Wine, oil and sustenance: why are they granted on feasts?

[Jonathan Gress]

Wine and oil are supposedly allowed on Wednesday and Thursday 'because of the labors of the vigil' for the Great Canon. Wine is allowed on Friday for the same reason, because of the vigil for the Akathist Hymn.

I'm wondering: what are you supposed to be eating otherwise that wine and oil will make such a difference? It's clear in this case that you're not using wine and oil to honor some saint, but simply to sustain you through a long service.

[Margaret S.]

Wine and oil are supposedly allowed on Wednesday and Thursday 'because of the labors of the vigil' for the Great Canon. Wine is allowed on Friday for the same reason, because of the vigil for the Akathist Hymn.

I'm wondering: what are you supposed to be eating otherwise that wine and oil will make such a difference? It's clear in this case that you're not using wine and oil to honor some saint, but simply to sustain you through a long service.

I have always thought it was because the fast was harder in the past than it is now. We have a tendency to romanticise the past. One hears almost every Lent suggestions that cheap eggs or cheap tuna fish be allowed in the fast because they are convenient for modern people and the reasoning almost always is that the fast was designed (and was therefore more convenient) for another culture. Yet there was never a time when the fast was easier than it is now. Imagine keeping the fast while farming in the 13th century even on a mediterranean island? Imagine the fast in the damp, frozen beehive huts of eighth century Northumbria or how it wore out 1800s housewives in St Petersburg beating their carpets clean and scrubbing an entire family's clothes on a board in a tub? Today it is easier. Most of us do not earn our living or keep house through hard manual labour so the provision of oil or wine on top of our bread and vegetables seems strange but to someone worn through after a day in a shipyard in Kronstadt it must have been the difference between fainting and getting through the vigil.
At least that is my tuppenceworth on the subject.

Regards
Maggie

[J. Austin]

Thanks Maggie for that brief explanation regarding use of wine/oil during feasts, which makes much sense.
Jenn Austin