidance of their priest.

Forgiveness Vespers is served on the Sunday evening, carrying the rite of mutual forgiveness in which the faithful venerate an icon, prostrate themselves, and ask forgiveness of the priest and of one another before Great Lent begins.

The Sunday is the last day for consuming dairy products before the fast (hence 'Cheesefare Sunday').

In the Eastern Slavic tradition the week is kept as Maslenitsa, and on Forgiveness Sunday relatives and friends ask one another for forgiveness and may exchange small gifts; the faithful may make a poklon (prostration) before one another when asking forgiveness.

• Matthew 6:14-21 — The Gospel of Forgiveness Sunday: forgiving others as the condition of being forgiven, and instruction on hidden fasting and treasure in heaven.
• Matthew 6:16-18 — Instruction on authentic fasting directed to God rather than to human display.
• Genesis 2:16 — God's command to Adam concerning the tree, read by the Church as a command to fast.