Hunger, the basic desire or need for food, is not always as “basic” or straightforward as its definition makes it sound. We feel it all the time or maybe hardly at all, we blindly obey it or frequently fight it, we confuse it with other needs, and ultimately, it lets us down.

In the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, fasting is a spiritual discipline that has been passed down through Holy Tradition and includes limiting certain types of food and the amount of food eaten for a designated period of time. 

According to Fr. Schmemann (in his book Great Lent: Journey to Pascha), the Orthodox faith teaches two different modes of fasting rooted in Scripture and Tradition: total fast and ascetical fast.