Christian Fasting in Postmodern Society: Considering the Criteria

The article focuses on the meaning and criteria of Christian fasting in the postmodern consumerist society associating the attitude to food with a certain body image and dieting, which has become a sort of secular fasting in the “religion of thinness”. The author considers the Christian attitude to receiving food as to an act of thanksgiving, whereas fasting is seen as an act that introduces into everyday life a foretaste of the eschatological freedom from necessity. For Christians, both feasting and fasting have a strong communal dimension. The article also addresses the most pressing aspects of the eventual reconsidering of the forms and rules of fasting in the postmodern world.