Sunday, November 15, 2026 begins the fasting of the Nativity in the Orthodox Church of Antioch. In Lebanon, the archives of Zahlé and Kura show how this forty-day preparation combines prayer, abstinence and material assistance to families.
Christmas has a less visible preparation schedule than markets and illuminations. In the Greek-Orthodox parishes under Antioch, he opened on 15 November and led to the feast of 25 December. The diocesan documents allow us to find precise gestures: evening celebrations, spiritual teachings and collecting products for distribution. These testimonies describe practices located, rather than an identical custom in all Lebanese communities.
Forty days in the antiochian calendar
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch places the fast from 15 November to 24 December included. The breakup accompanies the Christmas celebration. This count represents forty days, without including 25 December among the days of fasting. The antiochian liturgical guide of 2026 well records its beginning on Sunday, November 15.
These dates concern the calendar followed by this Church. They should not be extended automatically to all the Eastern Churches present in Lebanon, nor should they be extended by thirteen days solely on the grounds that a community is Orthodox. The calendar of a patriarchate and the prescriptions of his diocese remain the relevant landmarks. The period also has another name, Philip’s fast, since the apostle’s memory is celebrated on November 14, on the eve of his opening.
A preparation that has been built in time
The leaflet published by an Orthodox site, attributed to the bulletin of the diocese of Mount Lebanon, traces a progressive evolution. The Nativity preparation periods have had different durations and uses before taking their present form. It includes the dissemination of ascetic practices in the monastic circles of Syria and Palestine in the sixth century.
This story invites us to distinguish the seniority of a spiritual preparation for the establishment of a uniform calendar. Pastoral sources evoke several stages, rather than an unchanged use since the first Christian communities. Then the number of forty receives a Bible interpretation. In his bulletin of November 12, 2023, the archdiocese of Zahle and Baalbek resumed the rapprochement of Symeon of Thessaloniki with the fasting of Moses: the preparation to receive the tables of the Law became an image of Christ’s welcome. It is a theological reading of fasting, not historical proof of its origin.
In Zahlé, a collection thought from the first day
A concrete example appears in the report of the diocesan meeting of 15 November 2019. Gathered in the bishopric of Zahlé, priests and deacons listen to Metropolitan Antonios al-Suri linking the beginning of fasting to the difficulties that Lebanon is going through. He asks that churches open every evening for prayer.
The same text calls on parishioners to make contributions in kind, expressed in kilos, throughout the period. Their distribution to people in need must come to an end. The scheme therefore includes solidarity in the duration: to collect gradually and then to distribute as Christmas approaches. The document attests to this appeal, but does not provide any total collected or number of beneficiaries. Nor does it allow us to announce an identical campaign for 2026.
In Kura, offices and local transmission
The archives of the diocesan bulletin of 5 December 2010 give another overview. At 4:30 p.m. on December 10, they announced a vesperal fasting prayer at the Church of St.Symeon the Stylite in Fi‘a, in the presence of Metropolitan Ephrem Kyriakos. A spiritual interview must follow in the parish house, then a tribute to those who distribute the bulletin.
The announcement shows how preparation involves the office, teaching and ordinary relays of parish life. These details inform past practice and its organization. They do not constitute hours valid today: to participate in an office of 2026, you must consult the announcement of the parish concerned.
Food rules to be put in context
Zahlé’s November 10, 2024 bulletin describes forbearance from meat and dairy products, with permission for fish and seafood, except on Wednesday and Friday, until the Saint-Spyridon period in December. It explicitly links this discipline with gift, service, prayer and repentance.
The requirements shall be read with their date and origin. The Tripoli newsletter of 22 November 2009 presents the fish permissions through Saturdays, Sundays and certain parties. These local formulations do not justify making a single mandatory menu for all Lebanese Orthodox. They recall the importance of pastoral accompaniment and the indications of each diocese.
In Zahlé, the call for donations of 2019; in Fi‘a, the parish meeting of 2010; In recent newsletters, information on sharing: these traces give fasting a precise local history. The Christmas waiting takes the form of weeks organised around a community, a prayer appointment and concrete attention to the needs of others.
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