About
About Feast or Fast
What this is, how the dates are computed, and why you should always confirm with your priest.
What Feast or Fast is
Feast or Fast is a free, ad-free, account-free tool that tells you the fasting status for any day of the Orthodox liturgical year, by jurisdiction. It is built for people who want a plain, unhurried answer to the question "What is today?" without having to cross-reference a printed calendar, a PDF, or an inconsistent website.
It is not an authority. It is not a confessor. It cannot know your circumstances. It is a calendar with a plainspoken voice, made by a baptised Antiochian Orthodox Christian in Britain, as a labor of love, offered freely to the Church.
How the dates are computed
Every date in the app is calculated from two layers:
A single shared algorithm computes Pascha (and every movable feast) for every year. All traditions use the same Paschalion; it is the computus that the Council of Nicaea gave the Church. This layer is identical across all jurisdictions in the app.
On top of the shared Paschalion, each jurisdiction applies its own rubric: which days count as great feasts, which feasts lift the fast to fish, how the Apostles' Fast is treated in a short year, and so on. This layer is different for each tradition and is the source of meaningful variation between jurisdictions.
Combining these two layers gives a verdict for every day of the year, per tradition: Strict Fast, Fast Day (wine and oil permitted), Fish Day, Feast, or Fast-Free.
The DRAFT posture
Every jurisdiction in the app carries a DRAFT status until a priest of that tradition has reviewed the rubric and confirmed it against the official calendar of their jurisdiction's Holy Synod or Archdiocese. Until that happens, the dates should be treated as a careful best effort, not an authoritative ruling.
This is not false modesty. Calendars genuinely differ (sometimes by a day, sometimes by a whole approach), and what a diocese actually teaches its faithful can differ from what the canonical rubric says. Tradition is lived, not just computed.
Always confirm with your priest
This is the most important line in this document. Feast or Fast gives you a calendar; your priest gives you a rule of life. These are different things. If this app and your confessor ever disagree, follow your confessor. No algorithm knows whether you are nursing a child, recovering from surgery, newly received, or wrestling with scrupulosity. Your priest does.
Something wrong with a date?
Every report is read and checked against primary sources. We are grateful for corrections.