"Want to eat sausage – go ahead": why the OCU is abolishing fasting

Is it permissible to eat sausage during a fast in the OCU? Photo: UOJ

In early August 2026, during the Dormition Fast according to the new calendar, OCU cleric Alexei Filyuk recorded a video in which he called on people to eat sausage. "Fasting is prayer, it is works of mercy, not boiled sausage, which contains nothing but soy," he declared, concluding with the appeal: "Have breakfast, eat boiled sausage. Don't eat each other's livers."

In another video, Filyuk is already slicing that very sausage. 

What the Church says about fasting

Fasting is a spiritual feat, an ascetic discipline, our effort on the path to God. Christ fasted, the apostles fasted, and the first Christians fasted. Already in antiquity, the Church established a regular discipline of fasting.

At the same time, the Church never reduced fasting to a matter of menu. As early as the fourth century, Saint Basil the Great wrote: "For praiseworthy fasting, abstinence from food alone is not sufficient… True fasting is withdrawal from evil, restraint of the tongue, suppression of anger within oneself, separation from lusts, slander, lies, and perjury."

Saint John Chrysostom says much the same: "What profit is it when we abstain from birds and fish, yet bite and devour our brothers?"

It might seem that Alexei Filyuk is saying the same thing: the main point is "not to devour one another." Yet in Chrysostom the logic is precisely the opposite. He does not say: since one must not "devour one's neighbor," one may eat meat. He says that it is not enough to change one's table; one must change one's life so that it conforms to God's commandments. The centuries-long experience of the Church testifies that fasting is precisely what is needed in order to struggle more effectively against the passions.

The patristic teaching adds spiritual endeavor to bodily fasting rather than substituting one for the other. At the same time, the Church has never demanded the same measure of abstinence from all people.

As early as the fifth century, the Venerable John Cassian devoted a separate chapter of his Institutes to this subject: "That one and the same rule of fasting cannot be observed by all." He explained that people's strengths differ, and therefore the measure of fasting depends on the condition of the body, age, and other circumstances.

Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov) wrote even more specifically in the nineteenth century: "Whoever is engaged in bodily labor, or is so weak in body that he cannot be content with eating once a day, should eat twice. The fast is for man, and not man for the fast. […] The rules of fasting have been established by the Church for the purpose of assisting her children, as a guide for the entire Christian community. At the same time, each person is instructed… not to impose upon himself a fast that exceeds his strength."

In 2022, Serbian Patriarch Porfirije explained: "Not everyone possesses the same physical strength," and therefore fasting cannot be practiced by all in exactly the same way; a layperson, in particular, should not mechanically copy the monastic measure of fasting. At the same time, the patriarch emphasized, "the spirit of fasting must be and remain the same for all."

The principle to which the Church has adhered throughout all periods of history may be formulated as follows: the measure of fasting may vary, but fasting itself does not cease to be an obligatory ascetic practice for a Christian.

But the rhetoric of Alexei Filyuk and like-minded representatives of the OCU is altogether different.

"Want to eat – go ahead"

On March 24, 2025, during Great Lent, when asked whether one may eat sausage, Alexei Filyuk replied: "Fasting is not a diet. And don't make some kind of fanaticism out of it. So, dear friends, if you want to eat – eat… Eat when you feel like it."

Let us emphasize: Filyuk proposes abandoning the food fast not when a person has bodily infirmities, illness, heavy labor, and so forth. No – simply when one feels like it.

On December 8 of the same year, already during the Nativity Fast, Filyuk spoke about milk: "Store-bought milk is like water. Eat, cook dairy dishes for yourselves, there is no sin in it. People have invented diets for themselves – all of that comes from the Mokshantsы."

Incidentally, who are the "Mokshantsы"? The Moksha are a Finno-Ugric people historically living mainly in the Volga region. However, in contemporary Ukrainian rhetoric this word is used as a derogatory or mocking designation for Russians. And here a question arises: in Filyuk's view, is it exclusively dim-witted Russians who observe fasts?

If one briefly surveys the videos of this OCU cleric, one gets the impression that he almost never observes the food fast. At a community workday at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Filyuk urges people to eat cheese on a fast day; during the Dormition Fast he appears on camera with ice cream, and on his table dry-cured sausage is prominently displayed.

Of course, one might attribute all of this to the eccentricity of a single popular blogger. After all, formally Filyuk is an ordinary "priest" and is not part of the OCU leadership.

However, things are not so simple.

First, he has an enormous social media audience that exceeds all the official OCU resources combined: 1.3 million on Facebook, 200,000 on YouTube, 800,000 on TikTok, and 275,000 on Instagram. Many of these people likely perceive Filyuk's words as Church teaching and are guided by them in their lives. Second, the OCU leadership publicly maintains silence regarding his statements. And, as we know, silence gives consent. Third, very similar rhetoric is heard from other representatives of the OCU as well.

For example, in April 2020 Andrei Dudchenko recounted that, apart from the first and last weeks of Great Lent, he usually eats fish. In itself, that is his personal affair. But here is how he explains it: "I believe that every family, every person has the right to set their own fasting rules."

Dudchenko is not an ordinary parish priest. He is an associate professor at the Kyiv Orthodox Theological Academy of the OCU and secretary of the Synodal Theological-Liturgical Commission. Yet his assertion that "each person sets their own fasting rules" is very difficult to reconcile with the very concept of ecclesiastical discipline.

Saint Ignatius says: the rules are established by the Church, and the individual Christian must measure them against his own strength. Dudchenko turns this on its head: the rules are established by the Christian himself. This is no longer economy, for economy presupposes the existence of a common norm from which departure is possible for valid reasons. But here each person sets their own rules.

When fasting interferes with the New Year

Back in December 2021, when the OCU still lived according to the Julian calendar, the head of that organization, Sergei Dumenko, in an interview with Radio Liberty explained how one might get around the situation when one wishes to celebrate the New Year merrily but the Nativity Fast stands in the way. He stated at the time that on December 31 and January 1 the Church could "relax the fast or cancel it altogether for two days."

From the standpoint of pastoral economy, an obvious question arises here: what specific human infirmity requires the cancellation of the Nativity Fast? Illness? Military service? Heavy physical labor? Pregnancy? No. The cancellation of the fast is demanded by the desire to celebrate the New Year to the full.

It is noteworthy that Sergei Dumenko also has quite traditional statements about fasting. For example, on March 30, 2025, in a sermon he said that fasting is a practice through which, by means of "voluntary self-restraint," the body and soul are trained in temperance, and he also called on people to "submit themselves not to their own unrestrained desires, but to humble themselves before the will of God." And the question arises: when was he speaking sincerely?

What, then, is the reason for such a dismissive attitude toward fasting among representatives of the OCU, and why does the leadership of that organization take up its revision with such readiness?

"Priests for the people"

In the comments on Filyuk's sausage video, one viewer wrote: "Finally, proper priests. For the people. It makes you want to go to church."

Of course, a single comment does not represent general opinion, but it nonetheless very clearly describes the essence of the OCU's "innovations" with regard to fasting.

Fasting does not matter; what matters is pleasing people. And the best way to please a person is to free him from what burdens him.

If fasting is a burden – then it can be declared "fanaticism." If one craves dairy – then store-bought milk is "like water." If one is drawn to sausage – then it contains "nothing but soy."

And this has nothing to do with mercy and love for mankind. It is plain servility. Or, to use the language of the Church, people-pleasing.

The patristic teaching says of fasting: if you cannot bear the greater measure, bear the lesser, but bear at least something. Servility asserts otherwise: if you want to eat sausage – eat it.

And the problem here is not only about fasting. Which doctor is more agreeable to us – the one who restricts alcohol, sweets, and flour, or the one who permits everything? The one who demands daily exercise, or the one who allows us to spend that time on the sofa? The answer is obvious. But will this choice benefit our health?

Conclusions

It is impossible to conceive of Christian life without asceticism: "…The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force" (Matt. 11:12). Fasting is one of the forms of spiritual labor, and indeed one of the simplest and most accessible. And it was established not at all for the purpose of meaninglessly tormenting parishioners. 

The Church has never demanded the same measure of fasting from all. One person is able to fast strictly; another requires leniency on account of illness, age, heavy labor, or the circumstances of life.

But the meaning of ecclesiastical economy has always been to help a person bear a feat within his strength, and not to convince him that no feat is needed at all, that it need not be borne simply because one does not feel like it.

This is precisely why the statements of OCU representatives to the effect that "if you feel like it – eat," that each person may set their own fasting rules, or that ecclesiastical restrictions may be cancelled for the sake of customary celebrations – these amount to more than a question about sausage or milk. They concern the notion that church life ought to be convenient and comfortable, that it should not demand any particular effort from a person and should not come into conflict with his habits and desires. This is a manifestation of indulgence toward fallen human nature, an attempt to please the audience and accumulate as many "likes" as possible.

But the Apostle Paul wrote of this as follows: "If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10).

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