The Fast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul

– The Spiritual-Ascetic and Apostolic Character of the Church –
– Reflections on Selected Texts by Holy Priest and Confessor Dumitru Stăniloae –

The ecclesiastical year is divided into various seasons, some dedicated to festive joy, others to the journey of Sundays and ordinary weekdays, and still others to periods in which the Christian turns more attentively and diligently to their inner spiritual life and outer bodily discipline. The periods of fasting throughout the liturgical year are such times - particularly consecrated to spiritual sobriety, inner vigilance, profound self-examination of the way of being both in the Church and in society.

St. Dumitru Stăniloae, the great theologian and confessor of the Orthodox Church, tells us:

“A well-known theologian of our time once wrote that we all wear a mask, so much so that we no longer know our true face, nor see ourselves as we truly are. We wear this mask without even realizing it (...). It is precisely for this work of unmasking that the Church has set aside times of fasting and repentance (...).”[1]

Fasting is a time to rediscover one’s own face - the image of God with which we were endowed at birth. It is the image of the first Adam, created without sin, who was called to grow in likeness to God through faith and participation in divine grace. Sin, however, brought about a distortion and deviation from this healthy and upright growth before God through disobedience, sin, and passion.

Fasting, as St. Basil the Great says, is a paradisiacal condition.[2] It is the natural state originating in God's command: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: 'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die’” (Genesis 2:16–17).

Adam’s failure to fast, a result of disobedience, leads to the loss of vision or contemplation of God, and the emergence of fear and shame at his nakedness.

Thus, returning to the state of fasting - of listening to God's word and embracing the ascetic struggles that flow from it - removes the mask that has covered the image of God within us, suffocating and blinding our spiritual life.

What does this blindness mean?

“This reality that we do not see, of which we have no idea in our daily life – says St. Dumitru Stăniloae – is our being steeped in sin, to the point of utter defilement. Only when we truly see this defilement, this moral ugliness, this systematic pettiness, can we also see God. For we cannot see God as long as we wear a mask. Conversely, only when we see God do we also see our true present face. At God’s approach, at His gaze – which we must ardently seek – the mask falls away.”[3]

Sin obstructs the vision of God because it causes spiritual alienation and inner blindness - the loss of contemplation and of the “face-to-face” vision of God. Even more concerning, says the same great Romanian theologian and saint, is that man is unaware of his condition. He is so deeply entrenched in sin and passion that he no longer knows he is a creature made in the image of God. Only through the removal of “defilement, moral ugliness, and systematic pettiness” can one return to the state of seeing God. The mask of sin prevents us from seeing God, and only when we see God do we see our true, God-given image.

Only by regaining his freedom does man truly see himself.

“Only then has man truly gained his freedom – says St. Dumitru Stăniloae. Only then, freed from material things, can he seriously contemplate the image made from depths that are little understood.”[4]

The approach to God, which takes place especially in the Church through her sanctifying work -through the Divine Liturgy, the Holy Sacraments, and other divine blessings - helps us remove the mask that hides us from the contemplation of God and from seeing our true human nature.

What is special about the Fast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul compared to other fasting periods?

“The Apostles were the first group of people who believed in Christ and bore witness to His Resurrection and thus to His divinity – St. Dumitru Stăniloae says. (...) The Apostles did not speak of themselves, but of Christ. They did not take this mission upon themselves but received it from Christ. The Church was founded upon their faith, their witness, their words about Christ, and their total dedication to making Christ known.”[5]

The vocation of the Holy Apostles was unique - they were the ones who knew Christ in the flesh. They were the first to believe in Him as the Son of God and to bear witness to His resurrection. This calling was received from God. In his second letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul writes:

“Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). And the Evangelist Matthew shows us Jesus’ words said to Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17).

We see here that the apostolic vocation transmitted to the Church contains two essential elements: (1) no one can speak of Christ as the Son of God except through the Holy Spirit, inspired by His grace; (2) the Church is founded on the revelation of God regarding the divinity of Jesus Christ.

The apostolic nature of the Church reminds us that it is not a mere human institution, although it is composed of a tangible community of believers. The Church has a divine dimension - the presence of grace, which always inspires and fulfills its mission.

The Apostles formed the first concrete community to recognize Christ as the Son of God, to bear witness to Him, and to worship Him. The Church is, has been, and will always be apostolic because it must remain faithful to the witness received from its founders - the Holy Apostles. The testimony of the Church, past, present, and future, is based on the word of the Holy Apostles. It continues in the Church until the end of time.

“(...) The Apostles as a overlaid foundation make Christ, the ultimate foundation, transparent - says St. Dumitru Stăniloae. Through the Apostles, Christ places a true foundation for the Church. The Apostles point similarly to Christ, indicating Him as the cornerstone; (...) The Church is apostolic inasmuch as it knows Christ through the Apostles fully and authentically and inherits from them the faith in Him and the certainty of His resurrection.”[6]

Christ lays the true foundation of the Church through the Holy Apostles, for only they fully transmit, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the knowledge of God in His saving work in the Church. Christ and the Apostles cannot be separated.

What does apostolic presence in the Church mean?

Faith and the teaching about the salvific work of our Lord Jesus Christ have been preserved in the Church through the work of the Holy Spirit in the context of apostolic succession.

“Both these elements were preserved throughout its historical existence (the Church – on) – says St. Dumitru Stăniloae – the Church maintaining herself through apostolic succession of the episcopate in communion, or through the grace of the Holy Spirit received by the Apostles at Pentecost and transmitted to the episcopate, and from there to priests and the faithful.”[7]

The work of the Holy Spirit sustains and renews the faith and teaching of the Church across the ages. It is a permanent presence that renews both humanity and creation.

The apostolic presentation of the Person and work of Christ remains normative for all times.[8] “The apostolic depiction of Christ’s Person and work, that is, the apostolic formulation of His teaching and the teaching about Him – says St. Dumitru Stăniloae – remains the permanent and unchanging basis of the Church’s faith and doctrine because it is the most faithful representation of this teaching (...). The Apostles relay their direct gaze into the divine infinity of His Person and His unique humanity. (...) No expression from the history of the Church will surpass the apostolic rendering of this infinity and their authentic vision of it.”[9]

The Holy Apostles remain the direct and closest temporal witnesses of the incarnate Son of God and the most authentic bearers of His revelation. Their testimony is constitutive of the Church in all times.

“The succession of grace is conditioned by the continuity of teaching; but likewise, the grace received by bishops through apostolic succession ensures the preservation of apostolic teaching – says the same great Romanian saint and theologian. (...) Thus, the Church is apostolic through the inheritance of faith, teaching, and grace from the Apostles, as those who first received them from Christ through the Holy Spirit. The apostolicity of the Church connects history with the present. (...) We enter communion with the living Christ even now. His Spirit or grace descends even now from above at every Baptism, in a continuous Pentecost.”[10]

For a Church to remain apostolic, three essential elements are necessary: (1) the presence of living faith in the community of believers; (2) the preaching of true faith in accordance with what was received from the Apostles; (3) the presence of the Holy Spirit’s grace, alive and active from Pentecost until the end of the world.

In the true Church, there is a continuity of true faith, authentic teaching, and the working presence of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost becomes a continuous presence through God’s work and apostolic succession. This is the true Church: “the Church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

The Fast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul is a remembrance and an actualization of the spiritual-ascetic and apostolic character of the Church. It signifies faithfulness in belief and in preaching, and a living, life-giving presence of God through the Holy Spirit.

This fast is an additional opportunity, in the midst of an increasingly secularized society, to bring the ascetic hope of faith in God, to speak about true identity and the true image that God bestows upon each of us in every generation, and which He waits for us to fulfill through the vocation of becoming like Him.

Fasting is a time for confessing our Christian values - love, kindness, forbearance, patience, charity, forgiveness, etc. All these are part of the garment with which God expects us to clothe ourselves, through which we will become more and more like His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

The fast is also a time of deepening our experience in the Holy Spirit. This will give us the strength and boldness to continue in a world full of disorder, violence, lies, and thirst for power. The experience of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives will make us an unshakable fortress - both personally and as a community.

St. Paul the Apostle says: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God who works all things in all” (1 Corinthians 12:4–6).
The work of the Holy Spirit is what arranges all things in the Church and brings everything into unity in the same Lord and God.

May the Fast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul be a time of deepening our contemplation and apostolic living of our life in the Church and in society.

† Ioan Casian

Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Canada

The Fast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, 2025

[1] Time of fasting and repentance in Dumitru Stăniloae. Culture and spirituality (Complete works 2). Ed. Basilica, Bucharest 2012, p. 46

[2] “Fasting is as old as humanity: it was legislated in paradise. It was the first command that Adam received.” in St. Basil the Great. On Fasting and Feast. Printing House: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Yonkers, New York 2013, p. 57

[3] Ibidem

[4] Ibidem p. 47

[5] Rev. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae. Dogmatic Theology (vol. 2 / 3rd ed.). EIBMBOR, Bucharest 2003, p. 301

[6] Idem p. 303

[7] Ibidem

[8] Idem p. 306

[9] Idem p. 306-307

[10] Idem p. 308-309