The Two Forgotten Summer Fasts: Keeping the Apostles' and Dormition Fasts

Everyone knows Great Lent. Most converts learn the Nativity Fast within a year or two. But ask the average Orthodox Christian about the two fasts that fall in the warmest, busiest, most distracted months of the year, and you will often get a blank look. The Apostles' Fast and the Dormition Fast are the forgotten seasons of the Orthodox year — and that is precisely why they are worth recovering. Both are ancient, both are commanded, and both ask something real of us in a season when the world is telling us to relax.

WHAT THESE TWO FASTS ACTUALLY ARE

The Apostles' Fast (also called the Peter and Paul Fast, or the Fast of the Holy Apostles) begins the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints — which is itself the Sunday after Pentecost — and runs until the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29 (or July 12 on the civil calendar for those keeping the old calendar). Because it starts on a moveable date tied to Pascha and ends on a fixed date, its length varies enormously: some years it is a week, some years it is closer to a month or more. In rare years when Pascha falls very late, it can disappear almost entirely. This variability is part of why people overlook it — you cannot mark it on a calendar the same way every year, and a fast that "moves around" is easy to forget.

The Dormition Fast is the opposite: short, fixed, and intense. It runs from August 1 through August 14, preparing us for the Dormition of the Theotokos on August 15. Two weeks only — but two weeks kept with a rigor that the Fathers often compared to Great Lent itself. In strict observance, the Dormition Fast is a strict fast: no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fish (except on the feast of the Transfiguration), with oil and wine permitted only on weekends. For a fast of just fourteen days, it punches far above its weight.

WHY THEY GET OVERLOOKED

Three honest reasons. First, timing: both fall in summer, when schedules collapse into travel, family visits, weddings, and vacations. Fasting structure is hardest to keep when daily life loses its structure. Second, the Apostles' Fast in particular suffers from its variable length — there is no fixed "first day" burned into the calendar of memory the way Clean Monday is. Third, abundance. The deep irony is that summer, when these fasts fall, is the easiest time of year to fast well. The produce is at its peak. And yet abundance breeds distraction; when food is plentiful and the weather is fine, the ascetic impulse is hard to summon.

The recovery of these fasts is not about adding burden. It is about letting the Church's year shape all twelve months, not just the cold, indoor, penitential ones.

THE FISH-DAY PATTERN — AND TRANSFIGURATION

Both fasts follow the normal Orthodox weekly rhythm, and both have a luminous exception in the middle.

For the Apostles' Fast, fish is traditionally permitted on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on certain feast days that may fall within it, while Wednesdays and Fridays remain stricter (no fish, and in stricter practice no oil or wine). On weekdays other than Wednesday and Friday, oil and wine are typically allowed in many jurisdictions. This is a noticeably gentler fast than Dormition — fitting for the season just after Pentecost.

For the Dormition Fast, the great exception is the Transfiguration of the Lord on August 6, which falls squarely in the middle. On Transfiguration, fish, oil, and wine are permitted — a feast of light in the heart of a strict fast. This is also the day many parishes bless grapes and the first fruits of the harvest, a beautiful intersection of liturgy and agriculture. Outside of Transfiguration, the Dormition Fast holds to its strict pattern, with oil and wine on Saturdays and Sundays.

As always: shellfish (mussels, clams, shrimp, squid, octopus) is permitted on all fasting days in Orthodox practice, since it is not "fish" in the canonical sense. This is a genuine gift in summer, when shellfish is at its best.

Jurisdictions and parishes vary on all of this. Some apply the Apostles' Fast strictly, others lightly; some families keep Dormition at full Lenten rigor, others moderate it. Keep your own parish's practice, and bring personal questions — health, travel, pregnancy, athletic training — to your priest or spiritual father.

HOW TO FAST WELL IN SUMMER

This is the part nobody tells you: summer fasting can be the best eating of your entire year. Lean into the season.

GRILL EVERYTHING. The grill is your most powerful fasting tool from June through August. Thick planks of eggplant, zucchini, portobello caps, corn, bell peppers, halved tomatoes, and whole heads of cabbage all transform over fire. Brush with olive oil (on oil days), char hard, finish with salt, lemon, and herbs. On oil-free Wednesdays and Fridays, grill dry over high heat — the char itself becomes the flavor. A grilled vegetable platter with a side of warm lentils or white beans is a complete, satisfying meal: roughly 18 to 25 grams of protein from a cup and a half of beans, plus fiber, potassium, and real volume.

COLD SOUPS. When it is 95 degrees, hot stew is the enemy. Gazpacho (tomato, cucumber, pepper, garlic, good oil, sherry vinegar — blend and chill) is the classic. Even better for fasting substance: chilled white bean and basil soup, or a tahini-based cold cucumber soup that brings real protein and fat. These hold in the fridge for days, which matters in a season of erratic schedules.

SUMMER BEANS AND FRESH LEGUMES. Fresh shell beans, fresh chickpeas, and field peas appear at farmers markets in high summer and cook in a fraction of the time of dried. A pot of fresh cranberry beans with tomato, garlic, and olive oil is a Mediterranean summer staple — about 15 grams of protein per cup, and genuinely craveable cold the next day. Build your week around one big pot of beans and a tray of grilled vegetables, and you will never go hungry.

KEEP IT COLD AND PORTABLE. Marinated chickpea and herb salads, tabbouleh heavy on parsley and bulgur, lentil salads with red onion and vinegar, and big bowls of melon with mint travel to every cookout and picnic. Fasting in summer often means fasting in public; arrive with something so good that no one notices it is fasting food.

Recover these two fasts and you reclaim a quarter of the Orthodox year. The Apostles' Fast carries the momentum of Pentecost into the work of summer; the Dormition Fast gathers it back up into a short, bright, Lenten intensity before the feast of the Mother of God. Keep them with grilled vegetables, cold soups, and a pot of summer beans, and you may find that the easiest season to fast is the one you had been forgetting all along.