Two-Thirds of the Year, No Animal Products
Coptic Orthodox Christians fast 210 days a year on the lighter end. Pious ones push it to 240.
Out of 365 days, a practicing Coptic Orthodox Christian fasts on at least 210 of them. Devout observers reach 240. That is more days under fast than the rest of the calendar, and it is more than any Christian denomination keeps except the Ethiopian and Eritrean Tewahedo churches, which share the same heritage.
Fasting in Coptic practice does not mean skipping food. It means abstaining, completely, from meat, fish, eggs, dairy, and any other animal product — a vegan diet, by another name, kept by tens of millions of Egyptians long before the word existed. The strict form, called the Black Fast in older texts, also forbids eating or drinking anything at all between midnight and sunset on a fasting day. After sunset: water and one vegetarian meal.
The calendar stacks up quickly. Great Lent runs 55 days before Easter — the standard 40 plus a Holy Week and a preparatory week the Coptic tradition tacks on. The Nativity Fast, before Christmas on January 7, is 43 days. The Apostles' Fast after Pentecost is 15 to 49 days depending on when Easter fell. The Fast of the Virgin in August is 15 days. The Fast of Nineveh in late winter is 3. Then every Wednesday and Friday outside the 50-day Pentecost season is a fast in itself: Wednesday for the day Judas accepted the bribe, Friday for the Crucifixion.
Dispensations exist. Pregnant and nursing women, the sick, the elderly, young children, and travelers are excused. Priests can ease the rules case by case.
The practice is old enough that the Coptic Pope Athanasius was already writing pastoral letters about it in the fourth century. The fasting calendar today is the same shape his letters describe.
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