OCU cleric says strict fasting is optional, shares hake recipe

Dudchenko eats fish during Great Lent “to keep up his strength.” Photo: screenshot from Dudchenko’s YouTube channel

Andriy Dudchenko, a cleric of the OCU’s Transfiguration Cathedral and secretary of the structure’s “Synodal Theological and Liturgical Commission,” said on his YouTube channel that observing the fast according to the Church rule is not mandatory and that everyone can decide the matter for themselves.

“During Lent, as you know, according to the rules we follow, fish is usually eaten only on the Annunciation and Palm Sunday. But ever since my seminary days, I have been accustomed to eating fish throughout Lent except for the first and last weeks,” Andriy Dudchenko said.

In his view, this is justified because “our latitudes are nothing like Greece or somewhere in the Mediterranean.”

“I believe that every family and every person has the right to set their own fasting rules, and fish is a very good way to get through this springtime,” the cleric of the OCU’s Transfiguration Cathedral concluded.

Earlier, in his capacity as secretary of the “Synodal Theological and Liturgical Commission,” Dudchenko prepared a decision for the OCU Synod abolishing the Litany of the Catechumens and the reading of the Troparion of the Third Hour in the structure.

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