{"id":559952,"date":"2026-02-19T11:16:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T09:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/?p=559952"},"modified":"2026-02-19T11:16:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T09:16:59","slug":"ecumenical-patriarch-great-lent-asceticism-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basilica.ro\/en\/ecumenical-patriarch-great-lent-asceticism-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecumenical Patriarch says asceticism leads to genuine freedom in Great Lent message"},"content":{"rendered":"

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has issued a catechetical homily<\/a> ahead of Great Lent 2026, emphasising that ascetic struggle \u2014 properly understood \u2014 reveals the true freedom of the Christian life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his message, made public by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Patriarch Bartholomew described Great Lent as a time for repentance, prayer, humility and spiritual vigilance, with believers directing their hearts toward the life-giving Cross of Christ in anticipation of Holy Pascha.<\/p>\n

Contrary to modern misconceptions, the Patriarch of Constantinople said Christian asceticism should not be viewed as a denial of joy or creativity, nor as an exercise in self-will. Instead, he stressed that it entails submission to the Church\u2019s rule and the \u201ccatholic experience\u201d of faith, uniting repentance, fasting, humility, forgiveness, and philanthropy in a holistic way.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian asceticism is ultimately a struggle not against, but for the body,\u201d the Patriarch wrote, quoting the Gerontikon (Sayings of the Desert Fathers<\/a>) to underline that the aim of ascetic effort is to conquer passions and detach from ego and material attachment.<\/p>\n

He affirmed that, properly embraced, asceticism leads to genuine freedom \u2014 liberation from self-centredness and openness to love for others \u2014 and is a foretaste of the joy of the Lord\u2019s Resurrection, the heart of Orthodox faith.<\/p>\n

The Ecumenical Patriarch also recalled the ancient character of Lent as a \u201csecond baptism,\u201d encouraging the faithful to approach the season not with sorrow but as a \u201cspiritual spring\u201d of joy and enlightenment, especially relevant amid contemporary cultural confusion and spiritual alienation.<\/p>\n

\n

Ecumenical Patriarch’s catechetical homily for the opening of Great Lent (2026)<\/h1>\n

\u2020 Bartholomew<\/strong><\/p>\n

By God\u2019s mercy, Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch
\nTo the Plenitude of the Church,
\nMay the grace and peace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;
\nand from us, prayer, blessing, and forgiveness.<\/p>\n

Most honourable brother Hierarchs and blessed children in the Lord,<\/p>\n

Filled with sacred emotion, we enter once again, by God\u2019s goodwill, into Holy and Great Lent, the arena of ascetic struggle, the time of fasting and repentance, of humility and prayer, of spiritual vigilance and love, with the eyes of our heart directed to the life-giving Cross of the Lord, which guides us all toward Holy Pascha that opens the gates of Paradise to the human race.<\/p>\n

This blessed period now opening before us constitutes an opportunity to comprehend once more the truth of asceticism according to Christ and its inseparable association with the Eucharistic realisation of the Church, whose every expression and dimension is illumined by the light and joy of the Resurrection.<\/p>\n

The spirit of asceticism is hardly a foreign element introduced into Christianity, nor is it the result of influence by dualistic ideologies outside the Church. Asceticism is another word for the Christian existence, connecting it with absolute trust in Divine Providence, with the inexhaustible spiritual gladness of a life dedicated to Christ, with self-transcendence and self-offering, with charitable love and respect for all creation.<\/p>\n

Asceticism is not a matter of self-willed choices and subjective particularities, but of submission to the rule and the \u201ccatholic experience\u201d of the Church. It has been described as an \u201cecclesiastical\u201d rather than an \u201cindividual\u201d event.<\/p>\n

Life in the Church is indivisible. Repentance, prayer, humility, forgiveness, fasting, and philanthropic deeds are interconnected and interwoven. In the Orthodox tradition, there is no asceticism as an end in itself, for that only leads to an overestimation of individual effort and feeds tendencies of self-justification.<\/p>\n

Great Lent is the appropriate time to experience the Church as the place and the manner in which the gifts of divine Grace are revealed, always as a foretaste of the joy of the Lord\u2019s Resurrection, the cornerstone of our faith and the all-radiant horizon of \u201cthe hope within us.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is by divine inspiration that the Church honours on Cheesefare Saturday the sacred memory of saintly men and women who have shone brightly in asceticism, for they are the supporters and companions of the faithful in the long course of asceticism. In the arena of spiritual struggle, we have the benevolence of the Triune God with us, the protection of the All-Holy Mother of God and Mother of us all, and the intercessions of the saints and martyrs of the faith.<\/p>\n

Healthy Christian asceticism is the participation of the whole human being\u2014as a unity of spirit, soul, and body\u2014in the life in Christ, without undervaluing matter and the body, and without a Manichaean reduction of spirituality. As it has been written, Christian asceticism is ultimately a struggle \u201cnot against, but for the body\u201d; as the Gerontikon affirms: \u201cWe have been taught not to destroy the body, but to destroy the passions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, and inaccurately, Christian asceticism has been labelled by contemporary thinkers as a denial of the joy of life and as a restriction of human creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth! As release from \u201chaving\u201d and from attachment to the possession of things, and especially as liberation from the ego, from \u201cseeking one\u2019s own,\u201d and from the \u201chaving of our being,\u201d asceticism is the source and expression of genuine freedom.<\/p>\n

What can be more truthful than the exodus from the captivity of \u201cindividual right\u201d and the openness and love for our fellow human beings, the inner \u201cgood change\u201d and steadfastness in fulfilling God\u2019s commandments? What could be more creative than fasting, when it is a holistic attitude of life and expresses the ascetic and Eucharistic spirit of the Church, when it is a \u201ccommon struggle\u201d and not an \u201cindividual feat\u201d?<\/p>\n

What could be more existentially striking than repentance and internal conversion, as a vital direction toward the truth and a renewed discovery of the power of divine Grace, of the depth of life in Christ and the hope of eternal life?<\/p>\n

It is truly impressive that, when the early Christian character of Holy and Great Lent as a period of preparation for Holy Baptism in the Divine Liturgy of the Resurrection was replaced by the \u201cethos of repentance,\u201d there nevertheless remained its experience as a \u201csecond baptism.\u201d For this reason, the period of fasting and repentance is not sorrowful.<\/p>\n

Our hymnology speaks of the \u201cspring of fasting,\u201d while theology calls Great Lent a \u201cspiritual spring\u201d and a \u201cperiod of joy and light.\u201d All of this assumes special timeliness and significance in the face of the anthropological confusion of our time, as well as the new alienations rooted in contemporary civilisation.<\/p>\n

With these sentiments and thoughts, reminding all the children of the Holy Great Church of Christ throughout the Lord\u2019s dominion, that on the day of the Akathist Hymn, the festivities will culminate, marking the 1400th anniversary<\/a> of the year 626\u2014when, in expression of gratitude to the Theotokos for the deliverance of the City of Constantinople from a perilous siege, the Akathist Hymn was chanted standing in the sacred Church of Blachernae\u2014we wish you all a smooth course of the Fast, with asceticism and patience, with thanksgiving and doxology.<\/p>\n

May we all, speaking the truth in love and being sanctified in the Lord, travel this way toward the fullness of joy in His radiant Resurrection.<\/p>\n

Holy and Great Lent 2026<\/p>\n

\u2020<\/strong> BARTHOLOMEW of Constantinople<\/p>\n

Your fervent supplicant for all before God<\/p>\n

Photo: Ecumenical Patriarchate \/ Nikos Papachristou<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has issued a catechetical homily ahead of Great Lent 2026, emphasising that ascetic struggle \u2014 properly understood \u2014 reveals the true freedom of the Christian life. 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