Macarius of Sinai’s Treatise “On Fasting during Cheesefare Week”

Abstract

This article off ers an analysis and a Russian translation of Macarius of Sinai’s (archbishop, from before 1230–1252) unpublished Arabic treatise “On Fasting during Cheesefare Week”. In this treatise, Macarius of Sinai responds to a query by an Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christian, probably a layman from Egypt, about the order of fasting during Cheesefare Week — the last week before the Great Lent. According to Macarius, during Cheesefare Week eating cheese and eggs is mandatory for both monastics and laymen. Strict fasting during this week (i. e., abstention not only from meat, but from all animal products) is observed only by heretics, notably the Egyptian Christian Monophysites (the Copts). Macarius’ treatise also contains a brief history of the “Fast of Heraclius” — i. e., a strict fast on the last week before the Great Lent — and of the Armenian fast “Artsivourios” (Arm. Aṙačʿavorkʿ), observed during the week of the Publican and the Pharisee. Macarius refers to a wide variety of Patristic and Church-canonical sources with which he was familiar both in their Greek original and in medieval Arabic translations. Among the sources cited by him are Antiochus of MarSaba’s Pandectes, Nikon of the Black Mountain’s Pandectes, and the “Synodic for the Sunday of Orthodoxy”.

Keywords

• Arab Christian literature
• Melkites
• Macarius of Sinai
• Great Lent
• Cheesefare Week
• the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai
• ecumenical and local Church councils
• Typikon
• the Synodic for the Sunday of Orthodoxy
• the Fast of Heraclius
• Armenians
• Chalcedonian Armenians Tsatoi